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Nature, of course, has its kindnesses for exactly this sort of thing. Fortunately, we have means of protecting ourselves rather effectively against our own failures to live up to our expectations. The most common cause of writer's block is having nothing to say, and yet all of us writers are inclined to interpret the blockage as a proof of kinship with the agony of genius. And just at the moment when our bodies splotch and wrinkle and engage in their own famous version of continental drift, our eyes go bad. Happily, it would seem, our capacity for self-observation and self-reflection is rarely any better than, and generally inferior to, our IQ. In all probability, therefore, I won't even know that you're thinking you've just heard "toffee."
I should also like to say something at the outset about the timing of this ceremony, since some of you may be thinking, given that I have been in the position for over eight months already, that I am a little like the guest who would never seem to leave - in my case, the president who never seems to begin. The reason we chose September rather than last April was to maximize both the chances of good weather and the distance from examinations (when everyone gets a little grouchy). I hope this beautiful day augurs well for our plans in the future.
Now, some things that need to be said today are absolutely clear. I want to acknowledge and express my love and affection for several people, beginning with my wife, Jean. Jean and I have been married for nearly 30 years. We have a strong relationship and are as devoted to each other as any couple I know. There is great joy in our family - and hard work. Jean and I have both spent so much time and effort in trying to improve each other you would think by this point we would each be quite extraordinary people. Alas, that is not the case. It is only fair that I acknowledge today that my taking this position imposes inevitably burdens on Jean, especially on her efforts to develop her own career as an artist. And so I say: For resisting a world that is too slow to catch up with our ideals of social fairness, I am deeply admiring. For patiently and graciously enduring some of what we cannot change, I am empathetic. And for voluntarily embracing with enthusiasm and elegance so many parts of my life, I am forever grateful.
I would like to recognize: Our children, Lee and Carey, and to say how each of them shines so brightly in our eyes and proves how your children's successes and capacities are so uniquely of their own making. My parents, Lee and Pat, who taught me that the essence of nurturing is self-sacrifice. And members of my family, two of my four brothers, Mark and his wife Debbie, and Brad; and my sister, Tami. Whenever I use the term family metaphorically, I think it derives from its highest form.
I would also like to recognize Jean's family: her father, Marco, who had he not chosen to be an extremely successful businessman, would have, I believe rivaled Bo Schembechler as a coach. Jean's brother, Marco, and his wife Sheila, with their children, Marco, Michael and Matthew. And Jean's sister, Patti, and her partner, John. And Jean's cousin, Paul. Jean's mother Darlene, who passed away a few years ago, remains a pervasive presence in all our lives, especially today.
Let me say to Bill Bolcom how honored I am by the Fanfare and recognize Nancy Cantor for all the outstanding qualities she brings to the position of Provost.
Finally, I would like to thank Harold and Vivian Shapiro for their presence here today, and in doing so, because time is so precious this morning, all of the other people and prior presidents responsible for this event. It was 10 years ago, in 1987, when I met Harold in what I believe, but am not completely sure, is the same office I now occupy. (One of the charms of the administration building; it provides a perpetual sense of disorientation.) I was meeting Harold as part of an interview process for the position of Dean of the Law School. I distinctly remember him asking me how I felt about the possibility of an administrative turn in my career, to which I distinctly remember answering something like "I don't really know." That, I guess, must have seemed in those disoriented quarters, like a pretty good answer. Fortunately for me, it turned out to be good enough, and I have been able to pursue a side of professional academic life that has been immensely fulfilling. It was once said of Frank Allen, who was dean of the law school here in late '60s and early '70s, and one of the foremost scholars of criminal law of our time, that the greatest crime he personally committed was to become a dean thereby making being a dean seem to others like a desirable goal in life. Harold too, is guilty of that crime.
I would like, in the brief moments I have today, to set forth several principles and an example, that I believe, ought to guide us and inform our choices in the years ahead. Some have general application to universities, all are specifically directed at Michigan. I have spoken about some of these matters before, but as I grow older, it seems I become more and more conscious of the virtues of repetition - at least with respect to deepening our understanding of core beliefs and values.
Here are the principles I recommend:
This special mentality is more than a posture of skepticism, more than a technique for discovering truth and less than an ideal way to live a whole life. The world of politics (and of life more generally) necessarily emphasizes commitment to beliefs rather than suspension of beliefs. This, too, has its virtues - of personal courage - and politics its enjoyment of openness to the unknown. But there is a very real difference of emphasis and degree, and one that matters. The university stands as a simple and hopefully helpful reminder to the political sphere that we must be continually wary of ideology and of the thin line separating commitment to belief and the totalitarian mind. As a living counter example, the university in its small way helps nurture a civic personality. It's also the case that we are not just of one mind on how to live a good life; in fact, we are of several minds, and sometimes we enjoy commitment and sometimes the suspension of belief. A good life should have several opportunities with different emphases and the university offers one.
