RENO, Nev. - University of Nevada, Reno President Joe Crowley has delivered his final State of the Union address after a record 20 that came before it. And his message was a positive one.
Crowley, who joined UNR as a political science professor in 1966, will leave the presidency on New Year's Eve after 22 years in the job. He will be a lobbyist for the university system this spring and return to the classroom after that.
In his speech, Crowley described a growing university that enrolled a record 13,000 students this fall, including a 23 percent increase in this year's freshman class.
Along with new students, UNR has a fresh slogan - ''A university for the new West.''
Crowley also unveiled a new university flag, an ''N'' with the school's seal on a navy blue background.
''I vowed I would not leave office until we had a new flag,'' Crowley said with a smile. ''For a lot of people, that was incentive. In six months, we had one.''
Crowley was named UNR acting president in 1978 and appointed to the job permanently the following year. He gave his first state of the university speech in 1980.
He promised at the outset on Thursday that his final assessment of the school would be brief - at least by the standards usually associated with his talks.
It lasted an hour.