State of the
University Address
Jeffrey S. Lehman
October 17, 2003
But
at the risk of wearing out my welcome, I want to take a few minutes this
morning to speak once more.
Let
me begin by putting my inaugural addresses into context.
On
each occasion – in Doha, in New York City, and in Ithaca – I was being what I
might call an academic advocate. I
was asking Cornellians to consider one or more ways of looking at our
University, and asking them to accept a view about our future that they might
not already hold. In summary form,
here are the perspectives I was advocating for in each city:
In
Doha, I asked Cornellians to recognize that Cornell has already become a very
different university from what it was even fifty years ago. I asked Cornellians to recognize
that Cornell has become what I called, “The Transnational University of the
Future,” with activities that span the globe in ways that few if any other top
quality universities can match.
And I asked Cornellians to understand that this is a good thing,
because, in my view, Cornell has a special duty to nurture in its students what
I call a “transnational perspective on the human condition” – a perspective
that transcends nationalism without insisting on a unitary global substitute. Such a perspective combines a
commitment to certain universal ideals with a respect for pluralism in how
those ideals are pursued. It is
open to the wonderful variation that characterizes our world, but it is not
passive – it is engaged, eager to participate in the efforts of people
everywhere to better understand the world and to improve the conditions of
their lives
In
New York City, I asked Cornellians to recognize how intellectual imperatives
have driven the evolution of our university in two domains – one substantive
and one geographic – and how in each case that revolution required us, as an
institution and as individuals, to engage in effective forms of intellectual
collaboration. The substantive
domain was the life sciences, and I talked about how Cornell’s unique breadth
of commitment in the life sciences – from plant genomics in the College of
Agriculture and the Life Sciences to nanotechnology in Engineering to clinical
medicine in the Weill Cornell Medical College – holds the promise of exceptional
contributions to human understanding and human wellbeing, provided that we can
sustain interdisciplinary intellectual collaborations. The geographic domain was New York City
itself, and I talked about how Cornell’s presence in New York City has continuously
expanded, and how the need for intellectual collaborations has driven that
expansion.
In
Ithaca, I asked Cornellians to consider two distinctive features of our
university – its historic boldness in transforming higher education (what I
called “Revolutionary Cornell”) and the very special affection that Cornellians
have always felt for our university (what I called “Beloved Cornell”). I observed that our world underwent a
revolution at the end of the twentieth century that was of scale and scope comparable
to what it underwent in the middle of the nineteenth century. I suggested that, in part because we
love Cornell so much, it is time for us to ask ourselves collectively, a set of
fundamental questions about our goals.
I expressed my belief that great universities must continue to promote
the spiritually satisfying coexistence of people with one another and with our
planet. And I called on
Cornellians everywhere to engage these questions with me, as we consider how
and if Cornell ought to continue to evolve.
This
morning, rather than being an academic advocate, I am going to adopt the voice
of an academic reporter. I will
briefly describe what I have seen at Cornell and what I have learned about
Cornell these past three and one half months. And I will identify a category of questions that follows
from these observations, and that over the next year I will be adding to the
mix of substantive questions that I am calling Cornellians to engage.
During
my first few months as President, Kathy and I have been doing our best to
engage the university and the community as fully as we possibly can. We have had hundreds of meetings with
students, faculty, staff, community members, alumni, and external constituencies,
in individual meetings, and in groups large and small.
In
these varied settings, we have been trying to do two things. We have been trying to learn. And we have been trying to get past
what I have been calling the “curiosity phase” – where people don’t yet feel
that they quite know us.
From
these many meetings, I would draw the following conclusions.
First,
Cornell is wonderful.
I
had known before I came here that the faculty is outstanding. Now that I have had the chance to sit
down with individual faculty members to talk about their work, and to attend
faculty meetings in each school and college, I can report that the faculty here
is breathtaking. What
characterizes the very best faculty members is a burning, even overwhelming
desire to contribute something profoundly important to her or his chosen field,
a spark of genius that enables them to make such a contribution, and a
correlative commitment to students that drives them to transmit that desire to
another generation. Obviously not
every faculty member meets this description. But a surprising number of professors do. And that is tremendously important.
I
had known that the students are outstanding. Now that I have had the chance to spend time with students
in many different contexts, I can report that the students here are truly
wonderful. Wonderfully smart. Wonderfully mature. Wonderfully committed to our
university. Wonderfully
talented. (Wasn’t last night
astonishing?) O.K. Maybe not every student meets that
description. But so many that I
can say that the chances Kathy and I have to be with students are among the
most satisfying parts of our work here.
I
had not really known how good the staff is. From a distance, it is almost impossible to tell. Now that I have had the chance to work
with staff at all levels of the university, I can report that the staff is just
amazing. Exceptionally
talented. And sharing an esprit
that is tremendously important.
They recognize and appreciate that working for Cornell is not the same
as working for a company. They are
part of an enterprise that has a transcendent mission to understand and
contribute to our world. And so
they do not treat their work as just another job.
