We serve students who can't come to the campus and take 18 hours of courses. But we do everything to ensure that our online courses match the quality in the classroom. They are taught by the same faculty with a lower teacher to student ratio.

I heard somewhere that maybe one or two people doubted the capacity of East Carolina University to achieve that great status. It's hard for me to believe that anyone would have doubted us, but I think the record speaks for itself.

All of Eastern North Carolina is in a state of transition. We're adapting to changes in industry and needs. It will probably take a generation or two before we get there.

The quality of what we're doing is national, but we try to focus on North Carolina, especially the people living east of (Interstate) 95.

It's a clear need that our non-Anglo students be competitive.

We are disappointed in our students' performance on the 2005 SAT and are taking immediate action to determine how we can better prepare for next year. We are forming a task force from within our high schools to study what is working, what went wrong, and develop a plan for improvement.