The University of Michigan has been an epicenter of idealism especially in periods of deep social conflict in America. The eras of the 1930's and the Oxford Pledge and the 1960's and the anti-war movement all originated on this campus. Such periods of political passions will occur again and, when they do, the pressures on the University to commit itself in the political turmoil will be intense. It is wise that we say now that these pressures must be resisted, not because a Swiss-like neutrality is necessary to institutional survival, not because the university has no concern with politics of with political questions, and not because we in the university are uncaring about the consequences of political decisions. Rather it is because the special mentality of suspension of belief and constant exploration of complexity has itself a higher political and social significance, not least of which is to issue a continuous warning even for those who would grasp the standard of idealism and improve the society. For the ends we pursue do not inoculate us against the disease of intolerance.
To be a public university is to be bound by the U.S. Constitution. It is to be more rooted, emotionally, in a locale. It is to be committed, not as a matter of choice but rather of permanent commitment, to offering and to developing opportunities for access to education without regard to divisions of class, parentage, or social status. And, it is also concerned with providing students with access to an education arising from interaction with as many segments of American life as is possible. And it is, at least at a Michigan, determined to show that de Toqueville was wrong in believing that a democracy would not aspire to or achieve the highest levels of culture (in the best sense of the word) because ordinary citizens would not understand or appreciate it nor support that quest.
Publicness, I would add today, also is in need of special protections, even constitutional protections, and here Michigan offers a very helpful example. There has been a working principle in this country that academic institutions, even though they are supported by the state, should not be subjected to political interference, at least with respect to basic decisions about what to teach and what to research and on general matters of educational policy. But this idea has had difficulty making its way into law. Two points need to be stressed. One is that this working principle needs to be extended to other public institutions of culture (I am thinking specifically about the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities).
The other thought is that this working principle should be elevated to a first amendment requirement, providing public institutions of culture broadly with constitutional protections against political interference in the content of academic decisionmaking, even though the state provides funding for the institution. This is too large a topic for today, but the rationale for such a move lies in the democratic role played by universities which I also articulated in the first principle. I should say, too, that this constitutional idea is more than inchoate; a few cases intimate at the idea - and, interestingly, the Michigan Constitution, in specifically guaranteeing the University of Michigan autonomy from legislative interference, provides something of a model for the development of a national first amendment principle to similar effect.
When someone comes to us with an idea that seems good, our response should not be first and foremost what will it mean for our school, our department, or our group. Instead, there ought to be a generosity of spirit, a predisposition to assist, a university perspective at heart, and a sense of pride in helping make things happen without anyone having to know how it happened.
We must remember at all times that the very qualities we talk about and regard as at the core identity of a university - the sense of intellectual venturesomeness I referred to at the outset, the desire to nurture students, these qualities are not, and never will be, created by incentives. Incentives for these qualities are, indeed, the last gasp of an academic institution in trouble. A capitalist or free market economy has its own internal value system, good and appropriate for the production of goods and services. But it is not a value system coextensive with that in the academy. And, while there must be a system for allocating resources within the university, everything will depend upon the character of our administrators, who will be most successful if they operate as much as possible on a system of trust and cooperation and on a principle that we serve faculty and students best when what we do is invisible to the academic eye.
To make all of these principles concrete, I want to close with an example:
Arthur Miller wrote his first play during his sophomore year here while living at 411 North State Street. Coming from New York, with a poor high school record and even fewer funds, Michigan gave him the chance to prove himself and to join a student body as diverse, as "democratic," he says, as any in the country. Dedicated to exploring what he did not fully understand, he remained in Ann Arbor over spring break and, working day and night, wrote his first play in five days. In Timebends, his autobiography, he says that playwriting was, for him, "an act of self-discovery from the start," "a kind of license to say the unspeakable." He knew he "would never write anything good that did not somehow make me blush." He says: "From the beginning, writing meant freedom, a spreading of wings, and once I got the first inkling that others were reached by what I wrote, and assumption arose that some kind of public business was happening inside me, that what perplexed or moved me must move other." And, so, nurtured by his professors and an environment - most notably the Hopwood Awards - that valued creativity, Miller wrote, and then gave the play to a friend, whose family owned the house and who worked at the University theater. Through Jim's positive response, Arthur Miller realizes that he has seen and communicated something true, and he is impelled to run through the streets of Ann Arbor:
"Outside Ann Arbor was empty, still in the spell of spring vacation. I wanted to walk in the night, but it was impossible to keep from trotting. My thighs were as hard and strong as iron bars. I ran uphill to the deserted center of town, across the Law Quadrangle and down North University, my head in the stars. I had made Jim laugh and look at me as he never had before. The magical force of making marks on a piece of paper and reaching into another human being, making his see what I had seen and feel my feelings - I had made a new shadow on the earth."
This feeling of elation following achievement, of scratching the surface of our ignorance, at saying something true that makes us blush, may we wish that for each and every member of our community.
09-22-97
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