Presidential Inauguration

Hugo Sonnenscheini, President Emeritus and Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago
Saturday, September 25, 2010

Faculty and Students, Members of the Board of Trustees, Colleagues, Friends, Carls, Steve:

Forty-six years ago this month, my wife and I came to Minnesota, to the State University to the north, with a child in tow and one on the way, to begin our adult life, and my career as a Professor of Economics.

This is another such precious moment: For the Poskanzer family, for Carleton, and for all of Higher Education.

It is my honor to be with you.

I will speak to you first about President Poskanzer. For the past 20 years he has been a friend, colleague and trusted advisor. He will tell you that I am a mentor: however, for me that does not capture our relationship. Perhaps this is because when we first met he was fully formed, with abundant character and devotion to the institutions that we are privileged to serve. This really is the heart of what we have to offer.  The rest comes with experience.  Let’s just say that I have learned as much from President Poskanzer as he has learned from me, and that our relationship has led me to the singular honor of standing before you today.

The appointment of President Poskanzer is a marvelous catch for Carleton.  And for President Poskanzer this is the perfect opportunity…. to do the work that he cares about so very deeply….in a college that occupies a most important place in higher education.  I will also make some remarks about the goals of education at places such as Carleton, and the University of Chicago, and connect these to the manner in which research intensive universities have come to speak about themselves.

I have some concerns in this regard, and I will conclude with what these concerns mean for our institutions.

President Poskanzer.  Few start out their life aspiring to be the President of a College or University.  More common are Ballerina, goalie for Manchester United, or biologist….to take a sample from our grandchildren at age 10.  With reference to the rich variety of childhood perspectives, I recall welcoming Malia Obama’s University of Chicago Lab School class to the grand hall that displays portraits of the former Presidents of Chicago.  Mine among them.  Malia, then perhaps 8, inquired regarding the difference between a University President and a “real” president.  Malia’s choice of the adjective “real” was much on my mind that day as I explained to the young students the nature of my responsibility as President of the University of Chicago.

Although it is doubtful that the young Steve’s first vocational imaginings were of College leadership, it is relevant to note that he is the son of a professor father, and a mother who served on the governing board of a college, that he was raised in a home that placed the highest value on education, that he is married to a prominent clinical scholar of psychology, and that the Poskanzers have created a home in which education and personal growth rule, and this includes on “road trips.”  The first Poskanzer family trip to Paris was an opportunity to view the Sorbonne.  The first trip to England, an opportunity to visit Oxford.  And at age 11, the highlight of Craig’s first trip to Rome was the reenactment, with dad, of the assassination of Julius Caesar, on the precise spot, with Jill and Jane much concerned, as your new President pulled out the blade from his Swiss Army knife.

At Princeton, Steve was a serious student, who did well in his studies.  He made MANY friends during those years.  Your new President is very good at making friends, and they “stick”.  He is caring, wise, loyal, and fun…..so this is no surprise.  Many long time FOS, friends of Steve, are here today.  It is my honor to recognize and represent this group.  In terms of his interests beyond the classroom and social scene at Princeton, let’s just say that President Poskanzer was a very “determined” member of the lacrosse team.

Steve’s senior thesis at Princeton was titled “Coups d’état and Military Governments in Ghana.”  The faculty should keep this in mind before pondering revolt.  After seriously considering graduate school in Political Science, your President decided to enter Law School at Harvard.  He was joined there by friends and classmates; however, FOS and Dean of the University of Chicago Law School, Michael Schill, with us today, left the team for Yale, and Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan deferred her entrance to Harvard Law with a Sachs Scholarship.  After completing his legal education at Harvard, Steve joined the prestigious law firm of Fox-Arent in Washington DC.  Very good lawyers tell me that President Poskanzer is a very good lawyer, and that he had exceptional opportunities in that profession.  However, your president   began to realize that he was drawn more to education than to “the law”, and after “thoughtful consideration and planning”(more about this presently!), your President left Washington in 1986 to join the legal office at the University of Pennsylvania.  He was hired by Shelley Green, the Chief Counsel at Penn.  When I was appointed Provost at Princeton University in 1991, President Poskanzer applied to serve as an intern in my office.  Shelley Green wrote in her letter of reference that “Steve is very important to us.”  She continued, “Nobody can analyze a legal document more skillfully.  He had better be extremely valuable to you and to education at Princeton, because our office will be losing something very special.”

We can now clearly see that Penn’s loss has been more than offset by higher education’s gain. President Poskanzer was my second appointment in the Provost’s Office.  He joined Ruth Simmons, now the distinguished president of Brown University, who I had lured back to Princeton from Spelman College.

President Poskanzer was my first appointment when I moved from Princeton to the University of Chicago.  He built the President’s Office, and over time he took on a range of increasingly challenging assignments.  I relied on him heavily in searches for key appointments.  We wrote speeches together.  He sat with the Provost as we began a complex Master Plan that located several hundreds of millions of dollars of new construction.  He became familiar with admissions, the challenges of a large medical center, development, and student life.    Steve took on an important role in Board relations. He spent increasing amounts of time on matters of concern to the faculty.  And he made time to teach in our law school. Your President is a superb teacher, and he regards teaching as a highest calling.  He also understands the association between teaching and scholarship.  The crafting of his treatise on Higher Education Law was part and parcel to his very successful teaching in our Law School.

