We shape and nurture our institutions. Our institutions shape us and shape our world.

Laura suggested that I talk about the specific aspects of GVSU that appealed to me as I took on this position.

The truth is that this is no secret. At every opportunity I get I talk about the very unique and strong bond between GVSU and the greater community. So, I am so thrilled to get this opportunity to elaborate on this with you. You play a key role in shaping and nurturing this relationship.

Let me first start with a few facts, a few of the accomplishments of this community, a few of the unmistakable signals that we have a healthy, purposeful, value-driven community.

A community who came together and created a university; through this it gave expression to its faith in the importance of human capital, in its commitment to education as a public value, in its belief in the importance of human inquiry and intellectual pursuits.

A community who values the balance between being and doing; a community that has the self-assurance and self-confidence to invest in the human development of its youth through a liberal education.

A community who understands that the best engineers, the best entrepreneurs, the best innovators are those who are driven by their humanity, their empathy, and their values and guided by their intellectual knowledge and practical know-how.

A community who fully appreciates its formative role. The fact that through its actions, its relationships, its investments, it is impressing itself upon the perceptions and imaginations of the people it touches.

This is a community who invested in the spaces that our students and our community members occupy, by filling these spaces with art and beauty; through these acts, it has been communicating respect, love, and faith in the occupants.

Every time I thought about this the list kept getting longer, and I kept looking for a framework that can capture or explain all the great things about this community and its university; until it hit me that this is what the political analyst Yuval Levin refers to when he talks about strong institutions. This suddenly gave me the vocabulary and the grammar to articulate what is special about this place and its people. The thesis of Levin is that for every nation, at any point in history, there is a direct and strong correlation between the strength and well-being of a nation and the strength of its institutions.

He defines institutions in the broad sense. Families are institutions. Schools are institutions. Government and all its branches are institutions. The media is an institution. Museums are institutions. The GVSU foundation is an institution. West Michigan community is an institution.

Institutions have a structure, values and traditions. They are moved by an ideal. They are capable of certain functions.

Obviously, one may or may not agree with the values and purpose of an institution. So, there are good institutions and bad institutions. Levine elaborates, not on their values, but on their effectiveness. He thus distinguishes between strong and weak and list many differences between strong and weak institutions. My favorite distinction is the fact that strong healthy institutions are formative weak institutions are performative.

Let me start with the latter. Levine attributes most of the ills of our society to the fact that our institutions have weakened and have become performative.

He gives the example of governmental institutions that have weakened. They transformed from spaces that changed anyone who joins them to spaces that provide a platform for their members to perform rehearsed acts, gain visibility and stardom, leave untouched and unchanged.

He makes the same argument about the media, television for example. TV press went from formative where its members grew and gained expertise and stature within the framework of the institution, changing it and being changed by it. Instead, what we have now is a celebrity performative culture. It is now often joined by members who seek attention and perform to get maximum attention.

Strong institutions, by contrast, are formative. They shape their members and leave an unmistakable imprint on them in terms of values, habits, norms, and behaviors.  They mold their members in a way that expresses their ideals and their aspirations. Strong formative institutions are enduring, self-perpetuating. They shape their members who then shape them and nurture them to preserve the same values and purpose.

These are the characteristics of this community, the characteristics of the GVSU foundation and of West Michigan community. When this community created a university rooted in liberal education, it defined the mold of a GVSU educated man or woman, as a man or woman of character who is fluent in math, science, and technology, and moved by beauty in all its forms and touched by the joys and suffering of other being. These graduates are our alumni who carry the same values and perpetuate empathy, sense of service, love of learning, and broad appreciation of what it means to be human, to live a full and fulfilling life.

When this community chose the site for its main campus, the natural setting was described as a land “the beauty of it could not be bought for a million dollars.” When it selected its first president, it chose a geologist. When it selected its fourth president, it chose a chemist who participated in the cleaning of the Valdez spill. In part through these choices, it shaped the university as a place of learning when the natural environment and the caring for this environment and its sustainability are high priorities. Through these decisions it formed a university recognized nationally for its educational, research, and practices geared towards sustainability. It formed a university with a nationally recognized center around water resources restauration. Through its educational and engagement programs, it is forming generations of graduates equipped with the scientific skills, the awareness and self-confidence to address the most critical issue of our times.

When late William Seidman, who had the privilege to be educated in Dartmouth, Harvard, and UM, looked at Grand Rapids, he loved the city and the region and wanted to gift the sons and daughters of West Michigan with the privileges and benefits of a quality education. When president after President Zumberge, Lubbers, Murray, Haas, and Mantella made access and equity a priority, they have continued to sharpen the identity of the university around it and serve as a thinktank for the region and the nation around effective ways to live this value. Every staff, every faculty member, every student, every community member who interacts with this institution is shaped and impacted by this focus.

Good and strong institutions like the Grand Rapids and the West Michigan Communities are formative. They have strong values, noble missions, and a formative impact on all their members; they create norms and habits; their members value the community, feel pride in it, and commit to it by investing time, money, and resources in perpetuating it.

I cannot be more honored to be called a member of this community, ready to embrace my role, ready to be formed by this community and to help perpetuate its values, its ideals, and its mission.