Many educators talk about the importance of increasing investments in the “STEM” fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — but at Purdue University in Indiana, “we like to think of it as STEAM,” said university President Mitch Daniels, with the “A” representing agriculture.

Daniels, a former governor of Indiana and former director of the Office of Management and Budget and aide to then-Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., spoke Sunday at the annual meeting of the Association of Public Land-Grant Universities.

Daniels, who froze tuition at Purdue, said that university leaders must be more accountable to the public. He said he believes the land grant universities hold many of the keys to solving the country's biggest problems, but that “effective leadership requires that people in the endeavor align around very, clear, hopefully compelling objectives.”