I
want to say a special word of admiration for the senior administrative staff of
this university – the people you know best, and the people I work with every
day. Provost Biddy Martin is our
Chief Academic Officer, and she and I have forged a very close working
partnership. She has an
exceptional understanding of the university, she shares my worldview, and I
believe we are lucky for her leadership.
I ask Biddy to rise so that we may recognize her. The rest of the senior team consists of
Carolyn Ainslie, Hal Craft, Barbara Krause, Jim Mingle, Susan Murphy, Mary
Opperman, and Inge Reichenbach, along with interim vice presidents Linda
Grace-Kobas and Steve Johnson. I
feel exceptionally fortunate to be working with this group of people. They are smart. They are wise. They work very hard. They are respectful of one
another. They work well together.
They are fun to be with. I now ask
them to please rise so that we may acknowledge them. And Ann Huntzinger, my assistant, has been a godsend. She is knowledgeable, hard working, and
supremely well organized, and she has enabled Kathy and me to sustain a pace of
activity this year that we could not have dared to attempt without her.
This
inaugural week is perhaps the best evidence of how very good this overall team
is. This has been an inauguration
of unprecedented complexity, unprecedented difficulty. Two continents, three cities, speakers,
performances, thousands of people.
Brochures, invitations, programs, media, buses, parking, ice cream. And, could you believe it, working with
NASA?!!! And everywhere I have
looked, I have seen absolutely the highest quality – Cornell quality. The product of thousands of people
going far above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that every detail of this
week’s experience would be superb.
And I want to single out for special mention Vice President Inge
Reichenbach. I asked Inge to lead
the organization of this inauguration, to make sure that the right person or
team of people was working on the right problem at the right time. And Inge delivered, with results that I
could barely have dreamed of.
Inge, please stand once again so that we may express our gratitude for
what you have done for us this week.
And
then we have our alumni. Our
Beloved Alumni. Who are so devoted
to our Beloved Alma Mater. I have
long known how devoted I feel to Cornell as a graduate, but only since we arrived
this summer have I seen how broad and deeply shared that sentiment is. And that is especially true with
respect to our Council Members and this remarkable Board of Trustees. The incredible response that Kathy and
I have felt from you is truly awe inspiring. We feel supported.
We feel buoyed. We feel
uplifted. You inspire us to give
our all in service to our university.
And
I want to mention especially Pete and Nancy Meinig. They are two of the finest people it has ever been my
privilege to know. Pete and Nancy,
Kathy and I feel that you are the ideal partners for us in this adventure. I treasure our friendship and our
working relationship. Cornell is
so very fortunate to be the beneficiary of your leadership.
So
that is the good news: Cornell
truly is even more wonderful than I had ever dared to expect.
My
other observation is that we are in the midst of a structural evolution that I
had not fully appreciated until this summer.
I
would summarize that evolution as follows. At the time of its founding, Cornell University was a
single-celled organism. It was a
single faculty. To be sure, it had
departments and colleges, but these often consisted of a single person, and it
was possible to think about the university as a relatively undifferentiated
whole.
Then
the university subdivided into a cluster of cells with specialized
functions. The schools and
colleges became the centers of identity for faculty and students. And administratively many key decisions
of the university became decentralized.
Not totally decentralized – there was always a healthy check at the
university level to ensure that community-wide norms were respected and that
individual units did not externalize their costs to others. But nonetheless, quite decentralized
into specialized cells with reasonably well-defined boundaries.
More
recently, we have seen two simultaneous developments. First, the boundaries among the cells have become
ever-so-slightly attenuated. We
have seen an interest in assuring the free movement of goods and people across
boundaries, for intellectual reasons.
And this has led to greater administrative awareness of the need to work
well with one’s neighboring cells.
And
second, again for intellectual reasons, we have seen new layers of organization
overlaid on top of the base layer of cells. Perhaps the best example is the graduate field system. Graduate fields of study are no longer
coextensive with undergraduate disciplines. And it is easy for fields to form and re-form, and for
faculty members to identify and disidentify from them. But there are so many others. The faculty of computing and
information science. Dozens and
dozens of centers, institutes, both within a single discipline and operating
across multiple disciplines.
So
what follows from these observations?
It is this. The addition of
multiple new layers of organization on top of a base layer of cell
specialization poses important questions about structure and governance. How do we make sure that all of the
different layers work well together?
How do we make sure that information flows efficiently through and
across layers? How do we make sure
that outsiders can know how best to engage the entire organism? How do we make sure that the base layer
cells aren’t crushed by the weight of the layers superimposed on top of them?
For
this, reason, in my Call to Engagement, I will be asking Cornellians to share
with me their thoughts and advice about the organization of the
university. I recognize that this
kind of question is more of a second-order question, somewhat different from
the set of first-order questions I posed yesterday. But these second-order questions are important. For they can
have an impact on how well faculty, students, and staff are able to achieve
their individual and institutional ambitions. And so I will welcome observations of the sort, “You know, I
never quite understood why X is part of Y.”
So how do I see the State of the University? Wonderful. Exceptionally talented people, assembled here and working together. It is a perfect time for us to think carefully and deliberately about how the university should evolve in the years to come.
