Dr. Don Betz spoke to an assorted crowd of UCO students, faculty and staff, as well as various state and regional politicians and educators, following his official installation as the university’s twentieth president.
During a 20-minute address, titled “Greeting a Culture of Learning, Leading and Serving,” Betz carried with him a message of continued confidence while acknowledging the tough times people everywhere are going through.
“Please understand, from the very few words I’ll give you today, if you’ve ever talked to me, this is not about me,” he said. “I’m smart enough and old enough to know that this is about Central’s historic focus on student success, on helping students learn, and on developing our state.”
He thanked the faculty, students and staff of UCO for “(personifying) the irrepressible spirit and passion for learning that has been the Central way for 122 years and counting.”
“I’m the 20th president, officially (after nine months working); I am the 20th president of this hallowed institution,” he said.
Betz detailed his relationship with the most recent former UCO president, Roger Webb.
“For 24 years, Webb and I collaborated at two storied Oklahoma institutions,” Betz said. “One of which is the University of Central Oklahoma, and the other one, of course, is Northeastern State University.”
Betz said that Webb’s leadership, council and friendship enriched him immensely.
“Here we are today, celebrating the legacy of Central, and we are celebrating the power of learning,” he said.
Betz told the audience that human talent was the only truly sustainable resource, and that UCO’s goal was to enrich that talent—a goal, he said, that extended back to the 1890s when UCO (then known as the Territorial Normal School) was founded.
“That Territorial Normal School was the first public building intentionally dedicated to public higher education in Oklahoma Territory,” he said. “Why was educating teachers one of the first collaborative civic acts undertaken by those settlers? Well, they needed teachers for the burgeoning population; and, I believe, they well understood that teachers were critical actors in shaping this new society via the knowledge and skills they imparted, and importantly, values they professed.”
Betz said that today’s society was a “cauldron of change,” and that while this new era in modern history could be characterized by disruption, “hunkering down is not an option.”
“Our confidence, ladies and gentlemen, will be derived from our competence,” he said.
Throughout his speech, Betz repeated what he thought was the core theme of UCO—learning, leading and serving—and promised that during his term, UCO would become a top-10 metropolitan university in the nation.
“We are here, in this place, as a metropolitan university, to make a difference. We call it ‘making this place matter,’ because it matters to us,” he said.
“If we do this right, if we have consistent access to resources and support and encouragement, this culture that I’m talking about may be the greatest gift we could ever hope to give, the most enduring legacy we pass on to our students,” he said. “They will write our future.”