University of Idaho Friday Letter....... Dear Friends of the University of Idaho, In case we haven’t met, please let me introduce myself: I’m Don Burnett. I began serving as our university’s interim president this week and will continue to do so while we look for a permanent successor to Duane Nellis, who has departed to become the president of Texas Tech University. I’m an Idaho native, born to parents who grew up in Wallace, Idaho, and who attended the University of Idaho during the Great Depression. I’m told that they rocked me to sleep with the lullaby of “Go Vandals Go.” As biologists would say, I was “imprinted” as a Vandal. Depression-era students at the University had little money (my mother gladly started work in the library at 35 cents an hour), but they did not feel poor because they were “all in it together.” For them, the University of Idaho was the gateway to the world. And so it should be for our students today. I’m committed to the life-changing opportunities that come through our commitment to education. I’m also committed to proclaiming the legacy of our university as one of the nation’s great public institutions of higher education. You know, of course, that we are Idaho’s only national land-grant institution. You may not know that we are also part of the distinctive “first family” of American land-grant institutions that were established as the founding comprehensive universities of their respective states, and that our university is enshrined in the state constitution. This unique heritage as both a land-grant institution and a comprehensive founding university places us in the company of great public institutions like the University of Wisconsin and University of Minnesota. These universities are powerhouses that have boosted the economies and bettered the lives of people in their respective states. They (and we) are the highest expression of one of America’s most transformative ideas: the land-grant university system. I am humbled by the call to leave the deanship of our College of Law and to serve the entire university as interim president. (By the way, there is a “precedent” for this: The University of Idaho’s first president, James A. Forney, was also a lawyer and a judge, who agreed to serve on an interim appointment!) Today, some twelve decades later, I will endeavor as a servant of the entire University to work with all members of the academic community, and with all friends and stakeholders of the University, to fulfill our distinctive mission and destiny. I’m also glad to be serving with my wife Karen, who is a very talented graduate of the University of Idaho’s Master of Fine Arts (Creative Writing) program and an active participant in our community. She’s an author and photographer who has also committed herself to a leadership role in Operation Education – our acclaimed scholarship program for veterans. Historians have exalted the University of Idaho as a “beacon for mountain and plain,” emanating from a “crested hill.” Next year, when we celebrate the 125th birthday of our university -- Idaho’s founding university – and, as we anticipate the successful culmination of our “Inspiring Futures” Capital Campaign, let it be proclaimed that from this crested hill the beacon for mountain and plain has never shown more brightly. I’m honored to serve with you in this great endeavor. We are all truly “in it together.” Go Vandals … go mighty Vandals! Don Burnett Interim President
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:31:16 +0000
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