John A. Tribble, Dean

When I was two years old, I had a vision. When my parents found out, they stuck glasses on me and called me four-eyes for twenty years. Or three-eyes, because part of the time I wore a patch. Recently I was visiting my mother in the nursing home when she noticed that my shoe was untied. From her bed she chastised me-"Johnny you're 58 years old and you still can't tie your shoes." I'm still a kid and I have a vision of graduate study at Sage. I have always found graduate education to be fun. What makes it fun is that you're beyond the basics. You're beginning to push the frontiers of knowledge, even if it is just a little nudge. Education is exploring and in graduate education you're on the frontiers of exploration. It can be an adventure. Entrepreneur, Inventor, Innovator As an economist, I have always been fascinated by the relationship between the entrepreneur, inventor, and innovator.

• The entrepreneur recognizes opportunity and has the personal initiative to pursue that opportunity with confidence and the will to succeed. They are the risk-takers, who can act in the face of uncertainty.
• The inventor is the creator of the intellectual property-the scientist, professional or otherwise, whose imaginative genius expands the base of human knowledge.
• The innovator is the change maker. Innovators have the ability to creatively integrate and join existing technologies or ideas into new products, services, or otherwise useful things. They add value.

Sage Graduate School is all about innovation. We can't operate without the entrepreneur or the inventor, but our specialty is innovation. Applied and Practical Research Research is an important component of any graduate school. Research is the systematic effort to increase the base of human knowledge and to devise new ways to apply that knowledge. At Sage, the effort is not focused on basic research, which results in quantum leaps in human knowledge. Instead the focus is on applied research, which continually nudges the knowledge envelope outward. It is a process and culture of change. The programs at Sage Graduate School emphasize education for the practicing professional. Each class, each course, should provide the student professional with the opportunity to innovate in the workplace-something new to apply every day. Student professionals bring to classroom problems requiring applied research. Our educational process needs to facilitate the exploration of solutions to those problems. In this way Sage Graduate School provides a close interactive partnership between the practice of the profession and the school. Innovation-application-research-pushing the knowledge envelope: It is fun! Sages Doctoral Program This year we are introducing two new doctoral programs at Sage Graduate School:

• The EdD in Educational Leadership will develop visionary educational leaders and prepare them for positions of leadership in school districts and educational coordination and policymaking at local, regional and statewide levels.
• The Doctor of Nursing Science (DNS) in Nursing Education and Leadership prepares expert nurses to be innovative, transformational educators and leaders in both academic and health care settings.

Both programs address crucial national and regional needs. They enhance the development of the university at Sage and complement the existing Doctor of Physical Therapy program. As we progress towards growing a university, we need to raise the focus on research across the board, throughout The Sage Colleges. We will not become a research university. Instead we will emphasize the innovative applied dimensions of research. Some of our faculty will publish regularly in national and international journals. Most of the faculty will exploit research opportunities within the local and regional practice of their professions. We must link to the broader Capital Region community-in business, health care, education, and government- to seek out applied research opportunities. Doing the research alone is not sufficient. We must involve the students in the research process. We must communicate the impact of that research to the region, so that we are known as specialists in applied research. We will do this through regional scholarly journals, through the partnerships that we develop, and through students who take those applications out into the workplace. The essence of my vision is that I see Sage Graduate School as a fun place to be. Doing something new: Developing applications that haven't yet been tried: It's an adventure to be experienced.