Mark A. Murray, President
Grand Valley State University
27 August 2004
Greetings to all assembled as we begin another academic year at Grand Valley State University. I offer a particular welcome to our freshmen--you begin a very important part of your lives in the days ahead.
You have already begun to meet new and interesting people with whom you will live and learn in the coming years. Your classes begin soon and you will work with many very thoughtful and challenging faculty members and instructors. You will be deciding in which student groups to participate.
There is so much learning ahead. You will learn more about who you are, what you value, and how you can make your life and the lives of those around you better in the years ahead.
You will not answer these very basic questions by yourself. Personal reflection will be essential, but so will friends and family, discussions with faculty, community service activities, internships and listening to new voices in open and respectful conversation.
I want to use my time today to offer a few thoughts for this conversation about what your college education will and should be.
My comments will focus on the changing economy and what it means for your education and about the issues of community that you will engage here at Grand Valley and in the years ahead.
First, a few thoughts about the economy. There is no doubt that the economic pressures that challenge so many businesses here in Michigan and the U.S. will continue and actually accelerate. The consumer is king in our economy, and there is a brutal and relentless pressure to serve the consumer better by reducing cost and improving service and quality in every sector of the economy. Trade barriers have been dropped, so there are enterprises all over the world ready to compete for this business. Pressures to cut costs and improve quality will be relentless. The complacent and unskilled will not flourish and may not even survive in this economy.
If we hope to maintain our collective standard of living, our state and country must stay leaders in innovation and productivity. And opportunities for such leadership abound. There is still so much to be discovered. Genetics, human behavior, materials science, hydrogen as a renewable energy source, and so many other fields will be rich in discovery in the years ahead. There are so many new products and services ahead that will improve our quality of life.
No matter what field you will work in -- engineering, health, education, social work, dance, accounting -- there will be meaningful changes in the best practices of that field in just the four years that you study here. Engineering in the fall of 2008 will be different than it is today, as will every other field. And if all these fields will change noticeably in the next four years, then the changes over your working lives -- the next 40 years -- are unimaginable. So what to do about this reality of a changing economy as it relates to your studies here at Grand Valley?
Most obviously, you will need to work hard to master the current state of knowledge in your chosen field. You will have to be a continuing learner in your field, and this grounding is essential for future learning. I also suggest you learn as much as you reasonably can about other fields as well. What may not immediately connect for you across disciplines will often prove later to be a useful connection.
A little less obvious, but central to your studies here at Grand Valley, is the fact that even in a rapidly changing economy, there are certain elements of learning that change very little. These elements will be the basis of your ability to keep up in your field. Among them are solid quantitative and verbal skills, the need to question the conventions of the day, the need to explore the new and different, the need for basic integrity and honesty, the value of curiosity, reaching out to hear what would otherwise be "missing voices," and an unwavering dedication to excellence.
These latter attributes are central to what is called a "liberal education" -- or maybe a better term today would be a "liberating education." They are central elements of how we think effectively, discover the new, and enter into rich dialogue about the issues of our common humanity. This "liberating education" gives us the tools to get to more basic truths about the problems and challenges of the day. We are better at everything when we are grounded in the skills to learn effectively.
This "liberating education" also frees us from so much of the noise, trends and fashions of the day. I'm afraid that the 24 hour media, and today's incessant commercial appeals have overwhelmed too many of us. We need to turn down the volume. This "liberating education" can help keep our thoughts, opinions and insights from being colonized by the latest fad.
Only a little of what appeared in a medical text of 1866 is still taught today, but there is still great value in a close study of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, written in the same year. Little of what appeared in a 1963 article on computers at home would mean much today, but Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" still brings great truth to any reader. Certain truths and certain ways of looking at problems endure.
The economy will change dramatically. Work hard to master the current knowledge of your chosen field, but also engage the opportunity before you at Grand Valley for a liberating education that gives skills for a lifetime of learning and contributing.
The other major topic I want to discuss relates to community.
Let me simply note that we are awash with cynicism, and far too many people are primarily engaged in tearing down rather than building up. I appeal to you to reject this pervasive cynicism. This cynicism is rooted in what the French philosopher Chantal Delsol has called the twin poisons of the day: narcissism and nihilism.
Narcissism -- takes its name from the ancient Greek story about Narcissus. So obviously, it is a long-standing challenge to the human condition. Narcissus was cursed to spend his time gazing into a pool of water in great admiration of the beauty reflected back at him. But of course he could never actually embrace that person because when he reached into the pool, the reflection disappeared. He could not stop staring at himself and eventually died there at the pool.
Narcissism is the tendency to measure the worth of everything based on ourselves. What is in it for me? While some time in focused self-reflection is essential, the pervasive self-absorption of the day is deadly. Keep your primary focus off the mirror. Keep it on those around you. Adopt a view on how you can best serve others. You will find so many opportunities before you here at Grand Valley if you keep your head up, your eyes open, and make contact with the people around you.
