Alan G. Merten
April 4, 1997

Governor Allen, Senator Robb, Secretary Sgro, Attorney General Gilmore, Rector Murray, Members of the Board of Visitors, George Mason Medal recipients, faculty, students, staff, representatives of colleges and universities and learned societies, and in particular Presidents Dykstra, Krug, and Johnson, family, and friends.

Thank you for being here today; for taking part in this day that is important not only for me, but for the George Mason University community and, in a larger sense, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the National Capital area. All of us are connected by the shared hope that our children and our communities prosper; those of us formally involved in higher education have a specific mandate to be leaders in creating the future. Personally, I am humbled by the responsibilities that this implies.

Today, more than most days, I'm faced with a dilemma--a dilemma best expressed in the words of E.B. White when he said: "I wake up every morning determined both to change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day a little difficult."

As I formally take office and face the challenges before us, I am excited and optimistic. I take on these tasks with special delight, for I think that being president of this university is a great gift. As I am sure is the case for 99 percent of all university presidents, I did not enter a Ph.D. program or join academia because I wanted to be a university president. I chose academic life because I wanted to be a teacher and a researcher. I wanted to create new ideas and I wanted to help people learn new things. I loved being a professor. To this day, one of my biggest thrills is when I see or hear from a former student and am told that I made a positive difference in the life of that person. What a rush!

Why, then, did I become an administrator? In my case, and I expect this is true for most others, it was because I believe in higher education. I am committed to building higher education institutions and helping make it possible for faculty to excel in their teaching and in their research. For if the faculty excel, then our students, our communities, and societies are the beneficiaries.

For the next few moments, while not necessarily changing the world, I would like to talk about things that have changed and are changing our world. These are some of the uncertainties in the closing moments of the 20th century; the role of university leaders; the future of our institution; and the opportunities that lie before us. If this sounds like an attempt to paint a vision, please know it is, at best, one that only now is beginning to come into focus.

Our world, it seems to me, is uncertain and our future unpredictable in a way not experienced or even expected by earlier generations. Our parents and grandparents were subject to the vagaries of disease and war, but as a society, they shared a common perception of what it meant to be an American and what defined the American dream. Today, our society struggles to find consensus amid a myriad of alternative possibilities.

But uncertainty, while discomforting, is in itself neither good nor bad. If we no longer have guarantees, we do have extraordinary options. I think back to my undergraduate days and recall how secure things seemed to me. My program of study was all laid out. I knew if I passed my classes and earned my degree, the chances of my securing a decent job were good. That job, of course, would be in one of a few clearly defined fields. And once employed, my future was set so long as I continued to apply myself and work hard. What could be more straightforward?

Yet here we all stand at the close of the 20th century, not much more than 30 years since my freshman year, and the contrast between my situation and what students experience today is striking.

Our students face a world where there are no guarantees--but there are infinitely more possibilities. Today, getting good grades and earning a degree do not lead automatically to employment. And even if one does secure a job, there is no guarantee that it will last. Today's students may well have not just five different jobs, but five different careers in their working life. Most of those career choices did not even exist when I left college. What is a university's responsibility to its students in this environment? First, we need to ensure that our students graduate with a realistic assessment of themselves, their strengths and weaknesses. If they are to take advantage of the fluid environment in which they'll be working, then they need to be able to constantly rate and build upon their capabilities.

Second, they need the ability to discriminate and evaluate. Never before have we as individuals been presented with such a vast sea of information--the Internet, a possible 500 cable channels, and more books and magazines than anyone could read in a life time. The ability to think critically--the traditional goal of a college education--was never more crucial.

Third, while we will not back away from our commitment to providing our students with a broad education and a specific field of expertise, we need to recognize our responsibility to help them develop the skills necessary for success. Too often universities have had a laissez faire attitude towards skills, even claiming that we had neither the time nor resources for so mundane a task.

One of the innovative teaching practices I see George Mason faculty adopting is the incorporation of skills into the student's overall learning experience. So, while taking classes in English literature or nursing, students are working in teams, learning to communicate through e-mail, doing research through the Internet, and presenting proposals--all valuable career skills. This combination of intellectual content and practical capabilities should give our students the ability to not just survive, but thrive as they navigate the changing world of work.

But universities also have a responsibility that transcends concerns about careers. We as human beings will face an increasing amount of pressure over the next 50 years. The pressures will come from technology, the integration and globalization of just about everything we encounter, the large number of poor people on the planet, and the fact that our own country will be much more crowded and will undergo a profound identity change as what we now call minorities become more than half the population.

Universities will need to help people better understand the full extent of what it means to be human. We will need to help people locate themselves in the streams of human thought, action, and achievement.

And this brings me to George Mason University. In his inauguration speech in 1979, George Johnson said, "As newcomers always are, I have often been asked what brought me to this university. I first answered in terms of its promise and potential."

Not surprisingly, I also have been asked that same question. I also say that it is the promise and potential of George Mason. But now, George Mason has more than a future; it has a past marked by significant achievements and a dynamic present. From the founding of the Northern Virginia Center of the University of Virginia in 1949, through the founding of George Mason University in 1972, and up until today, we have made a difference.

