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I N S T A L L A T I O N
O F T H E 1 9 T H P R E S I D E
N T Friday, September 28, 2001, Front lawn of Nassau Hall
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Dear Shirley, I have been asked to say a few words of greeting on behalf of your faculty and your professional research, technical, and library staffs. This is an easy and most pleasant assignment, because of the warmth and depth of enthusiasm with which we wholeheartedly welcome you to your new position and responsibilities. You have been one of us for many years. We know that you, too, believe that in a university whose mission is the creation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge, having the very most capable people on your staffs is a prerequisite for success. We know that you will encourage us and prod us to build on our strengths and address our weaknesses. You will help us to attract the best and brightest students to come here to study, grow, and engage with us in the intellectual pursuits of research and scholarship. I know, first hand, something about the personal sacrifices you have made in agreeing to take on your new role at Princeton. We are asking you now to be the leader of our institution, and of the people that comprise it. I know how much more difficult these tasks can be than the science that you and I have practiced and taught for most of our adult lives -- more difficult, I am sure, than the scholarly pursuits of all of those on whose behalf I am speaking. You will yearn on occasion to have again the opportunity to bury yourself in your lab for eighteen hours a day, engaged with your colleagues and students in the pursuit of some long-unsolved problem in mammalian genetics. We hope and trust that you will still be able to find, from time to time, opportunities to spend your weekend with nothing to read but the latest issues of Nature Genetics, Molecular Cell Biology, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We welcome you so warmly because we are confident you will show the same qualities of wisdom, humanity, and willingness to tackle tough problems that you have shown us for so many years as a scientist and teacher. You have had a great impact on this University; we all work in a better place because of things you have accomplished while among us. We look forward to many fruitful years of working together with you in the nation's service, and in the service of all nations. For myself, I only ask that some time, in the not too distant future, you allow me the satisfaction of arriving at work before you do in the morning.
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