Peter Likins UA president

The commencement edition of the Arizona Daily Wildcat is the perfect place to read about ãPassing the test.ä Every graduate has just passed final exams, and perhaps our new graduates believe that this will be the final set of final exams.

I have bad news for you. I earned my last degree almost 40 years ago, and Iâm still worrying every year about ãPassing the test.ä This past year was a particularly challenging time, and Passing the test has never seemed so difficult.

If I failed to pass a test in my college years, the only casualty was my grade-point average. If I fail today to persuade the regents, or the governor, or the Legislature or a major benefactor of the wisdom of investing in this university, the casualties are measured in lost jobs and lost educational opportunities. I feel the pressure much more keenly today.

I sometimes feel I havenât earned a passing grade this year, and these are dark moments in my life. Then I look around me and marvel at the way the campus community is riding out the storm. Despite the very real pain of lost jobs, vanishing pay raises and devastated students looking for missing courses and disappearing programs, we have managed to stick together. The mood is somber but stoic. People are disappointed but still determined to turn things around when opportunities come our way again. I am very encouraged by the heart of our people.

I should have known after Sept. 11 that the University of Arizona community could pass any test. We showed on that very day that this community was not going to break into fragments in the face of global terrorism. We demonstrated in many different ways ÷ publicly on the Mall and more privately in countless human exchanges ÷ that we respect and value each other too much to allow the seeds of fear and hatred take root here. I am very proud of the good people of the University of Arizona for the way we passed that test.

As the year unfolded, we were buffeted by one blow after another in the short-term financing of the university as we faced a series of budget rescissions and reductions in promised pay raises, but I never witnessed the angry backbiting that often accompanies budget cuts. Not once have I heard a professor complain about the nearly 10 percent raises received by our least well-compensated employees, to whom the across-the-board raises of $1,450 a year were an unexpected salvation. We seem to be passing the financial stress test.

Sometimes, little problems blow up into giant crises in highly stressed communities. The ãBattle of the Boojumsä had the potential to divide the campus community along classical Tucson fault-lines, with ãenvironmentalistsä pitted against ãdevelopers.ä But it didnât happen that way. People of goodwill were compromised in ways that will make winners of us all when the Alumni Plaza takes shape with the Krutch cactus gardens and their boojums as a centerpiece. We passed that test together, too.

Another test of campus harmony is the annual debate about tuition. This year was particularly stressful, for two reasons: First, everyone knew tuition increases would save jobs and courses for next yearâs students, but no one could claim new tuition money would actually make things better than this year for anyone; and, secondly, the gap between the proposals to the regents of the university presidents and the student government leaders was wider than ever before ($300 for residents at UA). When the regents favored the student position with a mere $97 a year increase for residents, I was apprehensive about what might have been harvested from the seeds of discord, but I have been spared the anger that I feared from all sides. Students, faculty and staff generally seem to understand that weâve done as well as we can do within oppressive constraints. Maybe we didnât fail that test either.

One more test was surely passed this year. Campaign Arizona is succeeding beyond any reasonable expectations for a gift campaign in a recession. After five years of an eight-year, billion-dollar campaign, our benefactors have contributed well over $700 million.

I call that ãPassing the test with flying colors.ä