Future Gifts 
Inaugural address of Ann Weaver Hart
18th President of The University of New Hampshire
November 22, 2002
The Whittemore Center
Durham, New Hampshire
Welcome
Good afternoon.
Clark Kerr, among the most distinguished university leaders of the 20th century, once said that a university is "a collection of disparate academic entrepreneurs united only by a common grievance over parking." I think many of us here today can see what he was driving at! Thank you all for braving the elements and the parking to join me in celebrating this great University on this happy occasion.
At her inauguration in 1980, President Evelyn Handler, asked, "For what is a university but ideas and people?" It is impossible to separate a university from its people, and I am honored to join this strong and vibrant community. I am also humbled to stand before you today as your new president. It is a great privilege to lead; it is also a great responsibility.
University presidents are the most fortunate of leaders. We work among passionate and committed people in an atmosphere charged with new ideas, creative energy, and rapid individual growth. While we are steeped in tradition, we are also shaped by change. We spend our days with students who are learning and growing more rapidly than at perhaps any other time in their lives, with faculty who are charting the future with new knowledge, art, and solutions to intractable problems, and with communities of supporters whose beliefs about what the university should be and become are as diverse as they are strongly held. Peter Drucker, perhaps our modern era’s most astute student of management, has said that "Leadership is really a form of hard work in which you articulate and share values and find ways to bring these values into actions toward shared purposes." In the complex and hotly contested world of the university, this is indeed a challenge.
I am especially grateful to my immediate predecessor, Joan Leitzel, for her strong and unwavering belief in the power and goodness of public higher education. In her inaugural address in 1996, she reminded New Hampshire that "… [E]ducation is both an individual benefit and a social good. Collectively we have responsibility for the future of the University of New Hampshire. We accept the moral obligation to see that the [University of New Hampshire] succeeds, not at a marginal level…but at a level of true excellence."
At this first presidential inauguration of the 21st century, we honor our history while setting our sights on the future. The University of New Hampshire has been evolving over time. We stand on the brink of an institutional version of what the late evolutionary biologist, Steven J. Gould, might have called punctuated equilibrium, where the ingredients for change have been quietly accumulating and a major and dramatic leap is now possible.
With hard work and dedication on the part of all who work and study here, the University has enhanced its reputation and increased its visibility. Such distinction also carries great responsibility and heightened expectation. We now face a major turning point, a time when we must turn to the tasks we have laid out for ourselves and dare to achieve the goals that our rhetoric celebrates.
The Learned Self
Universities sometimes fall into a cycle in which they declare a new day and then do things only slightly differently than before—only tinker at the margins. I suspect that inaugurations are particularly vulnerable to these enthusiastic declarations.
We need to guard against the danger that this tinkering at the margins could become the case with us.
The sociologist, Mary Catherine Bateson, reminds us that "The self is learned, yet ironically it often becomes a barrier to learning" as it becomes established, comfortable, and dependable. Institutions, as well as individuals, face the danger that comfort may limit growth. The metaphor that Bateson uses is that of the novice, challenging those who seek growth to have the courage to be willing always to enter a new period in which they are newcomers to a way of knowing and doing.
In order to progress, each individual within the university has to be willing to be a beginner once again. Or, as President Handler said, "The notion of trusting oneself is the essential thread which weaves together the fabric of people and ideas of which the university is composed."
A Research University
We face inherent challenges in our emerging distinction as a research university. A research university fundamentally commits itself to the creation of new knowledge in science, art, and the professions. This knowledge is not the purview of or creation of any individual, but of communities of scholars around the world. John Ziman, the British philosopher of science, reminds us that knowledge … "is a coherent set of ideas invented by people"—that inquiry yields knowledge through a social process. A great university is the place where this process is nurtured and flourishes.
This is exactly why a great university must be deeply engaged in service—because the knowledge we discover and the actions we take eventually become public property, creating a public good.
To expand in research distinction requires clarity about the University of New Hampshire’s unique role within the University System of New Hampshire, so that the state’s public higher education system is lean, strong, and responsive to its citizens through the sum of its parts. The power of the University System is that all four institutions have very different core missions, all of which contribute to the future of New Hampshire. The economy of the system will be lost, however, if each is expected to provide similar programs delivered in the same ways in proximate regions.
The University has begun to establish itself as a leader in many fields, relying on focus and intellectual synergism to establish areas of strength. If we are pressured to spread resources across all possible areas of study—to be all things to all people—the "level of true excellence" that President Leitzel exhorted us to reach will be diminished.
Discovery
Jaroslav Pelikan, a scholar of American higher education, said that "[Undergraduate students] need to participate in the ‘minting’ [of knowledge] rather than only in the ‘mining.’" More than simply digging through collections of existing knowledge created by others and acquiring it through study and recitation, we are at our best when our students learn to gather data, put knowledge together in new ways, and actively participate in the creative process. Pelikan asserts that the "passion and flash of insight" becomes a way of thinking that is learned by students working side by side with faculty.