In due time Steve was ready to assume more direct and visible responsibility for matters academic – always his passion – and this led him to SUNY, where he coordinated academic affairs for the entire SUNY system, before being asked to serve as President of the SUNY College at New Paltz.

Under his watch New Paltz substantially increased its selectivity, graduation rates, and capacity to gather resources.  But there is a good deal more to recognize.  Poskanzer substantially raised the aspirations of students, faculty, and friends of the College. He taught them to “aim higher”.  This was not “administration,” this was leadership of the highest order, in a community that had not properly imagined and thought through what it could achieve. His Presidency was truly transformational.

Your Search Committee understood precisely why they had found the perfect next president for Carleton.  To paraphrase their words, part those of your boards chair Mr. Jack Engster, Steve Poskanzer exudes passion for the liberal arts; he is blessed with bountiful intellect, he is deeply committed to supporting scholarship and its connection with teaching. He is without pretense, he has extraordinary energy, and he has an innate ability to win over everyone he meets.  Unstated was the fact that Poskanzer fun will help you to retain your smile – through long winters (sorry!)   Bravo to your search committee, your Board Chair, and your community for deciding and courting so very well.  President Poskanzer and Carleton is the “perfect match."

And now, a final Poskanzer attribute:  one that you may not yet have discovered, but one that you will surely come to appreciate and on which you will depend.   Today I boldly predict that the appointment of President Poskanzer tilts the wheel of fortune in Carleton’s favor.  My proof begins with the epic line of Pasteur: “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”, and it concludes with the plain fact that nobody approaches serious matters with better preparation than does your new President.  Working with Poskanzer you will be prepared and as a consequence favored.  It is likely that the members of the Presidential Search Committee came to realize that they had a candidate whose goal was to learn as much about Carleton as you knew about yourself to become a Carl. This involved listening, questioning, and collecting data, without preconceived notions.  Other candidates did not have a chance. For further proof that this man is well prepared, I will tell you about Steve’s courtship of Jane Poskanzer. 

Jane will recount how comfortable this guy seemed to be on the phone after their first date, how he knew just what to say, as if he was very experienced with such conversation.  Friends of Steve will tell you about the “playbook” that he had by his side during the conversation, with every eventuality worked out, in the most orderly, detailed, and loving manner.

Now to Carleton, higher education, and the liberal arts.

President Emeritus Stephen Lewis uses the words of a parent to explain the fundamental contribution of this place.  (Carleton mother speaking) “I want to thank you and Carleton for all that you have done for our daughter. She’s learned so much, she’s grown and matured, she has become an independent person, and she’s developed such wide interests….”[and Lewis’s reply]… “Are you sure we are speaking of the same young woman?  Your daughter was in my office frequently, “Exquisitely” unhappy with her experience at Carleton, angry about racism, curriculum, student life, teaching and the general direction of the College”.  “Oh, I know”, said her mother, “but she’ll get over it.  She just doesn’t realize yet how much she has learned.”

I recall conversations with an alumnus of ours, who frequently thanked me for, his years at Chicago.  With his mother long gone, he had to speak for himself.  [His voice:] “My parents immigrated to this country shortly after I was born.  We had “nothing.” There were no books in my home. We ate with our hands.  Chicago revealed a world that simply had not existed for me.  I learned Shakespeare from David Greene. I studied philosophy and mathematics. At Chicago I was surrounded by books and ideas. And there were remarkable students…..some still good friends….we would argue late into the night and I developed confidence in my ideas.  I owe everything that I am to Chicago.”*

One further testimony: the words of a Carl who recently joined our Economics Ph.D. program at Chicago, where he is doing superiorly,   “I learned to write in different genres.  I learned to think and to convey my ideas.  The education was intense and challenging and prepared me for graduate school.  Even more, it prepared me for life.

When we piece together the words of our students (plus mom), the statement that emerges describes what our institutions are truly about, -- our ideal form.  Our highest commitment is to thought and reason.  We are compelled to address the deepest questions and to struggle to achieve the best answers.  We are committed to open expression.  We believe that facts, carefully gathered matter.  We believe in argument, discourse, and the exchange of ideas.  This demands a community of scholars, and we believe that their productivity is much enhanced when their thinking transcends the boundaries of a single discipline.

We demand honesty, and we strive to be grateful to people who challenge our thinking and change our minds, and even our values.  Carleton and Chicago are truly sister institutions in terms of these most basic aspirations. But our commonality extends further.  We seek undergraduate students of a similar kind. They have done exceedingly well in their previous education.  They are not embarrassed to be seen reading, and they expect to work hard in College.  In this they are rarely disappointed.   I also believe, that at a fundamental level, the qualities we seek in our faculty are less different than is sometimes portrayed.  Our institutions value both scholarship and teaching, and we expect that each will be of high quality.  Yes, there are differences in “balance”, but these are not differences in kind.  I will be plain.  Chicago is not a research institute and Carleton is not simply a teaching college.   If you are a member of the Chicago faculty and you do not wish to teach, then you should not be with us.  I would imagine that Carleton faculty, who are unable to maintain an attachment to the frontiers of knowledge, may over time become less comfortable with their position.  Presidents of Chicago and Carleton have worked over the years to make these expectations clear.

