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Given at the
Annual Fall Convocation to Mark the Beginning of the Academic Year - Severance Hall
Good afternoon, and thank you all for attending Convocation. This is my first such gathering here at CWRU, so I'm excited to use the occasion to share with you some thoughts about our future in the hope of opening a campus-wide dialogue this semester about how we should articulate our aspirations for this great University. But before getting into talking about "the vision thing," let me start with two other brief comments about the opening of the new academic year, one personal and one "academic."
First, on a personal note, I just want to thank all of the many people who have so warmly welcomed me and my family to this great community. From Jim Wagner, with whom it is my privilege to work side by side in leading the university, to one of the campus groundskeepers who greeted me on my first morning as President, the faculty, staff, students, trustees, alumni, and others with whom I've interacted so far are truly the most dedicated, inspirational people I've ever met. As I stand here today, I haven't even finished my first month as President, and yet I feel that I've already begun not just to meet many new colleagues but to make many new friends. So my wife and children and I really want to convey our deep gratitude for the magnificent welcome we've experienced since moving here last month. For me, people are what it's all about, and the people here are incredible! It's just been a thrill for me to start to get to know our wonderful faculty, students, staff, trustees, alumni, and neighbors, so, again, thank you!
The one other comment I'd make about the opening of the academic year is a reflection on this year's theme for the University. Although I have another topic of great importance today, I do want to start a tradition of using this address at Convocation each year to explore in some depth the theme chosen for the year, to kick off the campus-wide events and discussions to be held on the chosen topic. So, although I'll do so in a more abbreviated way this year than I will in the future, let me just say a few words about this year's theme.
As you know, during the last academic year - the year of 9/11 - a committee appointed by the Provost's Office selected "America's Role in the World" as the theme to be explored this year across our campus. Under the leadership of the committee's chair, Professor Jonathan Sadowsky of the Department of History, the committee also awarded a set of small grants to support projects led by faculty, students, or staff that would address this theme. Just to mention a few of these projects, they include:
- A series of discussions and presentations on the Americanization of foreign cultures, called "Disney in the World," led by Professor Bill Deal of the Department of Religion and Professor Marie Lathers of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.
- A lecture series entitled "Moral Perspectives on America's Role after 9-11," organized by Professor Robert Lawry of the law school, Director of our Center for Professional Ethics.
- And a marvelous project, proposed by undergraduate student Doug McLean, in which members of the College Scholars Program are to design and build "A Pictographic Globe" - a large, physical, interactive globe on which the land surfaces will be able to display data about international issues and trends.
I'd also mention in connection with this year's theme that the freshman orientation program required all incoming students to read a book: Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. Since I consider myself one of this year's entering freshmen, I did my required reading, and have already had some very engaging encounters discussing the book with my fellow members of the freshmen class.
A few words about the book may be helpful. It's an autobiographical work in which Richard Rodriguez, the son of Mexican immigrants growing up in California, describes how the very education that he and his parents so much wanted him to pursue had the effect of alienating him from his family. The most obvious instrument of that alienation was language: as he became more and more fluent in English, the "public language" of his family's adopted country, he became less and less comfortable in Spanish, the traditional, intimate, "private language" of his family. As he grew, he recognized that the process of his assimilation into mainstream US culture, which he equates to the death of his "private individuality," actually made possible the development of his "public individuality," his ability to be successful in the larger society.
There are two points I'd like to make that emerge from this self-depiction. One relates to how we in an American university view our role in the world. The second focuses on how our country - and we as Americans - must inevitably be affected by our own interactions with the rest of the world.
As I read his book, I thought about the students who arrive here on our campus every year from other countries - some 95 nations in all during a typical year - to begin a period in their lives that will affect them profoundly. Some blithely look at their TOEFL scores and conclude that they're going to do just fine in a culture that uses a language that most of them have learned in school, not at home. In other words, we're asking them to use our "public language" - English - to establish themselves as individuals here, expecting that they'll succeed in being "transformed" by the learning process without access to the "private language" of their families of origin.
But Rodriguez also notes that it's not the language you use that gives you confidence, but rather your involvement with other persons who treat you as an individual of value. The implications of this observation for the manner in which we host our international students are serious, and I hope that we might devote some of our energies in connection with this year's theme to exploring at the practical level how we might provide the most supportive possible environment for these students, who account for more than 12 per cent of our student body.