This is the discovery process that we seek to make the signature of an undergraduate education at the University of New Hampshire—the discovery education we want to provide to our undergraduates that is only available in a research university at its best.
Frank Rhodes, president emeritus of Cornell University, predicts that the successful university of the future "will be knowledge based but student centered, research driven but learning focused." We must see how sharp we can make that focus here at the University of New Hampshire.
Our students discover previously unexplored capacities and talents while working alongside expert teachers, practitioners, and researchers. Students transform their educations with original research as an integral part of their undergraduate studies. Our business, health sciences, and engineering internships, along with other service and experiential learning programs, provide student opportunities that reflect the faculty’s engagement in their own professional work beyond the confines of the campuses at Durham and Manchester.
We must create a program so coherent and so focused that University of New Hampshire graduates are distinguished by how they think and how they solve problems. Our faculty is working on the implementation plan for innovative new general education requirements, and has committed to a stronger and more cohesive first-year experience.
This distinctive education demands new ways of thinking through the entire curriculum—a major undertaking for faculty members as they reframe the thought processes they want their teaching methods and curricula to promote and reinforce.
This fundamentally critical effort insists that we reallocate financial resources and secure new resources to pay for travel, research supplies, fieldwork, laboratory supplies and equipment, internships, and much more.
We will know we have been successful when people who meet and work with our graduates ask, "Did you go to the University of New Hampshire?", because they will recognize an approach to life and a way of thinking that signal a UNH education.
An Open and Diverse Academic Community
To sustain an academic setting in which these initiatives can be successful, the University must be an open community free of prejudice. The fundamental principles of academic freedom, and the inquiry and scholarship they were meant to preserve, also protect people whose person and ideas differ substantially from either the mainstream or the fashionable. We must recognize and uphold in our own time and circumstances a university that celebrates the right to inquire, to speak, and to be within very broad parameters.
The historian Walter Metzger, widely known for his work on academic freedom in American universities, admonished us that we have the "sacred obligation to be accurate, speak with restraint, and show respect for the opinions of others."
As scholars and artists, we must avoid the temptation to suppress the expression of controversial ideas. It is not an easy task to be dedicated to the open discussion of differing views, and at the same time to nurture the ethic of civility and non-intimidation. It is a tough struggle, a struggle that tests our values. It tests how we play out our commitment to civility alongside our commitment to the free exploration of difficult ideas.
You have heard me say that the University of New Hampshire recognizes that a globally authentic education requires diversity commensurate with the diversity of the world in which we live. That diversity comes in many forms. We all realize that the world is not a place devoid of controversy and of conflict, division, and high emotion.
We resolve to maintain the University's highest value—academic freedom—in which new knowledge and art are created and differences debated, in a haven free of violence and sustained by respect, however arduous the process.
Leadership Gifts
I have said before and believe more strongly each day that the University of New Hampshire is a gift that the people of New Hampshire have given to themselves. You have all invested an enormous amount of talent, energy, resources, and hope in the University of New Hampshire. Your university returns the favor in measurable and far-reaching ways.
I believe that leadership can be an institutional characteristic and that some institutions nurture, inspire, and exercise leadership in ways that are inseparable from the leadership of the individuals within. The University of New Hampshire has, and must continue to hold as part of its identity, leadership: not only in superb teaching and scholarship, but also in service to and engagement in public and private life in New Hampshire.
Our work here informs the state on every aspect of economic development, from agriculture to tourism, from resource-based to high-tech industry. We are engaged partners on matters of the environment. We hold leading positions across the nation and the world in climate change, marine science, and the study of earth, oceans, and space. We are a vital presence in social reform with programs that touch on health care, education, families, and communities. We host the small business development centers of New Hampshire and provide the only public engineering education available in the state. And we act as a focus for the humanities within the state and the region. New, technology-enhanced media and our own New Hampshire Public Television’s expanded digital resources extend our reach.
Financial Complexity
Frank Rhodes predicts that the successful university of the future will be increasingly privately supported while being increasingly accountable and socially committed. We have certainly seen in the past two decades that the University of New Hampshire is ready and willing to face that future with courage. We are a major public university that has begun to build a significant private fundraising base. While we are far behind many of our distinguished sister institutions in public higher education in raising private support dollars, we see the benefit of this effort. Our recent campaign provided new endowment that builds on our base of state support and creates the extra margin of quality and innovation that we require to excel.
The entire University has benefited from the new confidence this success has given us. At the same time, there are questions: We ask whether we can do it again. We ask whether we can double this achievement in the next capital campaign. We ask whether we have the courage to openly celebrate the University of New Hampshire and inspire the confidence in others that UNH is indeed worthy of their personal financial support.
