Discovery and Discourse, Leadership and Service:
The Role of the Academy in Times of Crisis
Faculty, students, staff, trustees, alumni and neighbors
of Princeton University, distinguished guests, family and
friends:
It is a deep honor for me to assume the office of 19th
President of this great university. I accept with both
eagerness and humility, knowing full well that I follow in
the footsteps of predecessors who have provided Princeton
with extraordinary leadership over the past century.
Presidents Goheen, Bowen and Shapiro, all of whom are
present to witness this beginning of a new presidency, have
provided us with a legacy that is envied in all quarters of
higher education, a legacy that we will cherish and protect,
but also one that we will use as a strong foundation on
which to build our future.
Our vision of that future was forever changed by the
tragic events of September 11 at the World Trade Center, the
Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. In the aftermath of
those events, I modified the address that I had been writing
in order to speak with you about what is foremost on my
mind. President Bush, in his address to a joint session of
Congress last week, declared war on international terrorism,
a war whose form and outcome are difficult to imagine. Given
the enormous challenges and the uncertainty that lie ahead,
what is the proper role of the academy during this crisis
and in the national debate we are sure to have? How can we
contribute as this great country seeks the honorable path to
worldwide justice and to peace?
Today the academy holds a highly privileged place in
American society because of a long-standing national
consensus about the value of education. Another of my
predecessors, President Harold Dodds, said in his inaugural
address in 1933 that "No country spends money for education,
public and private, so lavishly as does the United States.
Americans have an almost childlike faith in what formal
education can do for them." That faith is based on a
conviction that the vitality of the United States, its
creative and diverse cultural life, its staggeringly
inventive economy, its national security and the robustness
of its democratic institutions owe much to the quality of
its institutions of higher education. The spirit of
democracy is now reflected more than ever in our educational
system, with opportunities open to students of all stripes,
from 18-year-old freshmen to senior citizens; from students
given every imaginable advantage by their parents to
students who spent their childhoods living on the streets;
from the New Jersey-born to students from around the globe;
from students who were ignited by learning from the first
day of primary school to high school drop outs who came to
formal education through the school of hard knocks. If you
will forgive a biologist the impulse to use a scientific
metaphor, the American educational landscape is like a
complex ecosystem, full of varied niches in which a rich
diversity of organisms grow and thrive.
Our society's confidence in its institutions of higher
education is expressed through the generous investments of
the federal and state governments in basic and applied
research, investments that wisely couple support for
research with support for graduate education. It is also
expressed through federal and state investments that
subsidize the cost of higher education for those who cannot
afford to pay, investments by private foundations and
charities who see colleges and universities as the best
routes for achieving their strategic goals, and investments
by individuals and by the private sector, who see
universities as the incubators of future health and
prosperity. In return for this broad support, society
rightfully expects certain things from us. It expects the
generation of new ideas and the discovery of new knowledge,
the exploration of complex issues in an open and collegial
manner and the preparation of the next generation of
citizens and leaders. In times of trouble, it is especially
important that we live up to these expectations.
The medieval image of the university as an ivory tower,
with scholars turned inward in solitary contemplation,
immunized from the cares of the day, is an image that has
been superseded by the modern university constructed not of
ivory, but of a highly porous material, one that allows free
diffusion in both directions. The academy is of the world,
not apart from it. Its ideals, crafted over many
generations, are meant to suffuse the national
consciousness. Its scholars and teachers are meant to move
in and out of the academy in pursuit of opportunities to use
their expertise in public service, in pursuit of creative
work that will give us illumination and insight and in
pursuit of ways to turn laboratory discoveries into useful
things. Our students engage the world with a strong sense of
civic responsibility, and when they graduate they become
alumni who do the same. This is as it should be.
Yet the complex interplay between society and the academy
also creates a tension, because the search for new ideas and
knowledge is not and cannot be motivated by utilitarian
concerns. Rather it depends on the ability to think in new
and creative ways, to challenge prevailing orthodoxies, to
depart from the status quo. We must continually strive to
preserve the freedom of our students and our scholars to
pursue ideas that conflict with what we believe or what we
would like to believe, and to explore deep problems whose
solutions have no apparent applications. This is not a
privilege we grant to a handful of pampered intellectuals;
rather it is a defining feature of our society and an
essential investment in the continuing strength of our
character, our culture, our ideas and our material lives.