Narcissism's traveling partner -- nihilism -- is the belief that there are no enduring values, and that in the end nothing can really be known. It also destroys community. It condemns loyalties -- whether the loyalties are to people, to causes, to institutions or to ideals. Values are merely the imposed construction of whoever has enough power to impose their values. Nihilism corrodes community and the only call it has for us is to live without purpose.
I was in Chicago a few weeks ago and there was a magnificent set of photographs at Chicago's new Millennium Park. There were by Uwe Ommer. They show families from all over the world and draw us to celebrate the individuals and families pictured. Not surprisingly, most of the world's families have very few material resources, but there is great dignity in every family pictured.
The artist was explicit in saying that in doing this massive project -- over 1,000 families were photographed -- he was deliberately taking an optimistic perspective on the family. Join him. Reject the pessimism, the cynicism, the narcissism, the nihilism that is so pervasive in our day. Be an active builder of good, not an armchair critic of all that passes before you.
These photographs make clear that we share a common humanity, but we are different. We are individuals, but we are also members of groups. The most obvious group identities are gender and race. There are other important identities that are less easily discerned on the surface -- our religion, our politics, our wealth and income. One of the special challenges here at Grand Valley is to increase our intercultural dialogue -- to ensure that when a voice is missing from the table that we seek to be more inclusive -- to hear these missing voices. Look around. We're mostly a white institution. I am a member of the white male branch of the Grand Valley family. My work is better and different when I consciously listen to and interact with my colleagues who are members of different groups -- blacks, women, Hispanics, gays, immigrants. It is true for me; it is true for all of us.
We experienced this here as a community in the days following the attack of September 11th. One of our students -- I will not use her name -- was new on our campus on that terrible day. She is Malaysian and had arrived on campus only in recent days. She is a Muslim and at the time wore a veil around campus. You can imagine the sense of isolation she felt as so much discussion turned to Islamic terrorism. And you can be sure that most of us knew very little about the views and perspectives of Arab-Americans or of Muslims -- be they Arab or Asian as in her case.
We had a practical obligation to make sure that our colleague felt safe and comfortable. But we also knew that she and others of the Islamic community could provide a voice and perspective that was missing in our discussions. We knew so little. We were so enriched by her presence -- and it is a story with a good ending. She will graduate at the end of this semester.
I raise this story because of its importance in our community life, but also because it is emblematic of a very important issue here at Grand Valley. You and I must do better at ensuring that the voices of our African-American, Hispanic, and Asian colleagues are involved more fully in our life here. Those different voices and perspectives make us better.
There are good reasons for us to improve our intercultural work here at Grand Valley. The social and economic dominance of white males in our nation's life is past its peak and is waning. It will wane more in the decades ahead. Basic demographics assure us of that. Communications technology and the global economy ensure that the world will open wider in the years ahead. Our professional lives will involve working with more people from groups that have been outside the mainstream in past years. Globalization means we will also work more people from other nations.
So it makes sense to further improve our intercultural understandings, to continue to adjust our curriculum, to expand our activities and collaborations, to encourage more study abroad, and to do it as a basic part of our work. It is also important that every part of this organization accepts responsibility for improving its intercultural focus. We cannot rely on some other office or person or group to do it for us. We should do this because it will help us, but also because it is right. Every member of our community deserves full standing in our life here.
As we work in communities, as we strive to be builders and doers of good, we will benefit if we respect and understand our group identities. But in working, learning and living with each other, let us never forget that our individual identity and dignity trumps our group membership. We are all individuals.
It is the basis of our civil code -- due process and equality before the law -- for every individual. We govern ourselves by casting our personal vote -- and if I may digress for a second -- I strongly urge you to vote in the upcoming Presidential election. We have much at stake in this country over the coming four years. If you are not already registered, the Secretary of State will be registering voters on Monday and Tuesday on campus.
So part of who we are as individuals is our group identity, but above all we are each unique. We are all different and wonderfully made with a great spectrum of gifts, talents, and passions. It is to us as individuals that the challenges are given and the opportunities to do good abound.
And now we come back to where I began. Every one of us here today has a unique personal calling. That calling is found as we answer those initial questions: who am I, what do I value, and how will I make my life and the lives around me better in the years ahead. Answer those questions and you will have your calling -- you will be able to unleash your passion. As the writer Louis Lavelle reminds us, "the difficulty lies not so much in fulfilling it as in discovering it."
We have great talents -- some known, some yet to be developed by learning and practice. We have communities in great need. We need great teachers. We need creative engineers and business leaders to keep us competitive. We need great artists. We need social workers of great judgment, empathy and wisdom. We need the most skilled health workers.
Individuals of great talent. Communities in great need. What an opportunity to find better matches in the years ahead!
In the years ahead, through study, dialogue, work and community action, I hope each of you will find and develop that passion, that calling that is uniquely yours, and that is worthy of filling your being to capacity.
This academic year marks the next phase of our journeys. It begins today.
I pledge to spend this year making our community better -- helping to strengthen our professional programs, and our liberal education -- helping to further our intercultural work -- and helping ensure an environment where every one of us can find new ways to express our unique gifts and talents.
I hope you will make a similar pledge -- to be a builder of the good among us. In that way we can go forward together.
I look forward to working and learning with all of you in the year before us.