I know that we can and that we do. I also believe that it is critical that the people of New Hampshire share our vision of excellence and achievement. By continuing to accept its stewardship over our basic programs, New Hampshire enables the entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated through private fundraising and research grants and contracts to thrive, and the State of New Hampshire assures that its resources have the maximum impact on the future.
We are a complex financial community, and we must be willing to be accountable for our finances. Our resources have always been scarce, but this University has risen to the occasion. To advance the University, to support, refine and perfect our distinction, we must again be willing to plan an aggressive and energetic private fundraising effort that proudly celebrates the University’s achievements and potential. And we must couple that private fundraising with strong advocacy for public higher education in the state, so that our leaders and citizens are partners in sustaining the great stewardship we have inherited. We are grateful for the support we have received, and we are looking to the future.
Taking Stock: Looking to the Future
Let me summarize where we stand today.
We have laid the groundwork for a distinctive undergraduate experience at the University of New Hampshire. This education will build on the power of the research university and create in our graduates a way of thinking and being that is grounded in inquiry and creativity. I ask: Are we willing to change our curricula, our pedagogy, and the way that faculty and graduate students interact with undergraduate students to make that happen? I believe that the answer is yes, and I will work with you to achieve this goal.
We must integrate our student life activities with the intellectual life of our students in ways that inform and complement each other. We have said that we are committed to provide to the young adults who study at the University of New Hampshire an environment that is the equal of the New England liberal arts college. This integration is at the heart of the personal discovery we seek to nurture.
Earlier this month, we celebrated the completion of Mills Hall, our newest and very beautiful residence hall. We are moving toward the complete renovation of Murkland Hall, advancing through the design phase for a total remake of Kingsbury Hall, and beginning the renovation of Congreve Hall. The impressive new Holloway Dining Commons will be complete next year. Still, there is much to be done.
The University of New Hampshire is among the most beautiful campuses in the United States; it must also provide the best living, teaching, research, intercollegiate sports, and recreational facilities for students, faculty, staff, and friends. Plans are in place for additional building projects that could make a huge difference in our ability to achieve, and we are embarking on a master planning process for the first time in over ten years that will bring these dreams into focus.
It will take resources and resolve from many – both public and private – to make the new facilities possible, but I will work with you to see that these goals are realized.
I said in my State of the University Address that the University of New Hampshire is the best public university in New England. In September, the audience first murmured in surprise and then expressed its affirmation. In addition to this achievement of excellence, I have said many times that I am drawn to you by the heart-felt affection and warmth expressed by students, faculty, staff, and alumni for this wonderful university.
We must be willing to continue making the hard choices to surpass our distinguished place as the best public university in New England and push to be what Rhodes describes as a "professionally attuned but humanely informed" university. We must continue to believe in ourselves.
Conclusion
We say that production of new knowledge and the creation of art and culture are central to our vision of the University and that our strongest graduate, professional, and research programs will reinforce and energize each other. We must dare to focus our resources and energy to nurture our strongest and unique programs and to unabashedly acknowledge that there are some things that we do not do. We say, and our choices must affirm, that we cannot be all things to all people. If we are strong partners with the other USNH institutions, supporting and promoting the programs they offer that differ from, but complement, UNH programs, our decision to be focused will expand and deepen high quality opportunities for the people of our state and region.
The University of New Hampshire identity, fundamentally grounded in excellent teaching, is strong. Nevertheless, in order to successfully meet the challenges we have set for ourselves, we must collectively agree to develop a new learned self.
We have the vision to forge a new identity that merges achievement as
a research university with a distinctive undergraduate education.
We have the courage to face the inevitable tests of our commitment to academic freedom—and to show that we are able to confront the difficult issues of our time.
We have the commitment to remain good partners in the public higher education system of New Hampshire and good neighbors within our communities.
And we have the confidence and energy to work tirelessly to develop support from private friends who see opportunities to make a real difference in the world through their partnerships with the University of New Hampshire.
I pledge that I will work diligently with you to conduct the sharp analyses and make the difficult decisions to achieve these goals. I pledge to work with you to advance beyond our new tradition as the best public university in New England.
The University of New Hampshire is indeed a gift given by the people of New Hampshire to the people of New Hampshire and beyond.
References
Mary Catherine Bateson. (1994). Peripheral Vision: Learning along the way. New York: HarperCollins.
Peter F. Drucker (1999). Management challenges for the 21st century. New York: HarperCollins.
Walter P. Metzger. (1988). Professional and constitution: Two definitions of academic freedom in America. Texas Law Review. 66, 1265.
Jaroslav Pelikan. (1983). Scholarship and its survival. Princeton, NH: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Frank H. T. Rhodes. (2001). The creation of the future. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Robin Wilson. (2002). Faculty members care more about students, less about prestige, study finds. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Friday, November 1, 2002.
John Ziman (1968). Public knowledge: An essay concerning the social dimension of science. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.
