Inauguration Address
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J.  Michael Adams

September 27, 2000
 

J. Michael Adams has a personal web page.

OF AND FOR THE WORLD

INTRODUCTION

That’s what education is supposed to do: expand horizons and broaden perspectives.  Sometimes education does this.  Sometimes the reality is that many educational institutions work within a limited framework and respond slowly to revolutionary changes.  Today, a new world calls for new visions. 

And we are today in a new, revolutionary world.  To see that we need only consider the dawn of a new millennium, on December 31st, 1999.  We all watched as clocks around the globe counted down toward midnight again and again and again, ushering in a series of celebrations and spectacles.  The prelude to the millennium began at the international date line in the Pacific and raced westward across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. 

Global technologies combined with global awareness to provide a shared worldwide experience.  It was our first global party and six billion people were invited.  And yet, in that global party, different cultures enjoyed vastly different celebrations.  Each showcased their unique customs and broadcast to the world that homogenization was far from a foregone conclusion.  Despite the sometimes impersonal forces of globalization, diversity remains the distinctive feature of our time. 

THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

But this same unrelenting force is leaving others behind.  The inevitable backlash has appeared in developing nations as well as right here at home.  The challenges are real and the list is long. Economic disparities, continuing exploitation of the world’s fisheries and forests, depletion of the ozone layer, health crises, human rights violations, crime and terrorism — all continue to plague our societies, threatening to undermine the promise of tomorrow. 

The answer, though, is not to pull the plug on globalization but to direct it so it offers broader benefits for everyone; we must combine the forces of a new world with an insistence on humanity.  This is not a new problem.  Every age has had to find the right balance between using the tools of progress and cherishing that which makes us human.  Globalization makes the balance more critical because the tools are so much more powerful and humanity is so fragile. 

But the promise of a better tomorrow endures.  And all of us continue to look forward with passion and spirit for a new day and with hope for a more united, peaceful world.

THE PAST IS PROLOGUE

In many areas, the University is also an intellectual gateway to the world.  Our quarterly publication, The Literary Review, begun in 1957, is known worldwide.  The Review devotes entire issues to contemporary writing from specific nations, cultures and languages.  Or look at our renowned Global MBA program or the marine biology and environmental science programs in Hawaii and Spain.  Consider our Theme Semesters on the Florham-Madison Campus.  Look at our English training programs for Korean teachers or our seminars in Switzerland for students in the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management.  And of course there is our nationally emulated Core curriculum, which includes a strong global issues component.
It’s clear that Fairleigh Dickinson has a rich commitment to opening doors and expanding horizons.  Now we are ready — and I would say we have a responsibility — to do more, to build on our history, accomplishments and advantages.  We have a responsibility to create global citizens by offering a global education.  That is our history and defines our future.

A GLOBAL VISION

Corporate leaders tell us that the next workforce generation will need to be able to function as easily abroad and across different cultures as in this country.

We will graduate students who will flourish in this world.  We are going to immerse them in diverse cultures.  To do so, we must make understanding global issues part and parcel of the learning experience.  At the same time, we will instill in students a sense of adventure as well as a sense of responsibility to make the world a better place in which to live and work for all cultures. In offering a global education, we need to support our faculty to become global resources and our campuses to become hubs of global education initiatives.  We have to adopt a global spirit; a mindset that says we live in a world without walls — made possible by advances in technology, and made necessary by needs that do not end at borders. 

We must create an environment where all members of our University community can develop greater empathy, greater creativity and adaptability to people and situations — a deeper understanding of what is universal among humans and what is unique to specific peoples. 

