-: Thank you for the honor of participating in
Chancellor Green's investiture today.
I'd like to spend my entire allotted time
saying complimentary things about him
for I have been a fan of Chancellor Green's
for a very long time.
He's asked me to go a bit broader than that
and talk about a few subjects other than
his own compelling attributes
so I will attempt to do that.
I would just start out on a very broad area
of discussion by saying that
what the world needs now is leadership.
I have never been so concerned about
the lack of leadership that we've had in this world.
Not just in the United States,
but throughout the world over the last decade or so.
That has to be fixed and hopefully UNL will begin
to turn out some people who have
great leadership attributes
and will play their role in providing the leadership
that the world needs today.
But that's a subject for someone else to develop.
Let's return to the edge of academia
and talk about some of the major challenges
that might be faced by UNL and Chancellor Green
in the coming years.
Starting with the teaching side,
we have a need to turn out undergraduate students
and grad students who are prepared
for the jobs of the 21st century
and not the jobs of the 20th century.
That is a formidable challenge for every institution
and not withstanding here in Nebraska
that we already have a very fine faculty.
What has happened in the last 20 or 30 years
is that technology has simply exploded
and that means we're trying to prepare students for jobs
that haven't even appeared yet,
but they will appear in the next five, 10 or 15 years.
That's a difficult challenge when one is trying
to anticipate what the needs of one's students will be.
Chancellor Green will respond to that I hope
by simply making sure that he has lots of faculty
that are on the cutting edge of technology
in their respective areas
and they can inculcate their students
with all the technology as possible before they graduate.
But it's not simply technology.
It's also the fact that the world has become so complex.
If one looks at agriculture, for example.
That term is so much broader today
than it was when I was Secretary of Agriculture
30 years ago.
Now we have controversies over GMOs,
over antibiotics, over the way animals are treated,
over the way we handle conservation programs
and the list goes on and on.
It's agriculture, food, feed,
and a whole lot of other subjects that are combined
into that term today.
And if we're turning out Ag graduates,
we have to try to prepare them for that kind of world.
Chancellor Green understands that challenge very well
and I'm sure we'll be turning out first rate students
at UNL who will be able to handle the explosions
of technology and the complexities of the world
in which they are going to live and work.
And then there's research.
And I compliment the University of Nebraska
for doing an excellent job of increasing research funding
over the last 20 years or so.
That's been an excellent record.
And I also feel really good about being able
to apply research throughout the Nebraska economy.
If one looks at agriculture, once again,
we have a sophisticated group of agricultural producers
in Nebraska.
Growing crops on some of the richest land in the world.
Having an underground water supply
that is the envy of everyone
and they are quick adapters of research.
But on the nonagricultural side,
the same thing applies.
In Omaha we have a gem.
In my view the economic environment in Omaha,
the business environment is the best of any that exists
between Chicago and the west coast.
With companies like Berkshire Hathaway, Union Pacific,
Ameritrade, Kiewit, Valmont, Lindsay
and a whole lot of others.
We have companies already that are immensely
internationally competitive.
So on the research side, we simply need to
stay ahead of the game and hopefully
the University of Nebraska will do that
targeting some research that will help
Nebraska's agricultural firms and the nonagricultural firms
be out ahead of everyone else.
Putting all that together, I'm really confident
about the future of UNL.
In Chancellor Green you have a leader.
A leader who is a visionary,
but is also decisive and a leader who understands
every challenge that I have articulated today.
Now some people will say, oh come on now,
you'll never be able to compete with the top schools
in the big 10.
You sure won't be able to compete
with the Ivy League Schools.
I don't concur with that.
In my view, we should never ever downgrade
or denigrate the potential
that the University of Nebraska has
and the potential that the state of Nebraska has.
I've hired a lot of Ivy League graduates in my day
and I can tell you that if you will line up two resumes
side by side, approximately equal, one an Ivy Leaguer
and one a mid-westerner like UNL,
I will always pick the mid-westerner or the UNL graduate
because I know that nine times out of 10,
that graduate will outwork the Ivy Leaguer.
And money isn't everything either.
The question is the overall living environment
that one provides for faculty and for students,
and I see no reason why Nebraska should take a backseat
to anyone in that regard.
So in summary, I feel really good about the future of UNL
and really good about the overall future
of the state of Nebraska and its citizens.
I wish Chancellor Green the very best.
In my opinion, about 24 hours after he finishes
this investigar, he'll be vigilant of the top leaders
in the big 10 and one of the top leaders
in the land grant system.
That will work to Nebraska's advantage in so many ways
in the coming years.
Thank you again for permitting me to be
a part of this program.
Good luck to all of you in the future
and God bless.
(slow guitar music)