Inaugural Address of David Finney, Seventh President of Champlain College

Burlington, Vermont
November 19, 2005

Greetings! Thank you, Holly, for those very kind words of introduction. Governor Douglas, you honor us with your presence here today. Thank you very much for coming. College delegates, my colleagues in the vineyards of higher education, thank you very much for being here with us today. Thank you, Kevin, for making the journey to be here today. And thank you, Mary, for agreeing to share this day with me. And to my many friends here today, thank you for your support.

I would also like to extend my thanks and appreciation to Bill Post for the new Champlain College Mace. Bill designed and created the mace, turning the Vermont walnut and cherry wood himself. He worked with Conant Brass to execute his design for the globe. The mace, which has the college seal inlaid into it, symbolizes and emphasizes Champlain's role as a global citizen. It is a spectacular gift to the college and one that will lead every significant academic event at the College for decades to come. Thank you, Bill, for this wonderful gift! I know of no other college with a mace created by the former Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Thank you, also, to my family for your love and support which has sustained me. Sabine, Lauren and Heather—the three women in my life—you are my sustenance. Steve, Bill, Nancy, Judy, Joni and assorted in-laws—thanks to all of you for all that you've done.

I've never seen any attainment that wasn't, to some degree, a group effort. What a group I've got! I am happy to be here at Champlain. Check that—I am ecstatic to be here!

I've learned much since I've been here at the College. One of the first things that I learned is that there are only two kinds of people in the world—Vermonters, and...flatlanders. All you folks here from New York who think you are New Yorkers. Think again. You are flatlanders. Even Sabine, who thinks she is French. Sorry sweetie, you're a...flatlander. I'm one also—simply moving here does not alter it one bit. One must be, they tell me, of the fifth generation born in Vermont to be a Vermonter. Everyone else is a...flatlander. Standards are high around here with these Vermonters!

What an honor for this flatlander to be here—I am truly blessed. It is not often that one is able to be with so many family and friends, especially since it isn't our wedding or my funeral. It's my inauguration!

I have, however, taken heed of the limits imposed by my participation in an event such as this. In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, flatlander Arthur Levine—the President of my alma mater—Teachers College at Columbia University—recounted an anecdote from one of his classes. After the semester was over one student wrote on the evaluation: "If I had 20 minutes left to live I'd want to spend them in your class because every minute with Art Levine feels like an hour." My goal today is that the next 20 minutes or so will feel like...20 minutes! Or, maybe, even 15 or 16 minutes.

There are many Champlain College trustees—past and present—here with us today. Your presence reminds me that I stand here today because of what you have done, as well as what the Champlain presidents who have come before me accomplished: G.W. Thompson, E. George Evans, A. Gordon Tittemore, Bader Brouilette, Bob Skiff, and Roger Perry. Six presidents who shaped this institution. History has awarded all of them with the same honor: not one of them was the final President of Champlain College. Hmm...No pressure there!

Some of you remember Bader Brouilette and his silk paisley jackets. Bader moved the Burlington Business College from above a drugstore downtown up here to the hill. He changed the name to Champlain College and made it non-profit, thereby emancipating the college from private ownership. By the time he retired Champlain had grown from one building to 14.

Many of you know Bob Skiff, here with us today. Bob brought financial stability and four-year degrees to the college as well as more buildings, most notably the Hauke Center. Bob set the stage for Champlain to become what it is today.

Roger Perry's impact on this institution will be long remembered. He is responsible for this building—The IDX Student Center, The Ireland Center for Global Business and Technology and The Main Street Suites, as well as several residential houses. Under Roger's leadership Champlain began to offer master's degrees and launched several international programs.

Through it all, the Champlain faculty dreamed up and then created new programs—both to meet the needs of the Vermont business community and to keep Champlain's budgets balanced year after year. There were a lot of days that were lean, but the spirit of Champlain's people always prevailed. It is difficult to overstate the commitment that was required on the part of this college community. Champlain is what it is today because of the imagination, hard work, and fierce loyalty of many in this room. I salute you for what you have achieved.

Today, Champlain stands here on the hill organically connected to the Vermont business community. Our graduates occupy prestigious positions of leadership all over Vermont and the northeast. But today is not the question before us as we gather here. Tomorrow is the issue. What shall be the Champlain College of tomorrow?

At Champlain, our history and traditions provide us with a natural place to begin. Of course we will continue to provide an education that is professionally focused, that prepares our students to enter their careers. This has long been the signature strength of Champlain, and will continue to be. Certainly our students, upon leaving us, must be well prepared either to work or go for additional education, but what does that really mean in today's world?

It is a tradition here at Champlain to pay close attention to the world around us. There is an implicit understanding that Champlain has an active role to play in our world—that it is not, indeed never has been, an ivory-tower institution, a Vermont refuge from the globe. For generations, Champlainers have read the tea leaves, and made plans accordingly. If we have one core competency it is this: we react to the emerging present so that we become a vital part of the future.

As we look around the world today it is, as it always has been, worrisome. Earthquakes, climate change, wars, famine, horrific diseases—all will impact the world of tomorrow. But so too will truth, justice, beauty, freedom, democracy and individual will. What can Champlain do to tip the balance toward the truth and justice side of the scale? As an educator I believe that Champlain—and our students and graduates -- can do quite a lot.

College is, in many ways, the stage where young adults are first able to discover and try out adult roles. If we, as educators, are demanding and caring, rigorous and approachable, our students will learn that the roles they take have infinite possibilities—that their interpretation of life's journey can, and should, make a difference in this world.

