PRESS RELEASES   Oklahoma's defining decade 10/11/2006 The Oklahoman, Opinion By David L. Boren Historians will write some day that the decade through which we are now living was the defining decade for our state. The actions we take between now and 2010 will shape the quality of life in Oklahoma for the rest of the 21st century. No generation of Oklahomans has ever been given a greater opportunity to build for the future. We have sometimes missed opportunities to make wise investments during economic booms fueled by our energy industry. We now have a chance to diversify our state's economy and to broaden our economic base beyond the natural resources component that will always be important to us. Houston did exactly that. The creation of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and related health care institutions now has a $7 billion annual impact on Houston's economy, which sustains it in energy downturns and times of crisis like the collapse of Enron. Oklahoma has great momentum. There is already a physical renaissance under way including the MAPS projects and the transformation of Bricktown and the river in Oklahoma City as well as Tulsa's Vision 2025 projects. We now need to complete the diversification of the state's economy. In Oklahoma City, the greatest engine for economic diversification is the growth of the biosciences. A recent study estimates that biosciences already have had more than a $3 billion impact on our state's economy with more than 40,000 directly created jobs. Before the end of this decade, the new cancer institute, diabetes center, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation research tower, Presbyterian Health Foundation Research Park expansion and a large addition to the Dean McGee Eye Institute will be built in Oklahoma City. The quality of life for Oklahomans will be greatly enhanced. The economic impact will be enormous. For the impact to be lasting, there must be a large increase in human talent in these fields as well as the construction of facilities. This means we must greatly increase the number of research professorships in our state. Unfortunately, the state is already more than $40 million behind in matching private donations for these critically needed professorships. By the time the Legislature meets, the state will be as much as $60 million behind. At the historic rate of matching the donations with $7 million or $8 million per year, it could take seven or eight years for gifts by private donors to reach the front of the waiting line to be matched. In addition to OU and OSU, 12 other Oklahoma public colleges and universities have professorships waiting to be matched. Oklahoma cannot afford any delay at this critical time. We cannot wait seven or eight years to recruit the experts we need to staff our growing research institutions. The state's momentum must not be stopped or slowed. In the next legislative session, our governor and state legislators have the chance to quickly pass a bipartisan plan to erase the backlog in funding endowed faculty positions. Historians will honor them for their actions. Let us vow that in this decade that we will propel Oklahoma into national leadership for the rest of the 21st century. Oklahomans have the vision and the tenacity to do it! Boren is president of the University of Oklahoma.