Butler University President's Perspective — April 2010

As I struggle where to go next with my blog about the Final Four experience, I thought I would share an amazing email that all the Butler students & Alumni received today. I know there is lots of laughter and jokes about my expensive Butler education that float around our house and their are financial struggles every day but reading this confirms everything I believed in as a student and now as an alum. I couldn't be happier to be part of Butler University and I can only hope that people feel as connected to their Alma Mater as I do. I may not have played for this Butler basketball team, but that's ok. I feel just the same and I feel like the connections that Dr. Fong speaks of I can relate to in my own Butler Way. You can see the entire page by clicking here.

Excerpt from Dr. Bobby Fong:

"at in the midst of this week’s pandemonium you still attended classes has become a byword of how excellence in athletics and academics is compatible. College presidents have written about how your example stands for all the schools that seek to do right by their students. Commentator Pat Forde wrote this morning, “But Butler wins, too. And the maligned sport of college basketball, a greasy enterprise in recent times, wins a renewed level of nobility. And every small school wins the license to dream Butler dreams.”

"And finally, you have permanently altered the profile of your University. Vice President for Enrollment Tom Weede said, “One hundred percent of students will never apply to a university of whom they’ve never heard.” Going forward, far fewer people will ask, “In what state is Butler located?” Because of what you have done, Butler has become an example of academic and athletic excellence. Because of what you have done, in the years to come, many more students will aspire to come to Butler, some to be athletes, others to be artists, and scientists, and educators. Because of what you have done, more people will better appreciate achieving difficult things by doing the right thing, by doing them the Butler Way. "