President's Response
Steven G. Poskanzer, president, Carleton College
Saturday, September 25, 2010
The 14th century nobleman Geoffroi de Charny left a detailed account of the ornate ceremony by which a medieval squire became a knight. On the eve of the knighting, the squire would make his confession, repenting of all sins. He would take a ritual bath, cleansing himself of impurities and dishonorable ways. He would then lie in a new bed with clean white sheets, signifying repose and a clear conscience. Arising from bed, he would be dressed in new white linen, overlaid with a red tunic and red cloak, symbolizing his willingness to shed his blood for his faith and his lord. He would don black hose, symbolizing man’s origin from—and inevitable return to—the earth. Thus attired, the squire would enter the chapel, and spend the entire night in a vigil of prayer, meditating on the duties he was about to assume.[1]
So…in a rather delicious series of ironies that draw upon the medieval lineage of colleges—here I stand….in the Chapel, about to become officially a Carleton Knight. I am indeed cloaked in red (I assume that Harvard’s crimson qualifies!), and shod in hose—my socks and shoes—of the requisite black. I shall not diminish the grandeur of this occasion by discussing the color or cut of my undergarments…and I leave it to my family and former colleagues to assess whether I could ever fully make amends for past transgressions. I did not spend last night in a vigil, but I did stay awake worrying how these remarks would be received, the logistics of the weekend—and of course my ever-present obsession about how to give the very best care to Carleton. And thus, while I hardly consider myself a cavalier, I do pledge to act in a chivalrous and honorable way, and to be utterly devoted to Carleton College. With humility and great excitement about what we shall achieve together, with deep thanks to the Board of Trustees for reposing their trust in me, and to the search committee before them for selecting me, I joyfully take up my new post.
Since I have begun with expressions of gratitude, I trust you will permit me to make just a few more acknowledgements before turning to some observations about the characteristics that make Carleton so special—and are important for us to nurture. I begin with my two most cherished teachers.
Sitting in the ranks of delegates, in the regalia of his three-time alma mater the University of Michigan, is my father, Professor Charles Poskanzer. Dad, you showed me how the most fulfilling part of a life in academe is guiding one’s current and former students. You are my touchstone of honor and class. And you embody our family’s saga of education as the lever to a better life. My grandfather, ordained as a rabbi, came to America from Lithuania. If you looked at his bank balance, you might have concluded he was a failure. Not so. For his passion for education inspired both you and your brother to go to college and to become university teachers. You in turn inspired me to work in our “family business” of higher education. This is the most important calling I know. I always seek to be the kind of man that you are, and to follow your lead. But today you must accept that Carleton’s maize and blue is as central to our family as your Ann Arbor colors!
My father’s favorite word is “mentor,” and this assembly now knows how blessed I am to have Hugo Sonnenschein as my model of intellectual honesty, vision and integrity. From you, Hugo, I learned always to do what was right for my College over the long term—an obligation that sounds simpler than it really is. You taught me how to make my passion a strength, and your faith in me and generous guidance have been my beacon.
This weekend’s moving ceremonies and joyous festivities are the fruit of wise planning at breakneck speed by an Inauguration Committee chaired by Clara Hardy of our Classics Department. In a span of only nine weeks, this group—including the estimable team of Kerry Raadt and Melissa Thomas—made magic out of potential mayhem. Today this Chapel is filled with ex-roommates who are really brothers; former comrades from Penn, Princeton, Chicago—and especially New Paltz—who went through fire and water beside me; and rows of friends whose nation-crossing loyalty I shall be hard pressed to match.
I am especially honored today by the presence of three former Carleton Presidents who have generously shared their counsel with me: Bob Edwards, who drove Carleton’s national visibility to new heights, dramatically raised our admissions profile, and left a College more expansive in spirit; Steve Lewis, whose passion for excellence raised our sights, engaged our alumni as never before, and nurtured a culture of shared goodwill; and the singularly gracious Rob Oden, who strengthened and expanded our faculty, significantly increased the ranks of international students, and raised $300 million for Carleton. I shall strive to build on their legacies.