Our past successes and the foundation on which we build are the work of many people. In particular, George Mason has benefitted from inspired leadership: John Finley, Robert Reid, Lorin Thompson, with us today, Vergil Dykstra, Robert Krug, and George Johnson. Our unprecedented growth and our ever-expanding national and international reputation are because of you. You gave us the vision and you assembled the teams of dedicated educators and workers, the money, and the property that turned that vision into the reality we now see around us.

These people, and the many that worked with them, carried the torch that was lit by the man whose name our institution bears: George Mason, a farmer that Thomas Jefferson called "a man of the first order of wisdom among those who acted on the theatre of the revolution, of expansive mind, profound judgement, cogent in argument..."; and of whom Jefferson later wrote, "The fact is unquestionable, that the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of Virginia, were drawn originally by George Mason, one of our really great men."

Nearly 150 years after that statement, another visionary and statesman, Harry Truman, echoed the words of Jefferson: "Too few Americans realize the vast debt we owe George Mason. His immortal Declaration of Rights in 1776 was one of the finest and loftiest creations ever struck from the mind of man.... That is why I say that George Mason will forever hold a special place in our hearts."

In my lifetime, I have witnessed the great words and thoughts of George Mason being challenged and undermined. In the 1950s, as a young boy watching the McCarthy hearings on television I saw basic civility abused in a way I had never imagined. Grown men interrupting and sometimes shouting down others, not allowing their voices to be heard or their ideas to be expressed. Initially, I did not know if I agreed with Senator McCarthy or with the witnesses before him, but why did he seem so afraid to at least listen to what those testifying had to say?

During the 1960s I witnessed much anger and uncertainty as a student at Stanford University and, later, at the University of Wisconsin. One of my most vivid memories is of people who refused to let others express their views. While I did not know the answers to the dilemmas that our country faced, I could not understand why I was not allowed to hear both sides of the argument.

In 1974, I lived with my wife, Sally, and our two children in Hungary. I remember having discussions with Hungarian friends on political matters only when we were outside away from others and from any hidden microphones. We were warned that our apartment was bugged. On a lighter note, I felt sorry for the poor souls in the government who, in search of anti-communist plots had to listen to the conversations of five-year-old Eric and two-year-old Melissa.

Freedom of expression is fundamental to all that we value in the United States. Today is the anniversary of the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated, killed because he had a message that some of us did not want to hear. I remember the anger and sense of betrayal I felt when I heard the announcement. As a nation, we cannot afford to silence the voices that shake us--we lose too much. And of all society's institutions, it is the university that must advocate the expression of alternative views, and teach and encourage all--students, faculty and staff--to listen to what others are saying. As president, I am committed to promote and defend this legacy of George Mason.

I find the parallel between George Mason, the man, and George Mason, the university, to be a source of enlightenment and encouragement. He was from Northern Virginia and his early writings and political activities were focused on making Northern Virginia a better place to live and work. Soon his influence spread throughout Virginia and the colonies. His global influence is evident in the portions of the French constitution that draw upon our Bill of Rights. So, too, George Mason University, with its roots in Northern Virginia, now operates and is recognized globally.

Yet our institution is very young, only 25 years of age as an independent university. One of the advantages of youth, the circumstances of its development, and the decisions of its leaders, is the fact that we have remained focused as we established specific programs, faculties, and activities, unlike many other universities that have attempted to maintain a broader range of offerings.

As we move forward, it is important that we focus our resources even more tightly than we have in the past. Faculty entrepreneurship at George Mason has facilitated the creation of innovative organizations, programs, and outreach activities. Sometimes, however, it created activities that did not live up to expectations or whose time has passed. We must now, at all levels of the university, have the courage to eliminate these units or merge them into more productive entities. Our entrepreneurial spirit has often unintentionally led to the belief that orderly growth and, more importantly, innovation, is very difficult to achieve in existing units. New ideas have often been removed from these units for what at the time seemed to be the right reason, but their removal has often had unintended negative consequences. Innovation cannot be restricted to new organizations; it must be the responsibility of all of our faculty.

We are in the midst of identifying the areas on which we will build our future through a planning process and many other discussions and debates. I, along with the other leaders of George Mason, will make choices. Let me share with you some of my criteria for identifying our areas of focus; criteria that I wish to outline in the form of questions.

First, we will ask whether we can articulate a plan for an area of interest that truly connects research, teaching, and outreach activities? Too often universities invest in areas where only one or two of these activities are present. But to earn the title of "excellent," our institution must do all three. Only by tightly coupling research by our faculty with innovative teaching, and with strong partnerships with those outside the university, can our institution truly make a difference. This measure will also help us define where we should invest our energies in the external community.

Second, are we or can we, with minimal investment of additional resources, be world-class in an area? The evaluation of this will not be made only by us, but will also employ the thought and assessment of outsiders.

