UCSC Chancellor's Inaugural
"A University for the Next Century"
UCSC Chancellor's Inaugural
Remarks by George Blumenthal
June 6, 2008
Thank you for coming.
Today is a celebration of our University, and so I thank you all for being here...
especially our speakers, our entertainers, and the many people who created this event.
I also want to thank our faculty and staff, my colleagues from academia,
and all of you from the University of California...especially President Dynes.
Let me also acknowledge and thank our students. To the more than 70 students in gold shirts who volunteered to serve as today's honor hosts – thank you.
Next week, more than 2,600 students will graduate during a series of commencements.
These seats will be filled with rows full of future historians, biologists, and astrophysicists.
Future writers, and musicians, film makers, and linguists, teachers, and engineers, Entrepreneurs, and perhaps some budding public servants.
Their success is what infuses this day with purpose. I applaud them all.
I stand here immensely grateful to be given responsibility for the place I call home.
So, you would think I know the place after 36 years.
But, here is the funny thing...when I was offered the Chancellorship, I suddenly felt I had to do that uniquely California thing...take a road trip.
So, I did. I drove around the campus.
Each scene reminded me of another bit of our UC Santa Cruz story...a story that is still unfolding.
A future still to be written.
Today, I want to talk about that future.
But, as my historian colleagues always remind me ... we build from the past. So, let's start there.
This campus was founded in the mid-Sixties at a time when this state was booming... in population, in enterprise, and in ambition. And, all this at a time of great social change.
For the University of California, the need to expand begged the question:
...what is the role of a public research university?
UC President Clark Kerr answered that question clearly at the inauguration of our first Chancellor, Dean McHenry... He said, and I quote...
"Each of these new campuses for the 21st Century should be different from one another and different from the existing campuses of the University."
So, this was our charter ...
That UC Santa Cruz be founded as a University for the 21st Century – and...
That we do it differently.
Approach our mission of teaching, research, and service as no other university in this state.
This was a huge ambition but fortunately... we had a huge inheritance.
First, we were given this breathtaking place on the promise to use it wisely and well.
The renowned photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams was one of our earliest supporters. He felt a University campus here would be the best use of this land, for the benefit of all.
Second, we were given U.C.'s world-renowned Lick Observatory. It jump-started Santa Cruz's impressive research activities...not just in astronomy, but also across many academic fields.
Beyond those two endowments came the very crucial third...
A mandate:
That we create a public university unlike any in California...
Combining the intimacy of a small liberal arts college with the depth and rigor of a major research university.
The founders envisioned these twin goals as two halves of a whole.
They wanted undergraduates to join in creating the knowledge that marks a great research university. They wanted to bring faculty and students together in ways that would elevate learning and research...
All in service of our state, and the world beyond.
Nearly five decades later, I believe we are fulfilling that mandate, even better than the founders might have hoped.
Why?
Because we have met the fundamental challenge that brought us to this point in principle and practice.
In principle, we were always going to have to aim over a horizon toward targets we could not see. After all, we could not predict the world we were meant to grow up in, and to serve.
In practice, we developed a restless need to anticipate and innovate. And that is exactly what we have done.
We created new academic formulas. We pioneered interdisciplinary studies, long before it became a catchword.
We embraced rigorous independent study, student-designed course work and majors. We personalized education with narrative evaluations.
We attracted a student body that grew to include young men and women ever more diverse ethnically, economically, and culturally.
We welcomed students who were the first in their families to go to college...students who overcame phenomenal odds to qualify for aUC education.
Above all, we taught our students not what to think, but how to think.
What gave us the momentum to do all this?
What gave us the confidence? After all, we did not exactly come with operating instructions...
Well, for one thing, the people.
We have supremely talented, highly motivated faculty. Willing to innovate and experiment. And their work is magnified greatly by our dedicated and talented staff.
They distinguish this University.
I could tell you many individual stories. Here's one:
David Haussler, a professor of Biomolecular Engineering, came to one of my predecessors and said, "If you give me a 100 computers, we can assemble the human genome sequence."
It was an audacious request. But in less than six months, it was done. It opened a whole new field of research, and the world could trace its own humanity.
Individuals here do make a difference.
And, so what if we didn't come with operating instructions? Our founders did something better -- they gave us an irresistible challenge: Tt be smart about what public education means in this 21st Century...
And to do it with distinction.
