October 19, 2018, Drew Gilpin Faust
Governor Northam, Rector Connor, Faculty, staff, students, distinguished guests
I am deeply honored to be here and to be included in this signal occasion at this great university. I am also glad to be back in Virginia. I grew up here, on a farm on the Shenandoah River up at the other end of the Skyline Drive. My grandfather graduated from this college and my brother from the Law School. But when I was applying to college, the university did not yet accept women undergraduates, so it is especially meaningful to me to be here speaking to you today.
I come to congratulate you and tell you something you likely already know: how very fortunate you are to welcome Jim Ryan as your 9th president. By now you have all learned a good bit about him – -and many of you have known him for decades. You know that he graduated from your Law School with a sterling record, that he served that school for 15 years as an exemplary and prize winning teacher; that his experience as a first generation college student infused him with a passion for education and a deep personal awareness of the opportunities it opens and the lives it can change. And you know that his scholarship has sought to advance our understanding of how we can make education better, fairer, more available to all Americans – – what he regards as a matter of simple justice.
You may know too that this passion for education enabled us at Harvard to lure him away to serve as Dean of our Graduate School of Education for the past five years, which gave me the privilege of being his boss. And many of you have also learned in the past few weeks bout another domain in which he is a leader: the hundreds of you who have gathered at dawn in front of Madison Hall to run with him know how fast he is – – and may have found yourselves quite literally and fittingly following behind your new president.
But I want to try to say something about Jim that goes deeper than the milestones and achievements, something that lies behind the glowing entries on his dazzling cv. I want to offer a few thoughts on why Jim Ryan is the perfect president for UVA and for this very challenging moment in higher education.
Jim is special. I can’t tell you how many people said those very words to me when I was searching for an Ed School dean 6 years ago. And I quickly came to see the many ways it is true. His extraordinary family story is one part of that. His search for his birth mother was just unfolding in real time – – including the dramatic rest stop reunion on the NJ Turnpike – -as I was recruiting him in the spring of 2013. I felt I was in the middle of a Disney movie or a fairy tale with a magical ending. But Jim’s magic extends well beyond that remarkable history.
Jim has an uncanny ability to build trust, to unite people across divisions and differences, and to garner universal respect for his innate integrity and for a dedication that transcends controversies or conflicting interests. He motivates those around him to emulate him in putting principle and purpose at the heart of our shared endeavors and in searching for common ground.
Several years ago, in a discussion of campus tensions at one of the regular meetings of the deans of Harvard’s schools, Jim offered a phrase that is in its essence a foundational principle of university – – or national – -citizenship and of human interaction more broadly. I have borrowed it and quoted it repeatedly ever since. He called for “generous listening” – – for all of us to be generous listeners in face of our differences, to hear and reflect before we judge. If you have read the wonderful little book, Wait, What – – that grew out of his 2016 commencement address at the Ed School, you will see why generous listening is so important. Jim proclaims himself to have always been obsessed with questions – – wondering why, wondering if, wondering what truly matters. Inquiry must precede advocacy, he insists. We must seek to understand before we judge. We must nurture the curiosity to ask questions and the generosity to explore them. This seems to me a blueprint for what a university must be – – but not an easy model to sustain at this time of fracture and divisiveness in our nation and the world.
I was very sad to see Jim leave Harvard, but I was consoled by knowing full well how important it is that he will be leading this university at this time. American higher education is the envy of the world, and its public institutions are the foundation of that mission and influence. Eight out of ten undergraduates in the United States are educated in public institutions, and Virginia as one of the very most distinguished of these. Its future matters not just to the state, but to the nation and the world and to all of us who believe in the promise of knowledge and learning. Yet that “all of us” seems to be diminishing in numbers: according to a recent Gallup poll, just under half of American adults – – 48% – – have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. This figure is down from 57% just three years ago. No other sector measured had such a precipitous decline.
We have work to do—to explain our purposes, our value and our values. To make our case. A native Virginian from the turn of the century – – the 19th to twentieth that is – – African American educator and civil rights activist Nannie Helen Burroughs said it in unforgettable words: “Education is democracy’s life insurance.” A century earlier, your founder had expressed very similar sentiments, commitments that led to the creation of this institution: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects to be what never was and never will be.”
Jim Ryan is ready for this moment because he has lived the power of education and understands the perils of ignorance. He knows through both his life and his scholarship the importance of access and opportunity, of making education broadly available and affordable. And who better than this eloquent lawyer whose speeches go viral to make our case?
He cherishes the pursuit of truth and the way his endless questions – – asked and answered generously – -can move us towards it. He thrives on open debate and understands that an academic community must do so as well – – with questions that advance research, enliven our classrooms, and make our residential communities – – your Academical Village – environments in which we constantly challenge and educate one another; with questions that — as in the Socratic methods of a law school classroom — separate fact and fiction and enable us to distinguish falsehood from truth; with questions that embrace and engage difference and build inclusion and trust, not just here on Grounds, but in the wider society beyond.
Jim embodies these values and has succeeded in defending and advancing them as a teacher, a researcher and a dean. Now he will advance them on behalf of this storied university, on behalf of all of higher education, on behalf of all of us. I cannot imagine this essential and urgent task in better hands.
We miss him already but congratulations, Virginia!