Third, do our activities in an area have a major impact on our region and our community or are there unique and/or substantial resources in our region that we can draw upon to elevate us to world-class status? And make no mistake, by "community," I mean not only Northern Virginia, but the entire Commonwealth of Virginia and the National Capital area, including the District of Columbia. No longer can universities and colleges afford to follow the 19th-century model that promoted isolation and detachment from the world. What we choose to do at George Mason will support and be compatible with the thrusts of our neighbors and constituencies.

Fourth, do we have the track record and the commitment of faculty and others to identify and pursue a substantial base of financial support for an activity? We cannot afford to make commitments to a new initiative until we know the source of the financial support. Support will include funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia, foundations, corporations, the federal government, alumni, and friends.

As Lorin Thompson said in 1972, "We must look to those areas which perhaps should be strengthened, to those in which the emphasis should be diminished, and particularly to the ways in which the various areas of knowledge may be interrelated. We must explore new ways to provide our students with a more balanced preparation for meeting the only thing which is constant in the future, namely change." What was true in 1972 is even more the reality today. I look back at my own life and recall the year 1961 when, as a result of coincidence, luck, and a little intelligence and courage, I had my first encounter with a computer. As a junior in college at the University of Wisconsin, I was the night operator on a large (for its time) computer. Even in those heady, early days, we who were associated with those "electronic brains" knew we were part of something revolutionary. We even had some grasp as to what it meant to see hundreds of thousands of computations being performed in less time than it took for us to take our hand off the switch that initiated the computations. We saw that this powerful tool could be used by people from many disciplines, including the physical sciences, the natural sciences, medicine, and business. We saw that if you instructed the electronic brain to do the wrong thing, it did it with incredible speed, proving that this device could equally well be referred to as an electronic moron.

The realization that this powerful tool could do as much good as harm, depending upon how it was used, reinforced what my father--a proud and hardworking shoe repairman--taught me. At times, when he was removing a worn sole from a shoe, he would cut himself. He used these occasions to point out that "any knife sharp enough to help you was sharp enough to cut you." My father was a craftsman who knew that our tools, regardless of their level of sophistication, were only as effective and useful as the person who programmed or operated them.

Of course, the 36 years since my nights at the University of Wisconsin have brought tremendous advances in all aspects of information technology. Not only do we do things faster than we ever imagined, but now there are things we do that are not possible without these machines.

All of this has had an incredible impact on education. It has also had a tremendous impact on my view of the future of education, and, in particular, higher education and George Mason University.

I strongly believe that it is essential that we be on the leading edge in the use of information technologies in our teaching and learning activities, in our knowledge generation and knowledge application activities, and in the administration of our people, money, facilities, and partnerships. All areas of the university must use these tools to dramatically improve our effectiveness and efficiency. The challenge of making the best use of technology is exciting because of the great good that can result if we are successful. The trick will be for us not to let the technology control us, or dictate the decisions we make.

We must also do what is necessary to ensure that all of our students acquire the knowledge and skills to be innovators in the use of these technologies. If we do not, we will limit their access to information and their ability to communicate. We will have done them a great injustice.

At George Mason University we are uniquely positioned academically and located geographically to be world leaders in our use of information technologies. Back when I first encountered computers, we in the academic world were the source of most of the innovation. Today, innovation comes just as often from other organizations, many of which are literally our neighbors in the National Capital area. It is our responsibility to harness the strengths of the entities around us to help us reach the goal of being the leader in the use of information technology.

From my perspective as a computer scientist and educator, I do not agree with the predictions that information technology, the Internet and its successors will make higher education institutions irrelevant. There is no doubt these factors will dramatically change our institutions of higher learning. They already have in many cases. But I strongly believe that the richest form of learning and communicating also requires significant face-to-face human interaction, the sort that occurs both among students and between students and teacher together in the same space. Our success as educators will be determined by how good we are at combining the high tech with the high touch, the electronic with the "in person."

Just as President Truman once called upon all Americans to hold George Mason in their hearts for his vision and unshakable commitment to freedom and human rights, it is my hope that George Mason University can hold a special place in the hearts of all of us in this arena.

To those of you here today representing other institutions of higher education and learned societies, I hope that George Mason University will grow in its reputation and in its contributions to our system of education and learning in the world. To my long-time friends, I hope that as of today, you will be forever part of the George Mason community. To our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends, I hope that you will strengthen your resolve to both contribute to and benefit from this incredible institution of ours. For it is with each of our efforts that we will create the future of George Mason University.

To the members of the staff, administration, and faculty who made all of the speeches, activities, and events associated with this celebration possible, I offer my appreciation. Finally, to my family, I offer gratitude that comes from the deepest part of my heart. You continue to be my inspiration. I hope that I will continue to be worthy of the gifts you give me each day.

And now we return to the personal dilemma proposed by E.B. White. Shall we allocate the rest of the day to changing the world or to having one hell of a good time? The good news is that in the simplest sense, we do not have to make a choice. We can follow the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which he gives us in his definition of success:

What is success? "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

Thank you for all of your support and expressions of good will. I wish you all the same as you change the world and have a good time doing it. Thank you.

Alan G. Merten
April 4, 1997