When the Nobel laureate John Nash developed the mathematical
concepts underlying non-cooperative game theory as a
graduate student at Princeton, he could not foresee that
those concepts would be used today to analyze election
strategies and the causes of war and to make predictions
about how people will act. When Professor of Molecular
Biology Eric Wieschaus set out as a young scientist to
identify genes that pattern the body plan of the fruit fly
embryo, he could not know that he would identify genes that
play a central role in the development of human cancer. We
have learned that we cannot predict with any accuracy how
discoveries and scholarship will influence future
generations. We also have learned that it is unwise to
search only in predictable places, for new knowledge often
depends upon preparing fertile ground in obscure places
where serendipity and good luck, as well as deep
intelligence, can sprout. Freedom of inquiry, which is one
of our most cherished organizing principles, is not just a
moral imperative, it is a practical necessity.
Just as we have an obligation to search widely for
knowledge, so we also have an obligation to insure that the
scholarly work of the academy is widely disseminated, so
that others can correct it when necessary, or build on it,
or use it to make better decisions, develop better products
or construct better plans. In the days ahead, I hope that
our country's decision makers will draw on the knowledge
that resides on our campuses, on historians who can inform
the present through deep understanding of the past,
philosophers who can provide frameworks for working through
issues of right and wrong, economists whose insights can
help to get the economy back on track, engineers who know
how to build safer buildings, scientists who can analyze our
vulnerabilities to future attack and develop strategies for
reducing those vulnerabilities, and scholars in many fields
who can help them understand the motivations of those who
would commit acts of terrorism here and throughout the
world.
American universities have been granted broad latitude
not only to disseminate knowledge, but to be the home of
free exchange of ideas, where even the rights of those who
express views repugnant to the majority are vigorously
protected. Defending academic freedom of speech is not
particularly difficult in times of peace and prosperity. It
is in times of national crisis that our true commitment to
freedom of speech and thought is tested. History will judge
us in the weeks and months ahead by our capacity to sustain
civil discourse in the face of deep disagreement, for we are
certain to disagree with one another. We will disagree about
how best to hold accountable those responsible for the
attacks of September 11. We will disagree about how broadly
the blame should be shared. We will disagree about the ways
in which nationalism and religion can be perverted into
fanaticism. We will disagree about whether a just
retribution can be achieved if it leads to the deaths of
more innocent victims. We will disagree about the political
and tactical decisions that our government will make, both
in achieving retribution and in seeking to protect against
similar attacks in the future. We will disagree about how
and when to wage war and how best to achieve a real and
lasting peace.
The conversations we will have on our campuses are not
intended to reach a conformity of view, a bland regression
to the mean. Rather we aim to come to a deeper appreciation
and understanding of the complexity of human affairs and of
the implications of the choices we make. Perhaps, if we are
very dedicated, we will find the wisdom to see an honorable,
yet effective, path to a world in which terrorism is a thing
of the past. With generosity of spirit and mutual respect,
we must listen carefully to one another, and speak with our
minds and our hearts, guided by the principles we hold dear.
By conducting difficult discussions without prejudice or
anger, by standing together for tolerance, civil liberties
and the right to dissent, by holding firm to core principles
of justice and freedom and human dignity, this university
will serve our country well. By so doing, we will be true
patriots.
Let me now turn to the third obligation that we have to
society: the education of the next generation of citizens
and leaders. Princeton's view of what constitutes a liberal
arts education was expressed well by Woodrow Wilson, our
13th President, whose eloquent words I read at Opening
Exercises:
"What we should seek to impart in our colleges,
therefore, is not so much learning itself as the spirit
of learning. It consists in the power to distinguish good
reasoning from bad, in the power to digest and interpret
evidence, in the habit of catholic observation and a
preference for the non partisan point of view, in an
addiction to clear and logical processes of thought and
yet an instinctive desire to interpret rather than to
stick to the letter of reasoning, in a taste for
knowledge and a deep respect for the integrity of the
human mind."
Wilson, and the presidents who followed him, rejected the
narrow idea of a liberal arts education as preparation for a
profession. While understanding the importance of
professional education, they made it clear that at Princeton
we should first and foremost cultivate the qualities of
thought and discernment in our students, in the belief that
this will be most conducive to the health of our society.
Thus we distinguish between the acquisition of information,
something that is essential for professional training, and
the development of habits of mind that can be applied in any
profession. Consequently we celebrate when the classics
scholar goes to medical school, the physicist becomes a
member of Congress, or the historian teaches primary school.
If we do our job well as educators, each of our students
will take from a Princeton education a respect and
appreciation for ideas and values, intellectual openness and
rigor, practice in civil discourse and a sense of civic
responsibility. During these troubled times, our students
and our alumni will be called upon to exercise these
qualities in their professions, their communities and their
daily lives. By so doing, and through their leadership,
their vision and their courage, they will help to fulfill
Princeton's obligation to society and bring true meaning to
our motto, "Princeton in the nation's service and in the
service of all nations."
Thank you.
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