The Inaugural Address of Chancellor Steven Kaplan, September 6, 2002

Rector Ackerly, President Casteen, Chairman Sturgill, I would like to thank you and all of the members of the Board of Visitors and our College Board for the trust you have placed in me. I would also like to extend my gratitude to our faculty, students, staff and all in the community for making my family and me feel so welcome in Southwest Virginia during our first year here.

Secretary Wheelan, Senator Wampler, Delegate Kilgore, fellow presidents, delegates, friends, and family members, thank you for honoring us with your presence today.

I appreciate the many hours the members of the inaugural committee and our facilities and maintenance staff put into preparing for this weekend's events. I am also delighted that a great writer was able to join us today. Nikki Giovanni, thank you for sharing your powerful words with us.

Mentor and friend, Geoff Bannister, thank you for your wisdom and guidance. Above all, to my parents, my best friend and talented wife Anemone -- and our four wonderful children of whom we are so proud, thank you for your inspiration and support.

Finally, I would also like to express my gratitude to those who have led the College before me. One of the strongest advocates at the University of Virginia for establishing a branch campus in Wise was also the person who shepherded the college through its first three years, Samuel R. Crockett.

Joseph C. Smiddy, who led the college from 1957 until 1985, told me once that the college never would have survived its first years without Sam Crockett's optimism. He said, "Sam put the wheels on the college. That may be true, but it was Joe Smiddy who gave it wings.

For twenty-seven years Joe's keen intelligence, vision, stubbornness and great sense of humor enabled him to keep saying yes when others said no. A Dean of Harvard College once said that trying to bring about change at Harvard was like trying to move a cemetery. As many of you know, to expand this college Joe Smiddy did, in fact, have to move a cemetery as well as numerous living obstacles as well.

Many of the things that make this College special -- and many of the reasons our alums deeply love "old" Clinch Valley College --have their roots in Joe Smiddy's visionary leadership. When Joe authorized the admission to this college of the first African-American student at a public college in Virginia before it was legally permissible, he solidified a tradition that this college would be known for its accessibility, its civic mindedness, and its boldness.

Three chancellors, all of whom built upon his legacy, followed Joe: Edmund Moomaw, Jim Knight, and L. Jay Lemons. My most immediate predecessor, Jay Lemons, left me with an institution that is remarkably strong and positioned for continuous growth. All of my predecessors, however, upheld traditions that we carry with us today: Jeffersonian traditions of accessible public-education, civic mindedness, and especially boldness. Together, we must carry these traditions forward as we strive for new levels of excellence and service for this institution. Anything less would betray not only our past, but our future as well.

ACCESSIBILITY

The founders of this college, by placing it in one of the most economically challenged parts of the Commonwealth, were honoring Thomas Jefferson's conviction that public education should play a fundamental role in sustaining a truly democratic society. Jefferson firmly believed that access to education must be provided to all members of society in order to develop "those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated."

Through the generosity of the citizens of this region, this college has been able for almost five decades to prepare the region's youth to become productive members of a democratic society. Our students enter this college with the highest financial need in the state, and they leave it with the third lowest level of debt of any of the three hundred liberal arts colleges in this country. This is a remarkable achievement and I thank our many benefactors for the unwavering support that makes this possible.

This College can be proud of its record of providing access to higher education to the citizens of Southwest Virginia. The year it was founded, there were no high school teachers in Wise County who had a University of Virginia degree. Four years later there were thirty. Today, the vast majority of the teachers across this region are graduates of our college; and our teacher education students score as well on the statewide exit exams as the graduates of The University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary. Clearly we are preparing some of the best teachers in the Commonwealth.

As the Dean of Admissions at the University's medical school can tell you, many of their best students have also come from this college. Moreover, many of our lawyers, business leaders, civil servants, and elected officials -- including the state's current Attorney General, the third highest public official in Virginia are graduates of the college.

CIVIC MINDEDNESS

Over the past year, we have been discussing how this college can prepare its students to be thoughtful and active citizens of the 21st century. One idea, which I endorse wholeheartedly is that the University of Virginia's College at Wise can lead the nation as a model of a true learning community: a community where collaboration and innovation across the disciplines are the standard rather than the exception.

The compartmentalized German university model that advanced disciplinary knowledge from the late 19th Century through the Cold War no longer reflects the structure of teaching and research needed in the 21st century. As the Harvard biologist and ethicist E.O.Wilson has argued: this model certainly has not proven itself capable of addressing compelling contemporary concerns such as global poverty and the fragile state of our environment.