I hope we look at the significance of this same phenomenon for our domestic students as well. While most of them don't face the linguistic challenges that are more common for international students, even without the barrier of language they nonetheless find themselves facing the kind of transformation that I in fact hope we help them achieve. In my own freshman seminar just yesterday, quite a bit of the time and much of the emotion was spent on the tension between the expressed hopes of some family members and close high school friends that we freshman "not change who we are" when we go off to college, and the stated objective of a great university education: that it be a changing experience! So, the fluent, even articulate student from California, New York, or Ohio is also going to need the presence of persons prepared to treat him or her as an individual of value in order to become the "public individual" - the scholar, the professional, the achiever, the contributor to society - that he or she can be.
As a final comment on this year's theme, we should of course also look at this matter globally. Just as an international student, like any student, faces the prospect of significant change by enrolling here, this country cannot escape the prospect of change as we become increasingly interconnected with other parts of the world. This is particularly important now that the United States has become what some have called the "world's only superpower," a term I think people use for our country's relationship to the world when they imagine us to be like freshmen who might enter college believing that they can be "self-sufficient" - "affecters" of their environment without being "affected" by it. In correspondence on this topic, one of our faculty members commented that "Leaders in the U.S. do not seem to recognize what leaders elsewhere do, namely, that only a post-nationalist approach to world problems can begin to solve some of them."
Another member of our faculty noted that university leaders can set a tone and take initiatives that can be controversial, referring to the recent incidents at the University of North Carolina, where there was strong opposition to a required summer reading by students of a book about the Koran. He notes: "To the extent this university wants to promote 'societal engagement' or 'engagement with the rest of the world', these are politically loaded subjects." All the more reason, I would say, to nurture a learning environment that promotes moral discourse in a culture of deep respect for human differences.
This was the main message of my welcome the freshman class last week: to spend their years here constantly engaged in passionate discussion about values. There couldn't be a more pressing time in human history for this ethical discourse, with the news each day filled with weighty moral issues surrounding international crises, social injustice at home and abroad, a widening gap between those who have access and those who don't have access to what our science and technology can do to improve our lives, and with the very integrity of our economy - the business practices of great American companies - being called into question. I told them that whether, upon graduation, they plan to go onto graduate or professional school or join the work force or pursue yet another path, our goal is not just that they are prepared to succeed as leaders in their fields, but that their education here should prepare them to be moral leaders within their communities.
That's part of a vision for Case Western Reserve University about which I'd like to launch a campus-wide discussion, side by side with (and not unrelated to) this year's campus dialogue about America's Role in the World. So, since this convocation represents not just the start of a new year but a new administration, I'll save any further reflections on this year's academic theme for another time, and use the rest of my time with you this afternoon to open another important campus-wide dialogue about our aspirations as a university.
My purpose in opening this dialogue is to invite all of you to help advance a great university into an even greater future. What I want to do is outline very briefly a half dozen topics intended to serve as a framework, six categories into which we might organize these discussions over the months ahead. What I hope will emerge from this process is a vision for Case Western Reserve University around which we can mobilize a tremendous amount of creative energy, resources of many kinds, and a campus community that will not only be changed, but that will change all of us in the course of building it together - the very dilemma faced by Richard Rodriguez, by every entering student, and, I would argue, by every one of us in this room today. My plan is to hold a large number of these discussions in both formal and informal settings throughout the fall semester to gather input on this vision from our faculty, students, staff, trustees, alumni, partner institutions, and others, with a goal of presenting at the formal inauguration event at the end of January a concise but compelling vision - not my vision but our vision - for the future this great university.
I'd also just add that none of the topic areas around which I'd like to organize this process is new to CWRU. Actually, it's because so many of the ingredients are already here that I dare to lay out such an aggressive - but, I think, achievable - set of goals for us. Indeed, what attracted me to this remarkable leadership challenge and opportunity is a strong sense that this university is at an inflection point in its history such that there will never be a better time to think big and to act boldly.
What are some of these ingredients that are already in place? Well, we have wonderful students, staff, and faculty - faculty who, more than any others I've ever encountered, view their roles in teaching and in research as completely inseparable, both driven by that wonderful combination of curiosity and rigor in thinking that leads to discovery and to learning. We have a committed, passionate team of administrative leaders, a dedicated board of trustees, and incredibly loyal alumni. We also have Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell and other elected officials from the local city councils to Columbus to Washington, and many other business and civic leaders in Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, and beyond who are looking to partner with us to be part of a bright future for this region as well as for higher education. We have our unique location here in University Circle, with more potential for productive partnerships in one square mile than probably any other campus in the nation. We have an exciting campus master plan that will in truth enable us to "complete" the merger of our predecessor institutions. And we already have any number of academic programs across our eight schools that have earned national and international reputations for excellence and leadership.