At Chicago, in order to explain to our faculty our view of the importance of teaching, we tell a story about the great Physicist and Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.  Each week he would commute 100 miles, from his home near the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay (darker skies), in order to meet with a class that had just two registered students.  At Carleton, I am mindful of statements of your presidents that bring respectful and highly visible attention to the research and creative expression of your faculty.  I read with keen interest President Oden’s account of the work of David Tompkins, Ken Abrams, and Kelly Connole in the Spring Carleton Voice. I also read about the work of Professor Weisberg of your physics department in an earlier issue of the Voice – which led me to his web page – which revealed that we were together at Princeton, his first faculty position, with more hair. To be sure, Carleton and Chicago differ in areas of emphasis.  It should be observed that President Oden’s tribute to the scholarly accomplishment of the Carleton faculty is tied immediately to the significance of teaching at Carleton.

Likewise, it should be observed the tale of Chandrasekhar’s generous teaching at Chicago is always tied by Chicago Presidents, to the fact that the two students who Chandra travelled to be with were T.D. Lee and Y.C. Yang, who later in life were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Carleton presidents must always make a bow to the importance of the classroom, just as presidents of the University of Chicago must constantly trumpet the research accomplishments of her faculty.  But this difference in emphasis must not obscure the fact that both of our institutions are at their VERY best when they brilliantly combine scholarship and teaching.  It is then that we come closest to reflecting what we are in our “ideal form”: a place committed to thought and reason, open expression, where ideas matter and beliefs are challenged.  A place that demands intellectual honesty and tolerance.

I will close by connecting our “ideal form” to a “concern”, and then speak about my hopes for Carleton. The concern has to do with the “voice” of modern research intensive universities.  What does the man on the street in Boston or Chicago learn about us when “we do the talking”.  Clearly, our own words play a central role in determining the public understanding of what we do and what we consider to be important. When I close my eyes and reflect on the material that Joe Public hears from our research universities, it becomes apparent that the majority of airtime is devoted to newsworthy material, and information that is driven by business considerations.  The following three snippets are perhaps typical: the advertisement of a medical center, with the words “the place to come for leading edge treatment.” a university web page representation of faculty expertise and eminence, with the words “Professor John Smith was just appointed economic advisor to the President.” a “placed” news article, with the words University X reports that discoveries made on its campus have led to 40,000 new jobs.

Please do not misunderstand me.  Each of the examples represent a substantial contribution to society, and is a justifiable object of pride.  They remind the world of how often we turn to the ivory tower in the search for better ideas.  However, these snippets do not accurately represent the way that we speak about ourselves on the inside, to members of the family, and they surely do not bring to mind what I have called the “ideal form.” So why the concern?

The danger is that there is a tendency to “become” what we “say we are”, to be captured by our own rhetoric; especially, when the rhetoric speaks to the easier course. One must appreciate that the achievements of our faculty, students, and alumni are not central to what makes our institutions distinctive and so very valuable to society.  These achievements are the “Result” of doing our work well.  They are the result of creating an environment that promotes discovery and growth and attracts smart and intellectually committed individuals.

The argument is now clear.  There are forces that push our research intensive universities to represent themselves in a manner that is different from their ideal form.  This will, over time, diminish attention to creating the best possible environments for discovery and growth. As a consequence, the capacity of society to produce the achievements of which we speak so proudly will be diminished.  The prediction is even more dire for the research and studies that are most basic and precious: these are our seed corn, and the measure of our humanity.

I believe that the above observations strengthen the importance, to all of higher education, of a gloriously successful Carleton.  I know that you have a lot on your plate: to provide an exemplary liberal arts education, to play a leadership role in its evolution, to demonstrate that for very talented students, research and teaching belong together.  But I believe that Carleton is particularly well positioned to nudge its bulkier research intensive sisters to remain closer to the ideal form, so that they will continue to do their most important work.  Your voice and your achievements can be a counter to the research intensive voice, and it is this that I ask of you.  Yes, there will always be many who are attracted to the buzz that emanates from these universities, but the bright minds you seek to attract, and the thought leaders, who are particularly  important, will understand your more thoughtful message.  Unlike Chicago, you do not face the imperative of attracting patients to your hospitals.

Those who recruit top talent, to graduate and professional schools and to corporations, understand the power of a durable education and the value of those who have demonstrated the capacity to think and do hard work.  Finally, you have “the heartland advantage.”  There is a reason why Warren Buffet's success is not a product of our coasts.  This is not the land of “who you know,” it is the land of what you know, hard work, character, and honesty.  Which fits very well with our ideal form.

And so I close. The value of a transformational education has never been greater. We in higher education will continue to count on Carleton’s leadership and your special advantages. May you remain true to your mission. May you, with your new president, add wonderful chapters to your proud history of excellence in undergraduate teaching and scholarship. I will be watching carefully and whispering ‘go Carls’.