So, what did that inspire...
Let's start with location.
On the shores of Monterey Bay, and one of the world's largest marine sanctuaries, we built a world-class marine sciences program...at a time when ocean health is a global concern.
(And, by the way, today we overlook one of our largest research labs.)
Our unique location inspired our focus on environmental studies – merging science, ecology, and social policy.
Our proximity to Silicon Valley -- the epicenter of innovation -- presented us with tremendous opportunities: Our work at NASA/Ames; exciting new research... Other educational partnerships...
It wasn't just location. It was about innovation, everywhere.
We established Computer Gaming Design as an undergraduate major.
Combining theatrical story-telling, visuals arts, and computer sciences.
(One of their latest projects is an interactive scenario that helps train firefighters. Given the recent wildfires in our own mountains, we are reminded that this work isn't fun and games -- it's about serving society.)
Our Linguistics Department has radically re-invented its role in the 21st Century.
Our researchers are working to preserve endangered Mayan languages...
...even as they partner with NASA to develop computerized voice recognition technologies for space exploration.
This makes the fantasy of the movie 2001: A Space Odyseey a reality.
All along, we've been an incubator for new ways of learning, of creating knowledge, and serving – locally, and globally.
Locally, our Educational Partnership Center inspires and supports young students who may have never dreamed of going to college.
More broadly, we developed training for young teachers so they can succeed in under-funded public classrooms, often in underserved communities. Schools throughout the nation are now adopting our approach.
Our pioneering research in sustainable farming -- here on campus, in Mexico, and in communities around the globe -- is more vital than ever, given the world's food crisis.
Our graduate Science Communication Program is equipping young scientists to become the journalists we need to make sense of our complicated world.
Our Center for Justice, Tolerance and Community brings research, analysis, and active outreach to communities grappling with contemporary social issues.
To serve humanity, is also to celebrate it.
This is the home of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, a nationally renowned summer theater company, as well as the home of vibrant academic programs in Art. Music. Theater, and Dance.
And, we are transforming McHenry Library into a truly 21st Century library...
Digitizing every volume in partnership with Google. And creating a home for vibrant new learning-and-gathering spaces for the photography collections of Brett Weston and Ansel Adams and soon, the Grateful Dead Archives.
Our founders never exactly asked for any of this – they certainly never asked for Jerry Garcia – but we have done all of this and more, and I am House-proud of it.
I could tell stories till nightfall, but we have important work to do...and I want to talk about it.
Here is what our future looks like to me.
We will be a top-ranked research university, and the best public university for the education of students.
I can't say that more clearly.
We will give our undergraduates the knowledge and the intellectual tools to prepare them – indeed, energize them – for the world they will live and work in.
Our Colleges uniquely define the undergraduate experience here.
Just ask any alum. The first thing they likely will tell you is what college they're from.
The Colleges are central to learning at UC Santa Cruz. I am committed to re-asserting their prominence in our academic life.
We will give more undergraduates the opportunity to be actively involved in research and advanced critical study. This is a bedrock Santa Cruz promise. And it results in a very different kind of graduate.
Joe DeRisi, an undergraduate alum and former biology major, said that he was treated so much like a graduate student here that it inspired him to go on in his field. It's a good thing he did. He identified the SARS Virus, and contributed to unlocking the mystery behind the first public health crisis of the 21st Century.
Reyna Grande, who we heard from earlier, wrote the first 80 pages of her memoir on the Mexican experience in California as her senior project. Her finished work earned the American Book Award.
Reyna and Joe, the other alums you've heard today, and thousands of others....have taken what they learned here and put it to real-world use.
The best way to honor our promise to students is to be an exceptional research university. To be a place that top academics and researchers seek out.
A destination.
I want them to see Santa Cruz as I did as a meaningful home for a life's work.
We will grow our graduate student population -- in fact, that is happening already. New graduate enrollments this fall will be up 17 percent.
Eventually, I want graduate students to represent 15 percent of our student body–a modest ratio considering our ambitions–but exactly right for our intimate setting.
We will expand in professional schools.
We've had tremendous success with the Baskin School of Engineering, earning national recognition in just 10 short years. We will expand by matching our strengths to society's needs.
With the Academic Senate, we are already looking at a number of professional school initiatives: In Management, Environmental Studies, Public Health, Education . These all qualify as areas of expertise we can deliver uniquely well today
And there may be others. here may be opportunities we can't yet see over that horizon.