Those characteristics, and others I could mention just as well, represent what we are today, the ingredients we have to work with. Every person here who has helped to achieve these distinctions deserves our deep appreciation - they certainly have mine. And, while we should take every opportunity to celebrate these outstanding achievements of our institution and do a much better job than we now do in letting the world know about these great things, we ultimately will be judged on how we build on this foundation to become what I believe we can become, which is, simply put, the most powerful learning environment in the world.
So that's the first of my categories for our dialogue about the future of CWRU: what would it mean to strive to be the most powerful learning environment in the world? How could we challenge ourselves to create such a strong culture of mentoring that not just students but also faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, and even visitors to campus become passionate about moving beyond themselves to advance knowledge and improve humanity. I would personally link this part of the discussion we'll be having to the wonderful traditions we celebrate here in creating synergy between and among our research, education, and service missions, but at this stage I'm much more interested in learning what you hear in an aspiration to be the most powerful learning environment in the world. What do you think about that?
The second topic I'd put out for campus-wide reflection is an educational philosophy centering on transformation - the transformation of learners, the transformation of teachers, the transformation of institutions, the transformation of knowledge itself through research, and, ultimately, the transformation of a better society. Again, I would personally link this part of the discussion to the possibilities for a uniquely transforming environment not limited to the university's own classrooms, laboratories, and libraries, but one which includes partnerships with many other great cultural institutions, hospitals, businesses, and other agencies concentrated in University Circle and Greater Cleveland.
While, as a great research university, we of course enjoy collaborations all over the globe, I wonder if we could excel among great research universities by taking seriously the 'think globally, act locally' philosophy. What if we were to build these strong partnerships with other institutions and agencies right here in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio in the service of national and international leadership, through a belief that our ability to apply research advances to improve the human condition throughout the world should be proven first within our own community?
And so the third topic I put out for discussion is partnership. Universities have not traditionally enjoyed great reputations as partners. How might we distinguish ourselves in this regard and achieve things that other universities can't -- but we could -- if we were the best university at forming productive partnerships with other great institutions? I note particularly the great institutions nearby which form some of our already realized ingredients for success, but perhaps there are even more unrealized opportunities that we ought vigorously to pursue. What do you think?
The fourth topic for this dialogue on our future will, I hope, center on our values. We need to articulate clearly the values we hold most dear and then practice these values across every level of the university. One of my favorite quotations comes from Mark Twain, who once said: "To be good is noble. To teach others to be good is nobler - and less trouble!" We have to articulate and practice our values. If we espouse values of quality and excellence, then we have to seek world-class students, faculty, and staff, and promote and reward those who excel. If we value leadership and innovation, then we have to recruit faculty who are thought leaders in exploring new frontiers of knowledge, and selectively allocate resources into those programs in which we can establish global leadership. We are, after all, a research university, and one thing I am certain of is that we need to make a massive investment in our research infrastructure if we are going to be able to continue recruiting the kind of faculty I just described and hold ourselves to standards of excellence and leadership in our core mission of knowledge creation.
There are some values I believe we have to discuss with particular vigor and clarity. If we say we value diversity, and we do, then we have to seek to recruit faculty, students, and staff with perspectives shaped by a wide variety of cultural and intellectual experiences, and we have to provide a broad range of programs and opportunities in an atmosphere of tolerance and sensitivity.
So, values are the fourth organizing category for this discussion, and I hope what we can do is start by valuing the importance of values themselves. As I said at the freshman convocation and I say again here, I believe that values require constant attention and discussion in a community of scholars. We not only have to nurture honesty, integrity, and respect, we also have to promote a culture of self-reflection, self-criticism, continual self-improvement and constant moral discourse. That's what I think, but what do you think about our values?