Last year, the influential American Educational Research Journal published a fascinating article titled “Educating World Citizens.” The piece summarized the findings of a research team that interviewed a multinational panel from many fields to determine the skills needed to face the future.  The team found that the most important characteristic for dealing with issues such as economic inequality and environmental degradation is “the ability to look at and approach problems as a member of a global society.” Just behind that necessary trait, the authors suggested, are the “ability to work with others in a cooperative way” and the “ability to understand, accept, appreciate and tolerate cultural differences.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The study went on to recommend support for the teaching of subjects in a manner that encourages critical thinking and fosters discussion and deliberation with others to reach consensual solutions.  This requires a teaching population with international experience and cross-cultural sensitivity.  Education, they said, needs to have international programs that foster a dialogue among students of all backgrounds and nationalities.  Students need to learn to use the potential of information-based technologies.  And schools need to focus on global issues and international studies. 

To some degree, Fairleigh Dickinson already does these things, and they are among our greatest strengths.  Starting today we will enhance those strengths.  Over the next 12 months we will build on our reputation as a physical and intellectual gateway to the world and forge an identity as a leading institution developing global leaders. 

A NEW MISSION

We proclaim, above all else, that students who graduate from Fairleigh Dickinson University will be known for two things:  1) The understanding  that just because someone is different does not mean that person is wrong — just different;  and, 2) The ability to communicate with and look at the world through the eyes of those who are different from themselves. 

Important steps have already been taken to further strengthen our global education. 
• Last April, by resolution of the Academic Senate, the faculty of this exceptional institution committed to adapting academic programs to incorporate global issues into every course and into every classroom.
• FDU’s Center for Global Teaching and Learning was created last spring, in part, to support the New Jersey schools world languages mandate.  The Center is positioned for significant leadership and influence.
• On July 1st, we created an Office of Global Education that will coordinate and support a broad array of campus-based and world-based initiatives.
• Next fall, the world newspaper of record, The New York Times, will be delivered to each freshman’s door and its reading will be integrated across the curriculum. 
• On January 1st, the Institute for Global Commerce becomes reality.  With the first corporate sponsor already committed, the Institute will focus upon the relationship between commerce and world peace.
• Effective with the incoming freshman class of 2001, Fairleigh Dickinson will be the first university in the world to recognize the Internet as a fundamental learning tool by requiring every undergraduate to participate in a distance-learning course each year.
• Our next decision is that part of the undergraduate tuition will be used to provide a plane ticket for each student to journey abroad.  Every student will live and learn in a different culture. 
• We will do away with “diversity day” and instead issues of diversity will be integrated into the ongoing activities and events of campus life — becoming a process, not an event.

No single experience or course can create a global citizen.  The answer lies in the sum of all our activities; those with a long tradition, those recently conceived and those yet to be dreamed.  I invite, I urge you — our community of faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends — to join the adventure.  In your intellect and in your imagination lie the future steps that will provide Fairleigh Dickinson University students with a global education.  The heart of this vision will be in the difference that each of us can make.  Our mission is accomplished, our goal is reached only through your efforts. 

We each must make this adventure personal.  Like my friend, professor Mal Sturchio, who in 1966 opened his door to a young Korean student.  That student, Jae Kyu Park, is now the minister of unification in Korea. 

Or like Joseph Green, former FDU dean, vice president and distinguished faculty member, who befriended young Thanu Kulachol.  Dr.  Kulachol is today president of Bangkok University.

Or like professors Judith Kaufman and Marie Roberts, who regularly make students part of their extended family.  Who knows what those students will accomplish in this world.

Like Mal, Joe, Judith and Marie, we all must adopt a world view, see beyond our differences and expect the most, from ourselves and from our students.  Our attitude must be that we are preparing the agents who will change the world.  If we expect that our students will change the world, they will. 

CONCLUSION

When I was growing up in the fields of Illinois, I thought I knew where the world ended.  Now, I have no idea where the world ends nor how far I can reach.  As individuals and as a University, our future is still to be written, our reach is still to be determined.  I used to think one person couldn’t change the world.  But the reality is one person can change whatever he or she can touch.  As global citizens, as a global institution, we have an obligation to extend our reach, to go beyond the ordinary and seize the extraordinary.  As a former school boy on the prairies of Illinois, whose vision was limited to what he could see, I urge all of us now to reach beyond what we can see and aspire to fulfill what we can imagine. 
 
 

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