So we will continue looking...as our mandate asks.
I said earlier that we didn't come with operating instructions. But we do have a vision, and we do have a plan.
We have finalized our first Comprehensive Academic Plan in 20 years.
It identifies unique interdisciplinary opportunities. And it provides the framework for identifying those strategic investments that can yield programs of national prominence.
For example, we've brought to Santa Cruz the former science advisor to the U.S. State Department to build an Institute for science and global policy, to study vital international issues.
The greatest value of our Academic Plan is that it honors our founding mission with a precise challenge:
Is what we choose to do of value in the 21st Century?
And can UC Santa Cruz do it with particular distinction?
That is our litmus test.
If we have clear goals, and a point of distinction. We can do it.
This is vital. Clarity of mission will attract the resources, the investment, the partners we need to make our goals a reality.
That is why for the first time in our history, we are going to undertake a comprehensive fundraising campaign.
This campaign will not only inspire, it will ensure that we can do all the things I have just outlined. It will prepare us to think ahead, to look beyond today to what is most promising and important for our collective future.
That is what UC Santa Cruz is all about: inspiration, innovation, and excellence...as only we can.
It is fair to ask: How will we measure success? Well, the marketplace is one measure.
We must be an attractive destination for incoming students of all backgrounds. By all measures – quality, selectivity, and diversity. This is happening already.
Here's another marketplace measure: We are benchmarking our performance against the highest caliber of academia in this country.
And, in this highly competitive arena, we are doing exceptionally well. I'll cite two examples:
Based on research productivity, our international finance program within Economics is one of the top 10 in the world.
Next Wednesday, NASA is set to launch into space its newest and most ambitious gamma ray observatory.
On board will be state-of-the-art equipment, developed by our own faculty who involved dozens of UCSC post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students. Working together on the frontlines of scientific exploration.
Their work is on par with the best of our nation's research institutions.
This is who we are. This is what we do.
So, I have laid out a vision for our future...but what does this say about our daily lives?
I said at the outset that this University was founded in diversity, which brings richness to our discourse, creativity to our work, and humanity to our being.
And we strive to be a community that reflects not only the diversity of California's population, but also a diversity of culture, and ideology.
I want us to be a learning community where we can communicate ideas...and differences...with tolerance, understanding and compassion.
I want us to continue to be vital citizens in this community – as we have for more than four decades -- in a place we all call home.
We will continue to be careful stewards of this land.
The fact that the only place on our campus a crowd this size can gather.... a place without walls ...tells you something about what we believe is important.
We believe in living lightly, in intimate human scale, in the shadow of redwoods.
We have upheld that promise for nearly 50 years,
That will not change.
Take a look 360 degrees around you - you will not see many walls.
(Of course, it's also been said that you can't see the college for the Trees....until you know your way around...)
Truth is, walls aren't really the point here at UC Santa Cruz. There are ...
No Walls to keep out the diversity of people and ideas...
No Walls to keep people in – we aim to send out vital global citizens.
No Walls to block the sun, the forests, the ocean, or the stars.
That, too, will not change.
We will be 50 in a few years. We are not that brash upstart of the Sixties.
Yes, we are still iconoclasts, But make no mistake, we are a serious institution with serious intent.
Our founders asked us to be a University for the 21st Century. Well, that is now, and we are already meeting that challenge, every day.
But, I want more. And you should expect more.
We had a mandate from the start to be about the future. So we must always be the University for the Next Century.
Yes, calling us the "University of the 22nd Century" might sound audacious. Especially since none of us will be here a hundred years from now.
(Well...unless....we have a really, really big biomedical break-through.)
But, regardless of who is here in 100 years, I guarantee you this campus will be, this bay will be, those redwoods will be.
And when a future chancellor stands here and talks about ambitious goals and bold challenges, she, too, will look ahead by looking back, to Kerr, and McHenry.
She, too, will cite the founding vision that established UC Santa Cruz as a campus – that we accomplish big things, fulfill our obligation to society, and do it with rigor and distinction.
When I took that road trip around this campus, it was clear to me that we have a future yet to be written.
We are just today's writers. But others will follow – with ambition, and ideals, and ideas beyond anything we can even imagine.
I welcome those chapters still to come. Because that is what will make UC Santa Cruz a University for the Next Century.
Thank you.
