During the last decade, stimulated by unprecedented cuts in state support for higher education and the challenges of the approaching century, University leaders devoted their attention to restructuring and revitalizing the University. This has been an immensely satisfying, creative enterprise.
To start, University leaders returned to first principles, in this case Jefferson's vision for an institution of higher learning serving both the state and the nation. We developed a strategy to reinterpret these principles for the twenty-first century. And we defined the tools and resources we needed to realize our objectives.
In the past year, we trimmed, strengthened, and launched academic programs, funded significant new research initiatives, made high-qual ity health care more readily available throughout central Virginia, and revamped our administrative structure to eliminate waste and duplica tion. As a result, the University of Virginia has achieved new eminence as the highest ranking public university in the nation and one of its foremost educational institutions.
All these efforts would have no lasting effect if it were not for the hard work and good will of thousands of women and men from the greater University community, who rallied together to begin the $750 million Campaign for the University of Virginia. Through their dedication and accomplishments, the greatness Jefferson envisioned for his University will endure.
The high rankings that private support helps sustain are significant as a reaffirmation of the University's ability to prepare the nation's next generation of leaders and to advance the frontiers of knowledge for the benefit of society. These were Jefferson's purposes in founding the Uni versity, and they remain ours today.