But my deepest thanks go to my wife, Jane, and our children, Jill and Craig. The three of you have somehow, selflessly, understood and supported me as I have tried to make an extraordinary life for us all. Here at Carleton, in vibrant and welcoming Northfield, our shared dreams come true.
My thanks blend with eager anticipation as I scan the ranks of my new faculty and staff colleagues, and especially the Carleton students from whom I shall learn. We shall do great and important work together, and we shall find joy in doing so. Paraphrasing the traditional welcome of my predecessor Larry Gould to incoming classes, it is a rare privilege to be a part of Carleton, and you take on special responsibilities when Carleton becomes a part of you.[2]
Our overarching, joint responsibility is to ensure that this remarkable residential liberal arts college grows stronger and remains true to its best self during our stewardship. Yesterday, in my Convocation Address, I spoke about the enduring vitality of the liberal arts. I began a dialogue —the metaphor I employed was of setting a prairie fire—that I am confident will lead to Carleton’s continued cycle of healthy renewal and a next generation of energized focus on academic quality. Collaboratively, collectively, we shall craft and carry out a strategic plan that lets Carleton achieve its top priorities.
I want to talk more briefly today about the roots of my confidence, my certainty, in Carleton—roots that are as securely fastened as those of the oak trees, grasses and wildflowers in the soil of the neighboring savanna. From my vantage points out east and in Illinois, I knew of and I admired Carleton’s nonnegotiable commitment to quality. I understood that at this College the pursuit of excellence was part of the DNA. But over the course of the presidential search and my initial weeks on campus, I am gaining greater context and clarity. My appreciation for Carleton’s distinctive assets grows and promises to blossom further.
Let me share with you some of what I am learning and seeing, some of my most welcome discoveries, as I steep myself in the culture of this College.
I am struck by a passionate parallel. The words Carleton faculty use to describe what they find most meaningful: “the opportunity to work with serious and sincere students” are precisely the same words Carleton students use describe what matters most to them: “the opportunity to work with serious and sincere teachers.” So our students are indisputably at the center of our work. As at other great liberal arts colleges, scholarship matters at Carleton. It is a hallmark of quality and adds to the world’s storehouse of knowledge. More fundamentally though, the need for deeper understanding animates our faculty and becomes a well-spring of continued great instruction. A particularly admirable feature of our culture is how hard Carleton faculty strive to become and then to stay master teachers.
Carleton faculty and students’ shared commitment to learning together helps explain why so many of our graduates pursue doctoral degrees and remain in close contact with their mentors. And this community also generates unusually deep ties between students and staff. In part because so many of our students work on campus, supervisors and co-workers in administrative offices, in the Library and Rec Center, and on grounds crews also become cherished guides and friends. They, too, are “must see” stops when alumni return to campus. What a powerful demonstration of how important it is for the College to support and honor these key colleagues.
I am also quickly coming to see how Carleton students are distinctive—they share a genuine curiosity and a conscientious willingness to engage with ideas. They are friendly and spirited. They are devastatingly witty. They are eager to be multi-dimensional even if it leads them in surprising directions—and they accept similar brilliant quirkiness in their peers. They also truly expect to like their college experience. All of this carries them several steps away from smart, focused and hard-charging resume-builders. These qualities make Carls fun and challenging to teach—and admirable.
With each passing day, my appreciation grows for Carleton’s most refreshing characteristic: its genuineness and utter lack of pretension. In our academic endeavors, this sincerity is a major contributor to collaborative learning, and explains our discomfort with gamesmanship or artifice. Such authenticity also leads to a hunger for unvarnished explanations and real understanding—and a glad exuberance in learning for the sake of learning. If you take that kind of exuberance beyond the purely academic realm—as we regularly insist on doing at Carleton!—you will begin to grasp the purposefully playful, even zany, sense of humor that imbues this College. We carry out practical jokes, hold silent dance parties on tables in the library, and run in madcap pursuit of busts of German literary giants. By making a point of not taking ourselves too seriously, we show ourselves honestly to friends and colleagues, and create community across boundaries that might otherwise divide us.
