Most of you probably got this email earlier today from NYU Board of Trustees Chair Martin Lipton:

A key responsibility of a board of trustees is ensuring the successful future
of the institution it guides. With that in mind, the NYU Board decided to
request that John Sexton serve as our University’s President until at least
2016. We are delighted to report that he has agreed to do so Runaway bride download.

In making its request to John, the Board focused on the University’s
exceptional progress over the past 30 years and specifically on its remarkable
advance during his time as President. The Board focused as well on the need to
ensure that the University has powerful and imaginative leadership in the
coming period, a time-frame that is sure to be challenging for research
universities in general and for NYU in particular. With John as its President
the Board is confident that the University is capable of securing and advancing
its position among the great universities not only of the United States but
also of the world.

Full text continues below the fold.

The University’s academic mandate for the coming period was well established
last year through the Framework 2031 process, a process which articulated the
fundamental choices confronting the University and the criteria for making
strategic investments (see
http://www.nyu.edu/about/framework.2031/NYU.Framework2031.Final.pdf ); the
Board ratified Framework 2031 at its June 2008 meeting. The parallel space
planning process has outlined a corresponding pathway for providing the
physical infrastructure that will allow NYU to continue its academic
advancement, including the completion of the approvals needed to secure use of
additional core space on the University’s property south of Washington Square
Park (the Washington Square Village and Silver Towers sites) as well as
measured growth in the surrounding neighborhood and more remote locations(see

http://www.nyu.edu/nyu.plans.2031/).

John and his leadership team are ideally positioned to carry forward these
mandates and to continue building the necessary financial foundations for
them. For its part, the Board will work with John and his team to strengthen
the financial condition of the University (including the Medical Center), so
that the University’s academic progress will not be jeopardized by changes in
the broad economy or the specific economic factors affecting private higher
education and academic medicine. In addition, we expect John and his team,
even in these times, to begin preparation for our next major fundraising
campaign; in this regard we are heartened by the fact that, in a year (2008 -
2009) when many institutions experienced a precipitous drop in fundraising, our
University managed to raise over a million dollars a day, every day (and that
it did so on the heels of completing, in August of 2008, the most successful
completed fundraising campaign in the history of American higher education).

In addition to these general directives, the Board, in approving Framework
2031, endorsed a set of more specific priorities as we enter this next phase of
our development.

First, our prime objective must be the pursuit of greater and greater academic
excellence. This means, specifically, we must strive continually to offer the
finest possible student experience for undergraduates and graduate students and
to create an environment where research and teaching can flourish. We
recognize that this entails a commitment to building the finest faculty
possible, a faculty both devoted to its students and to quality research.

Second, as was emphasized in Framework 2031, the pursuit of academic excellence
must build upon the unique assets possessed by our University. Clearly we must
build on our innovative spirit and on our University’s rare ability to
anticipate change and adapt to it. And, equally clearly, we must continue to
nurture existing centers of excellence at the University. Moreover, we must
build upon our University’s location in New York City, its unique network of
overseas academic centers, and the extraordinary opportunity presented by the
development of a Global Network University anchored in New York and Abu Dhabi.
Finally, the remarkable progress of the NYU Langone Medical Center, the merger
with the Polytechnic University, and the successful launch of the Institute for
the Study of the Ancient World provide additional opportunities for the
University.

Third, as we move forward we must recognize the necessity to make choices. We
will not be able to do everything we wish to do. The Board, of course, relies
on John, the Provost and the Deans in consultation with the faculty in making
these choices. It is our role only to insist that strategic choices be made at
each step along the way, just as they were made magnificently in the
implementation of the Partners Plan to grow the Faculty of Arts and Science.
We pledge to support John and his team as they make these choices, even as we
(as fiduciaries for the University) must insist that they be made.

Fourth, our plans always must include a recognition that, as a tuition
dependent university (even in the best years for the endowment and for
fundraising, they together provide only 10% of our expense budget), we must
scrutinize carefully every expenditure, making the strategic choices necessary
and restraining growth in tuition in so far as possible. John and his team
have almost miraculously managed to find efficiencies in the University
administration that have permitted greater investment in our academic
enterprise. The Deans are engaged in a similar exercise in the Schools. We
must be constant in this effort and in the commitment to find greater and
greater resources for financial aid.

We would be remiss if we closed without noting an additional task we have set
specifically for John. Increasingly, he is seen as one of the leading
spokespersons for higher education at the local, regional and national level.
Skepticism about higher education in general, and American private higher
education in particular, has become widespread in recent years. It is in the
country’s interest for there to be strong voices articulating the role that
higher education can and should play in contemporary society; the Board
believes that, perhaps better than any other university president, John can
lead this discussion about the importance of higher education and how the
sector can best address the policy challenges ahead. Such leadership is not
only needed for the sector but places NYU in the small circle of institutions
that are active in shaping the important debates of our generation.

Clearly the agenda that we have set for the years ahead is an ambitious one
which will require not only dedication but also enormous skill and creativity.
We are delighted that we have strong academic and administrative leadership to
guide us through this period. And we are even more delighted to share the news
that John will be staying to see it through.

Photo by Flickr user meltingnoise used under a Creative Commons license.