The fifth category for discussion I'd suggest focuses around the massive organizational enterprise that is this great research university. Twenty-first century universities need to accept our organizational obligations - we have to be responsible stewards of the resources society entrusts to us. My question for discussion across the campus and beyond is how might we strive to be the most effectively and efficiently run research university in the world. I believe that if we could use leading edge technologies in an effort to annihilate all unnecessary bureaucracy, our faculty, students and staff could maintain a focus on what they do best, and our scholarly productivity would set a new standard in higher education. If we could offer the world's best academics a unique opportunity for unimpeded scholarship even when that scholarship crosses departmental, school, or institutional boundaries -- the very intersections where so much current scholarship is found - then I believe we could successfully compete for the best talent against any university in the world.
Well, I can hardly wait to hear some of the discussions on the topic of our organizational obligations, especially with so many expectations being put on us to help revitalize the local economy. Note, however, that I would not be willing to put up for consideration the question of whether this kind of economic contribution should ever be allowed to compromise even one iota our mission of academic excellence. But how often is that really a tradeoff? If we value the academy's expanding role in society, and I certainly do, then to the extent that it's consistent with our academic mission, should CWRU's vision include a goal to maximize our positive economic, social, and cultural impact in Northeastern Ohio? What do you think?
And, finally, for the last general topic area, I would like to engage every one of you in a dialogue about how CWRU can become a true pioneer in higher education. It is a national tragedy that college applicants feel compelled to choose between a great liberal education and pursuit of a degree from a great research university. What better place to get a liberal education than from research faculty who personify the combination of curiosity and disciplined thinking that form the two cornerstones of a liberal education! So, the last category asks whether CWRU might aspire to lead the nation as the research university where the challenges of creating new knowledge support the values of a liberal education, where rigorous theory and practical experiences come together.
Obviously there has been a lot of activity around this question over the last couple of years, with the review of General Education Requirements, the President's Commission on Undergraduate Education and Life, the development of the SAGES program, and so one. What I'd like to do for this part of the discussion is actually ask you to set those initiatives aside for a moment, and engage our campus back at the level of first principles on this question of liberal learning in a research university. What other thoughts are out there in addition to the ideas captured in those initiatives? How can we harness the excitement of student and faculty interactions with cultural institutions, clinics, social service agencies, government, or industry, so that these are no longer viewed as "extra-curricular," but experiences that drive students toward the demands and rigors of academic theory to create the transforming experience that might be known by the expression "learning at Case Western Reserve University?"
I look forward to talking with you about your reactions to some of these thoughts about our university's prospects as my orientation program takes me to dialogues at each of our eight schools this semester, and as we set up other forums for these discussions as well. I want to hear about your vision for our future. I want to hear your thoughts about how each of our three missions - our research mission, our education mission, and our service mission - relate to these six overarching areas.
Let me just again underscore my belief that there will never be a better time for us to think in bold ways about that future, and let me make my commitment to each and every one of you to try to craft this bold but achievable vision with your help, and then to do everything in my power to make it a reality. There can be nothing more important, especially when one considers the fact that those seemingly intractable problems now facing our country and our world can and will only be solved by the next generation of moral leaders, a group collectively known as our student body!
In closing, I want to share what I view as a philosophical context within which we need to take our responsibilities for these students upon whom the future so clearly depends. It's a philosophy that emerged for me partly from the fact that my wife and I have three daughters, and partly from our shared interest in comparative religions. On one of our trips to India to learn about Hinduism, we were introduced to a Hindu philosophy about how to raise your daughters. Now, because of the Hindu belief in reincarnation, and the very real possibility that you can die while your daughter is still of child-bearing age, the thought experiment suggests what would happen if you were reincarnated in your own daughter's womb, This is something that would actually never happen in any form of Hinduism, of course, but it suggests a remarkable thought: that you should raise your daughter as if you might be raising your own mother. A mind-blowing concept, I know, but think about it: how would you raise your daughter if there were some chance you might be raising your own mother?
To me there's a simple analogy here: that we should teach our students as if we might be teaching the very people who will be responsible for solving the deep problems that our country and our world face today. That's how we should teach our students. By the way, I don't know about reincarnation, but I do know it's a fact that our students are the people in whose hands the world's future rests, so in the end, my message today is that the whole business of creating for them this powerfully transformational environment is something we have to take very, very personally.
Have I laid out some ambitious goals here? Yes. Do I believe we can achieve them? Absolutely. And why do I believe such a thing? Because I am continually inspired by the words of Margaret Meade, who once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. It's the only thing that ever has."
I thank you for your attention, I thank you again for the warm welcome you've given my family and me, and I thank you in advance for participating in our dialogue about a vision for the future of our University.
Edward M. Hundert
President of the University
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