[Editor's note. This article is adapted from President Steger's Founders Day installation speech. The full text of his speech can be accessed online.]

During the April Founders Day and Installation ceremony, we were honored to have join us three former Virginia Tech presidents whose administrations spanned four decades of our history. Their presence reminded me that successful institutions are not created in isolation. Rather, they are built on the shoulders of others.

Certainly, this is true of universities. In western civilizations, universities are second only to the Church in terms of institutional longevity. They have served us well. However, the structure of higher education is in transition. All universities will exist in a new type of marketplace, primarily brought about by the information technology revolution.

Competition is now global. The ability to communicate with every quarter of the world over the Internet has given new wings to the mobility of intellectual capital. The best information, the brightest faculty, and the most effective coursework can be accessed from anywhere on the planet. Therefore, the quality standard that is set is not what may be best in the state, region, or even the nation, but what is best in the world.

Coping with change to survive is normativeexcept that now it comes at lightning speed. Interestingly, it was the change of the Civil War era that gave rapid rise to land-grant universities. Since their early beginnings more than a century ago, land-grant colleges have been change agents for expanded personal opportunity and social or community development. Our charge, then, is not only to generate and disseminate new knowledge, but also to engage the problems that face society today.

In this land-grant context, Virginia Tech is and will be a university that puts knowledge to work.

To do that, we must compete on a world scale. To prepare our students for global challenges, Virginia Tech must be of global caliber.

That is why I proposed that Virginia Tech aspire to be among the top 30 research universities in America by 2010truly a worthy, but challenging, goal. What does this imply? Certainly, faculty must bolster scholarly output and sponsored research. But we must also look to innovative partnerships with industry or other universities. Intellectual capital, a university's primary "product," is the currency of today's marketplace. Consequently, expect to see your alma mater partnering with organizations from around the world.

We will seek out increasingly bright and motivated students. They stimulate the entire academic enterprise. To this end, I believe that we should establish a residential honors college and commit to raise $25-million to endow it, thus cementing our desire to offer a rich and rigorous education to future generations of students who seek that extra measure of challenge for themselves.

Raising the bar of quality mandates that your best be the best. For this reason, we will continue the cross-cutting initiative where the entire university community coalesces around seven broad-based programs such as biotechnology and information technology. We have already seen dramatic shifts in this area with the recently announced creation of the Carilion Biomedical Institute, a $30-million-plus partnership between Carilion Health Systems, Virginia Tech, and the University of Virginia. A $29-million infusion, partly from the state's tobacco settlement, earlier this year launched the Center for Bioinformaticsa blending of biotech engineering and info tech. Thus, expect to see further major developments serving the IT sector.

Briefly, here are two more ideas that I will explore in future columns. In order to be a truly comprehensive university, the arts and humanities must play a central role. For this reason, we hope to complete a center for the fine and performing arts, which has been on the drawing boards for most of the '90s.

Minority enrollment at Tech is far too low for a university like ours. We are beginning efforts to make Virginia Tech more available to under-served members of our population. To start, we will increase black enrollment by 20 percent over the next two years. Over the next decade, we will expand the international dimension, particularly undergraduate study opportunities and research collaborations.

Virginia Tech has momentum like never before. But in order for us to seize opportunities, we must raise the tempo like never before. I am confident that the Virginia Tech community will succeed.