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I'm Chancellor Biddy Martin and this is a message for you, our students.
You represent the very best of what UW-Madison has to offer.
Indeed you represent what UW-Madison stands for and is.
You are incredibly academically talented, you're creative, you're entrepreneurial, you're extraordinarily spirited.
You are public-minded, and your dedication to public service and to the service of this community
and the state and the world beyond amaze us every day.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the great public research universities in the world,
and it is that because of the talent and the caliber and the character of the students we attract,
the faculty we have, and our hard-working and talented staff.
It is also one of the world's best universities because of the tradition of the Wisconsin Idea,
which is what makes UW-Madison unique, and which makes each one of us so proud to serve it.
The Wisconsin Idea means a great number of things to different people.
Over time it has meant that this university supports existing industries,
some of the state's most important industries in agriculture,
in manufacturing, and a whole set of other domains.
It continues to mean support for those key industries.
It also means direct public service to communities.
It means social support for families across the state.
It means accessible and affordable education for the young people of the state regardless of economic circumstance.
The Wisconsin Idea means collaboration between our faculty, staff and students, and state leaders,
as well as local leaders and communities in the formulation of policy and the development
of ideas for how we can move the state forward.
That you as students contribute to such a degree to these debates, to these services and to this commitment
to the Wisconsin Idea is remarkable and laudable.
We couldn't appreciate it more.
What kind of university do we want to be going forward?
We want to be what has made us unique for well over 150 years, and that is the commitment to our land grant mission
and our hundred year-plus commitment to the Wisconsin Idea.
We also want to be a university that continues to rank in quality with the best research universities in the world.
As I've said to you all many times, and as you know yourself, we are in a global knowledge economy
in which every region in the world is rushing to establish a major research university because of the importance
of innovation, technology development, new knowledge, discovery and job creation.
The state of Wisconsin has built such a university over time by investing with discipline and heart,
and it is absolutely essential that we work together, all of us, to do whatever it takes to preserve
and enhance the strength of what the citizens of Wisconsin have built over this long period of time.