Focusing on projected a budget shortfall, Texas A&M President Dr. Ray M. Bowen said inadequate funding could derail the University’s efforts to join the ranks of the nation’s top public universities.
“I am sure Texas can solve this problem if they try,” Bowen said in his State of the University address.
Bowen delivered the address Thursday at the Texas A&M Academic Convocation 2001, where delegates from prestigious universities across the country gathered to celebrate A&M’s 125th anniversary.
The Academic Convocation began with delegates dressed in their academic regalia marching to Rudder Auditorium.
The convocation’s keynote speaker, Harold T. Shapiro, focused on the moral and ethical aspect of science that is often not considered when new technologies are being created, in his speech “Science, Anxiety, and Meaning.”
Shapiro was president of Princeton University until May 2001 when he retired and took the title president emeritus. He is also a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton.
“Today we are compelled to science, but lack morals,” he said.
The example Shapiro used was genetics and cloning in the field of biomedical science. Shapiro, a genetics expert, was appointed by President Clinton in 1996 to chair the Bioethics Advisory Committee that produced the report “Cloning Human Beings” the following year.
Shapiro said that altering genes and cloning people is changing the future and many people are anxious about what will happen. The only way to calm nerves and be sure science is mindful of morals is “if different people will discuss discoveries and be willing to change their minds,” he said.
The theme of Wednesday’s conference was “Higher Education In and For a Just Society” with several speeches and panel discussions.
Shirley Strum Kenny, president of State University of New York at Stony Brook, said the government should guarantee a college education to those who want it.
“A college education should be our birthright,” Kenny said. “Anyone who wants it should be able to get it. Cost should not be a factor in getting an education.”