OUR VIEW: USU progression will only continue

There are a lot of good things happening at Utah State University right now.

If nothing else was obvious after listening to President Kermit L. Hall’s State of the University Address Wednesday, the fact that USU is in very good shape was.

2003 was a strong year for USU. Cloned mules, the Wright Flyer, a Rhodes Scholar and many other individual achievements brought unprecedented national attention to the university and now, with the help of a generous contribution from Manon Russell and Kathryn Wanlass, a new recital hall will be built on the east side of campus.

There are a lot of ingredients necessary to make a university work as efficiently as possible, and USU has two of the most important ingredients: Loyal philanthropic contributors who put the needs of others before their own, and a capable president who has a vision for the institution that reaps great benefits for the school as a whole.

Donors like Wanlass and Russell and administrators like Hall are key to the continuing improvement to USU. The new recital hall will be a world-class facility that will attract high-profile students, faculty and performers to Logan and will add tremendous value to the Cache art community.

Likewise, Hall’s vision, while sometimes unpopular, is guiding USU to a higher standing as an academic institution. With the possible induction of USU into the prestigious academic organization Phi Beta Kappa, the university is improving academically at an incredible rate.

As Hall said in his speech, the goal is to make USU incrementally bigger, dramatically better.