Penley Panel

CloudSat, the world's only cloud-profiling radar in orbit, is now on the international science community's radar – literally. This issue of The Competitive Edge addresses the global impact of a new CloudSat satellite technique, developed at CSU to estimate the intensity of tropical storms from space.

Still pointed toward the clouds, we also highlight CSU’s NASA award-winning Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. We learn how vital its research is to U.S. homeland security, where aircraft operations and missile defense systems are significantly affected by weather conditions.

This concept of "visibility" provides a nice transition to our feature story about transparency in higher education. Anyone who has helped a young adult select the right university – or paid a college tuition bill – understands the need for accessible, easily understood data on educational outcomes that's comparable among different schools. Transparency and accountability – providing the public with visible and unencumbered access to data about university operations, costs, and effectiveness – are current buzz words in higher education, but they've been priorities for Colorado State for years. This month's Edge shares how CSU is taking a lead role nationally in providing consumers with institutional information in a convenient and understandable format.

As Colorado State University scientists continue to set high standards for productivity and accountability (six academic departments recently were named among the nation's top 10 most productive) and faculty members continue to develop new innovations (two CSU scientists recently were recognized by President Bush as emerging leaders in science and engineering), our campus and state will continue to make a global difference. So keep CSU on your radar!

Thank you for joining us.

Larry Edward Penley
Chancellor and President