Good value comes from being good stewards of resources. At a public university, such as Iowa, we have many constituencies and many people who contribute to our resources. Students and their families provide tuition dollars; the taxpayers of our state and nation provide appropriations for education and research; private donors do their part to raise our level of distinction in all areas. As good stewards of these resources, and as public servants, we must use all of these contributions to return a good value—in high-quality education for our students; in research, scholarship, and creative endeavor that advances new knowledge in order to transform society; and in service and engagement that improves the lives of all in the best ways possible.

The foundation of good value lies in our values. To define how we can best be good stewards, we must articulate our values. President Emeritus Sandy Boyd has said that when he closes his eyes and pictures the UI, he sees the people of our university community, not the buildings of our institution. Sandy’s vision could not be more true. Our most fundamental values—and our greatest value—lie in the talent, the integrity, the ideas, and the aspirations of our students, staff, faculty, alumni, friends, and supporters.

Now, we’re defining our values in a campus-wide process involving all areas of the university. When we know who we are and what we’re about, we can most effectively fulfill our mission of excellence in teaching and learning, research and creativity, and service and engagement—in other words, provide the best value to those who support us and who we serve.

As we develop a shared vision and shape the priorities for the University of Iowa, we know that we must first look to our people, including campus exemplars, to understand how to best support everyone. Our university awards honor our people’s highest achievements in service to the values we hold most dear. Just as a few recent examples, Loreen Herwaldt, in internal medicine, has been selected to receive the UI Postdoctoral Association Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award for her extraordinary dedication to guiding and supporting her professional students. Just this month, Ann Ricketts, assistant vice president for research, was awarded the Susan C. Buckley Distinguished Achievement Award for Staff for her outstanding work guiding, mentoring, and advancing women on the UI campus, as well as in the surrounding community. Also this month, we honored third-year engineering student Kasra Zarei with the Student Employee of the Year award for his superb work as a research assistant in the Wynn Institute for Vision Research, where he leads a number of independent research projects, including a vision test for Alzheimer’s disease. And, a couple of months ago, Richard Fumerton delivered a thought-provoking and inspiring presentation as the annual Presidential Lecturer in honor of his stellar work as a scholar and teacher in political philosophy.

Through the work of these extraordinary university-community members, we see the value and values of the UI enacted. They have built on the excellence of the institution’s heritage and help signal a path toward a bright future for our university. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue the collaborative process of building a shared vision and a shared vocabulary for our values, goals, and aspirations. Doing so will guide us as we decide how to invest our resources to realize the best value for our students, for our state, and for society at large.