The word ‘hope’ takes its roots from Old English and Proto-Germanic languages and starts with a meaning of “to bend or incline toward.” In these roots lies a distinction between passive optimism and taking action toward the future one envisions. And envisioning a better future amid turbulent times may, in and of itself, be an important action.
Few people embody this more completely, to my mind, than Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, whose birthday we celebrate this month. Lincoln faced plenty of challenges in envisioning a better tomorrow, including the death of his young sons and the painful impact of presidential and military decisions on the soldiers under his command, from which he never averted his gaze. But he developed the habit, consciously or not, of following those dark moments with actions that bent or inclined us toward a better future – one that must have been largely beyond his field of view. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in the days after Antietam – far in advance of the post-civil rights era in which most of our lives have been spent. And Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, creating a university system for the children of the working class that spanned the entire nation – a nation whose future was in serious doubt after the 7-Days Battle had recently ended with a Union defeat and Confederate troops advancing toward the Capital.
Colorado State University, founded in 1870 as Colorado Agricultural College, was a child born of that hope. And that hope, entwined in our DNA, has been an important aspect of the relentless movement toward making things better that has characterized CSU’s history. CSU Pueblo and CSU Global were born later but from similar visions of a better tomorrow: CSU Pueblo from the vision of improved literacy that was born in the CCC camps during the Depression – a vision that launched the expansion of America’s community college system; and CSU Global from the idea that if circumstances (“life”) had intervened in a manner to prevent your attending or completing college as an 18-year-old, you still could have access to a system that allowed you to make the most of your gifts and talents without leaving your job and returning to a college campus. All three of CSU’s very different campuses share this common trait: opening the doors of education more widely to people with the talent and motivation to earn a college degree.
Each February, CSU celebrates its own Founders Day to honor this history and the vision that continues to drive us. Founders Day, like birthdays, is a time to celebrate our journey, but also to remember our origins – and, I think, to note how things have changed, and to contemplate the actions we might take to bend or incline our little slice of this world in a more positive direction.
That set of actions – looking back, celebrating accomplishment, and using it as a foundation for a better future – was in our minds when we awarded the inaugural Founders Day medal to the Monfort Family in 2010. We were in the throes of the Great Recession –a time when people had even begun to whisper the ”D” word. It was a time when I, as a new CSU president, was struggling to see past the challenges of the moment. In my office hangs a picture of me sitting on the steps inside the rotunda of the CSU Administration Building with the kids from CSU’s Early Childhood Development Center who had stopped by for their annual tradition of singing holiday carols to the president. I couldn’t have felt less like hearing carols that day, as we were in the middle of balancing budgets, but a wise executive assistant pointedly reminded me that those kids had been preparing to sing to the president for weeks, and whatever I was wrestling with would still be there in 30 minutes. So, I stepped away from my desk and spent a half hour with a group of pre-school children who wanted nothing more than to be together and sing the songs they’d practiced. I came away from that experience renewed, thinking what we were really doing that day wasn’t cutting the budgets of FY10; we were preserving a foundation on which those kids would build a decade and a half into the future. I’ve framed and kept that picture all of these years as a reminder that framing how we deal with the fires of today is simultaneously preparing the soil for new growth tomorrow. As a first step in that direction, we established the Founders Day medal as another reminder of the power of hope. In the 16 years since, as part of Founders Day every year, we’ve awarded the medal to individuals and families whose work and example have shaped the foundation and future of Colorado State University – whose passion and vision have paved the way for others to follow.
Today, as every day, provides opportunities to focus our eyes on our challenges. To give in and look down at our feet because missteps demand our attention. But looking down too long takes away that long view to the horizon that allows us to see where we’re going and to make sure we stay on track to get there, whether that journey will be finished by us or left to those who will succeed us in this work. And viewed through that lens, today I think we can still see ourselves surrounded by people taking actions that may bend or incline our world toward that better tomorrow we all hope for. Former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is teaching a class, hoping to open the doors to agricultural careers more widely. Professors Jorge Rocca and Carmen Menoni stand on the verge of an ignition system for fusion energy, offering a realistic path to abundant clean energy. Our most recent Founders Day Medal recipient – alumnus, former head of US Space Command, and retired US Army General James Dickinson – continues to inspire and motivate young people looking for opportunities to serve their country. Faculty across our three campuses work to meet the needs of their specific student populations – all with a goal of unlocking human potential – unarguably the greatest source of hope we have ever known.
To me, all of this embodies the spirit that Lincoln poured into us at our founding. It’s what we celebrate every Founders Day, and it’s what gives me optimism about our collective future and CSU’s role in bending us in that direction.
– tony
Tony Frank, Chancellor
CSU System
This message was included in Chancellor Frank’s February 2026 newsletter. Subscribe to the Chancellor’s monthly letter.