Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1972 [PAGE 208]

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198

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[February 13

I'll make a very few comments and I'll start out extemporaneously. Then, to avoid rambling, I'd like to read a few thoughts that I have jotted down. Both Mrs. Corbally and I are facing today with a mixed feeling of exhilaration and of responsibility that gives us a great deal of pleasure and a great deal of pause. W e ' r e honored to have been asked to assume this responsibility and we are looking forward to being able to get at it as soon as possible. Let me just briefly say what is on my heart this morning: I do accept election to the presidency of the University of Illinois with a deep sense of excitement and responsibility. I think it is a particular honor to one in the profession of educational administration to be considered worthy of succeeding my friend, Dave Henry. His record of service to our University, to the State of Illinois, and to higher education in general serves as an inspiration to all of us who are in university administration. I know, Dave, that sometimes a prophet is at least with limited honor in his own home town, and I hope that the people of Illinois realize the stature that you have brought to the University and to higher education through your service here. T h e r e really are only a very few opportunities in higher education today which could tempt me to leave Syracuse University. I think that Illinois — I guess I should say today I know that Illinois — heads the list of those few opportunities. I am extremely pleased and my wife is extremely pleased to be returning to the Midwest and to the Big Ten. W e have high hopes — we will do more than hope, we will work — to assure that our period of time with you at the University of Illinois will serve to continue the record of service of this great institution. I see my task essentially to be to continue to provide an atmosphere and a setting in which fine students and fine faculty members and fine staff members of our three campuses can fulfill their roles within the University with dignity and with integrity and with success. I want each citizen of Illinois to continue to have reason to be proud of his or her University of Illinois, and to be able to know that the University continues to be a world leader in higher education. Now, Mrs. Corbally joins me in thanking you for your faith in us and in expressing our deep faith in you which brings us together. Thank you. R E M A R K S , DR. H E N R Y President H u g h e s then recognized D r . H e n r y w h o m a d e the following comments: Mr. President, I have been trying to observe to the letter the amenities pertaining to a retiring president's relationship to the selection of his successor, I have not prepared any formal remarks for this occasion. However, while I have not been involved in the procedure of selection or the decision itself, you all know that I am very deeply involved in my heart and in hopes for the future. I can best express my feeling in reporting what President Pusey of H a r v a r d told me about a month ago, after his successor was chosen. H e said (speaking to me), you haven't come to this point yet, but let me tell you what a relief it is, to have your Board choose as your successor someone who is highly competent for the job and happens also to be someone whom you like. Dr. Corbally fills both of those conditions for me, and this morning I feel a relief that I haven't felt in a very long time. With the investment of a significant portion of my life in the success of this great University, it is a great joy to be confident of its continuing success under the leadership that the Board has now selected. There will be other times when we have other things to say, other occasions perhaps more appropriate to say them, but I want the Board of Trustees to know that I am very happy with the choice that they have made. I admire John Corbally, I believe in him, and Mrs. Corbally, and I wish them well. You may be sure that Mrs. H e n r y and I are eager to have them come, and that we are going to help them in every way that we can to bridge the transition and to support them in the years ahead. John's reference to numbers leads me to make one other observation. Somebody mentioned that he was coming on February 13, to be elected the thirteenth President of the University. Yesterday, when I met him at the airport, I realized that he came in on Flight 213. I predict thirteen will be a favorable omen for the University and for its thirteenth President. T h a n k you.