The trend in higher education over the past one hundred years has been to move away from a common core of courses taken by all students. However, without a body of knowledge shared by all students, the intrinsic value of learning is diminished, as is dialogue around a common core of ideas. Discussion across the disciplines around universal questions, the foundation of education since Socrates, has been replaced by the inviolable discipline. The result is consumer-like behavior by our students, who add up course credits instead of course content.

To address this trend toward over-specialization, we embarked this past year on a highly interdisciplinary revision of our core curriculum which should include a common core of courses. We have begun our discussion of the core not by asking which courses in which disciplines our students should take. Instead, we're asking a more fundamental question: Who do we want our students to be when they graduate?

To help us achieve this larger goal, we've also been discussing the need for service learning. Our students need to learn to defend what is good for others and to accept and strive to understand people of diverse backgrounds and those with opposing points of view. They must see themselves as part of a larger community to which they are responsible and accountable. To achieve this, we need to engage as many students as possible in community service that is integrated into the curriculum.

The horrific events of September 11 revealed the frightening level of anger and anarchy that still exists in our world. It is imperative that colleges and universities across the globe mold a generation that can heal the wounds that still so clearly separate humankind.

Together we must prepare students to become citizens Jeffersonian citizens who understand that their collective future depends on their individual actions. Jeffersonian citizens who understand that successful communities are built not just on a consensus of beliefs, but in a plurality of voices. Jeffersonian citizens who understand that the answers to the complex questions of today can be found in the artistic, scientific, and literary works of yesterday.

In short, we must be committed to teaching students not just how to make a living but how to live.

BOLDNESS

As we explore ways to strengthen our curriculum, we must also build in other ways as well upon the college's tradition of boldly looking forward. We should seek, for example, state and private funding for the expansion of our programs in the arts, as well as for new programs in science and technology.

The earliest evidence of the human creation of art from over thirty thousand years ago tells us that artistic creation and aesthetic appreciation are among the most fundamental defining factors of what it means to be human. If we are to cultivate the imaginations and thus the humanity of our students, we must put the arts at this college back into the center of the liberal arts.

To strengthen our focus on science and technology we should add majors in such fields as environmental, systems, computer, and software engineering. This makes sense for us as a rural liberal arts college with a mission to serve the economic needs of our region. Bringing such programs to the college would enable us to prepare our students to move the region's economic base further into the new high-tech economy.

We must also provide support for our faculty to engage in research and collaborative learning with all of our students. Faculty and student research should be the foundation of a liberal arts education, for we are here not only to preserve and transmit knowledge but also to encourage and support discovery and creativity. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in "The American Scholar: "Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote their books.

While we strengthen and expand our academic programs, we must continue to invest in our campus as a physical space so it can become one of our most inspiring and instructive classrooms. Our campus should reflect the values we instill in our students about the importance of community and artistic creativity. Above all the campus should teach our students about the fragility and beauty of the natural world. Our focus on the emotional and social growth of our students clearly goes beyond the classroom. It is thus essential that we also seek significant funding to strengthen our athletic facilities.

Finally, we must create a college campus where all members of the campus community are respected as teachers and role models. Each individual who works on this campus or lives in this community has the potential to transform the thinking -- and thus the lives -- of our students.

Currently, there are few spaces in this community where our students, our citizens, and our faculty and staff can congregate informally. The college and the town thus need to continue and to intensify their discussions on transforming Wise into a true college town and this campus into an even more potent cultural, intellectual, and athletic focal point of the region. We do, after all, have much to offer one another.

The University of Virginia's College at Wise has been very successful at obtaining private and public support over the past 48 years. Although we are now ranked as the ninth best public liberal arts college in the nation, there is yet more for us to do. If we are to become the best public liberal arts college in the country, it will take hard work, vision, and in particular a financial commitment beyond what we have heretofore thought possible.

Some may say that what I've described today is a lofty agenda. It is. But together over the next decade, we can implement it. This college's history, its history of accessibility, civic-mindedness, and boldness shows that it has never backed away from a dream because it was too big. This is a college with bold dreams but it is also a community of doers.

In that sense, Anemone and I chose Wise after Wise chose us. We saw that in coming here we could be part of a special place that had a unique and inspiring past and a magnificent future ahead of it. I am proud to be the Chancellor of a college whose founders and benefactors were bold enough to see a center of learning and economic renewal where some saw no future.

When Sam Crockett wrote his annual report at the end of his last year leading the college, he expressed a sentiment that I think echoes the feeling of most anyone who has been associated with this college. He wrote: "The opportunity to have had a small part in this enterprise has been the most stimulating experience I have had in my thirty years in the field of education.

I would like to close by saying I am humbled yet thrilled by the opportunity to carry on the work of the many dedicated and visionary individuals who have brought this college to its current level of success. Like Sam Crockett, I cannot imagine a more invigorating, inspiring, or gratifying opportunity.

Thank you.