I believe that it is higher education's purpose and calling to keep open the door to the American dream.

I spent the first 18 years of my life in the pastoral town of Vernal, Utah, in the shadows of the Book Cliffs and the Uinta Mountains.

You can’t trust those damn Catholics.

I often have said that to be a college president, you need a thick skin, a good sense of humor, and nerves like sewer pipes.

College graduates work in every sector of the American economy, and the research engines incubated within our universities generate a wealth of ideas and innovations that have an enormous impact on our lives.

I am not a scientist. I have never analyzed the far reaches of the solar system through the lens of a telescope nor scrutinized cancer cells under a microscope.

I believe that it is higher education's purpose and calling to keep open the door to the American dream.