While many of Carleton’s features strike me as singular, there is still one more pervasive local value that deserves to be celebrated. This is the shared assumption of trust and goodwill that I am finding among and across all components of our community. Faculty trust their colleagues, which makes it easier to find support for new interdisciplinary initiatives (most recently in Visuality and Globalization). Students relish the College’s cooperative atmosphere; ingenuous as it may sound, Carls reject zero-sum games and are convinced that their triumphs need not come at a classmate’s expense. I have already mentioned the respect that faculty and staff have for their students, and how eagerly and fully that admiration is returned. And when administrators present Carleton faculty and staff with a problem, the immediate reaction is not “What’s the hidden nefarious agenda?” but rather “All right, let’s find a solution together.” Put simply, at Carleton there is a belief that we are here to help each other succeed. This kind of trust must be cherished and regularly re-earned. But what an exceptional piece of institutional capital and culture!
Openness, mutual concern—and personal warmth to counter frigid Minnesota winters!— combine to forge tight bonds between Carls. Such bonds cross departmental, class year, demographic and geographic lines, and extend chronologically decades past graduation in our legendarily loyal alumni. It certainly seems that a disproportionate number of Carls marry other Carls! Even if you take romance out of the equation, our alums proudly aver that when one Carleton grad meets another, the talk quickly moves from pleasantries to a discussion of real substance. In the words of John Harris, Class of ’85, “There are values at the core of Carleton, and at the core of most of its alumni, that are shared by few other places. . . . They include a respect for honest, critical thought, a disdain for mindless pomp, and idealism that makes room for the skeptics but not the cynics.”[3]
And of course, at the heart of Carleton is an unflagging commitment to the liberal arts—a passion I have long shared and that deserves full rein. That other erstwhile knight, Don Quixote, also discoursed on the importance of a broad, intellectually robust and nimble education. At one point in Cervantes’ novel, Don Lorenzo asks Don Quixote:
“[Y]ou seem to have frequented the schools. What sciences did you study?”
“Knight errantry,” replied Don Quixote ....
“I do not know what that science is,” observed Lorenzo, ‘I have never heard of it till now.”
“It is a science,” replied Don Quixote, “that comprises all or most of the sciences in the world, since he who professes it must be a jurist…a theologian...a physician...an astronomer.... He must know mathematics...he must be able to swim.... He must know how to shoe a horse and mend a saddle and bridle. Also...he must be chaste in his thoughts, straightforward in his words, liberal in his works, valiant in his deeds, patient in his afflictions, charitable towards the needy and, in fact, a maintainer of truth, although its defence may cost him his life.... So you may see...whether the loftiest [sciences] taught in colleges and schools are the equal of it.”[4]
Warped as he is through immersion in fanciful books of chivalry, even in his mad logic Don Quixote actually confirms the value of the liberal arts, of an education that prepares one to live a life of purpose and meaning. At Carleton we have always known this, believed in it, and acted upon it.
Carleton’s values and character are unique and precious. This college is a gem in the crown of higher education. I am honored to protect and burnish that jewel. But I also ask all of you—Trustees, faculty and staff colleagues, alumni, future alumni, friends and neighbors—to join with me in caring for this remarkable institution. We do this to benefit current and future students and through them, society at large. Therefore, I shall urge, prod and inspire all who love Carleton to think more creatively, to work more assiduously, to talk more proudly—and yes, to give more generously!—to further strengthen our College. Together, let us help Carleton reach beyond even its present high level of excellence. What could be more noble or more fulfilling?
[1] Geoffroi De Charny, A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry, trans. Elspeth Kennedy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 91-92.
[2] President Gould welcomed entering classes with the phrase “From this day forward, you are a part of Carleton, and Carleton is a part of you.” David Porter and Merrill Jarchow eds., Carleton Remembered 1901-1986, (Northfield, MN: Carleton College, 1987), p. 181.
[3] Id., p. 182.
[4] Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Adventures of Don Quixote (New York: Penguin Books, 1950), pp. 582-83.