It is a near certainty that many of our students will, during their working lives, labor in careers that do not yet exist. They will need to answer questions that cannot yet be formulated. What skills are we to teach them that will withstand this quickening and constant onslaught of change? For generations, students have left Champlain to make their mark in the worlds of business, technology or human service. But our challenge as we move together into the future is, I think, more difficult, more nuanced.

More than ever, Champlain graduates must leave here with extraordinary abilities to think critically, to communicate effectively, to lead. They must be transformed by their experience here so that they attain a state of being perpetually curious. Continual curiosity is the prerequisite for the lifelong learning that must become routine for any engaged professional. Students must graduate from Champlain with a profound understanding that the discovery of self is an imagination-informed journey that begins with dreams of different tomorrows. How shall we equip our students to author the next chapter?

As a community, we at Champlain are in agreement that this is our obligation. The question squarely before us is: How shall we do it? What body of knowledge is required? What habits of thought and being must be modeled? How shall we engage with our students to foster such a transformation? And in doing all of this, how shall we remain distinctly Champlain, distinctly Vermont?

As always at Champlain, we simply forge ahead. I want to share with you five initiatives that I strongly believe will make Champlain—and our students and our graduates—even better able to glide into the future.

First, we need to develop a more powerful core curriculum.

Second, we need to hone our students' critical thinking skills and polish their communication skills.

Third, we need to be even more engaged with our community, our state and our employers.

Fourth, we need to kick our students out of town—at least for a semester or two—to study in foreign lands, so that other countries and their citizens become less "foreign."

Finally, we need to bring more diversity to campus so that Champlainers will be less comfortable with preconceived notions, and more comfortable with other-ness.

As a family, we Champlainers have obligations to each other. We must provide for each other in ways that contribute to our ability to encourage the debate, experimentation and risk that we should model for our students. We should engage each other, as we have done so often over these past few months, to challenge our assumptions about what we as a community are, and what we should become. And as a community working to earn our place in the world, we must embody the ethics that we teach our students.

We must begin by creating a new curriculum, one that effectively transforms our students in ways that will prepare them and then propel them successfully into an uncertain world. Champlain College faculty have been invited to submit ideas about their dream core curriculum. Our goal is to create, what I hope will be, a radically interdisciplinary core curriculum that will encourage the skills of critical reflection and effective communication. It should also place our professional programs into historic context through a broad and rigorous exploration of cultural and social history. Students graduating from Champlain, if they are to become leaders, must understand how the world of today came to be. But they must also be equipped to dream of a better world, a better tomorrow, because that is where leadership begins.

The Proverbs, Chapter 29, Verse 18 tells us that, "Where there is not vision the people perish." Similarly, flatlander Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it this way:

The essence of man's being and worth involves a radiation from what is within to what is without, and never the other way around. What man is is primary, what man has is secondary.

And so, following Emerson's advice to first look within, we have begun the process of transforming the Champlain curriculum by asking everyone in our Champlain family to look inward, and to dream. This process rests on the faith that dreams are the foundation for clear and bold visions of the future. We shall teach a defined body of knowledge. But we shall also model ways of being in the world that encourage exploration and experimentation. We want Champlain students to grasp the lesson that life is an act not only of observation, but of dreaming, reflecting and acting.

We must actively model and teach critical thinking skills and pay close heed to the quality of thought that we will accept from our students. I want them to become, as former NYU colleague Bob Gurland, described:

"...intellectually pugnacious, resistant, and not easily victimized. I would hope that they come to appreciate excellence in all its forms, that they are able to identify and resist bogus values, that they reject dreams which are devoid of nutrient, ...that they respect themselves and have the courage to live dangerously—to dream their dreams and live their lives in accordance with their most vital visions, and that they listen to their inner voice, because in the main, these voices speak the truth."

Champlain has long held a distinctive role in this community and state. We can, and should, be even more engaged in the future than we have been in the past. Our success in this role has been related to Champlain's ability to stay entrepreneurial. We simply do what any innovative organization does: we listen closely, and we keenly observe the people and the trends impacting business and commerce in this region.

Champlain aggressively and quickly converts our observations into new programs designed to meet emerging needs. We have been just as quick to alter or eliminate existing programs to accommodate changing professional landscapes. The result is that for generations, students—from Vermont and from flatlands—have chosen Champlain College to gain the skills needed to begin a successful career.

We will continue in this important role. The creation, earlier this month, of the Champlain College Center for Workforce Development confirms our commitment to this community and to Vermont. I believe Champlain College has a unique role to play not only by acquainting companies with our highly skilled students, but also by engaging employers in conversations about what skills will be needed in the years ahead. Champlain's historic strength in providing well-prepared graduates to Vermont's businesses will only increase during my tenure here.

But we can and we will do more. Colleges and universities should be safe havens for the unfettered exchange of ideas, especially controversial ideas. In these beautiful and productive Champlain facilities, I hope to promote an active, continuing civic dialogue about issues of import to our community and to our state. It is our obligation to model civic engagement to our students if they are to have any chance of overcoming the apathy that characterizes too many of today's citizens. We can and we will become an effective model of civic engagement.

We must also act to be sure that our students leave us with a sense not only of their place in the world, but also with a sense of place for others, for those they will never meet. This may be our most difficult challenge.

Flatlander Adam Smith, the father of modern economic thought, said:

"Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake. Let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe who had no sort of connection to that part of the world would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all express very strongly his sorrows for the misfortune of that unhappy people. He would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of the human life and the vanity of all the labors of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. And when all of this fine philosophy was over, when all of these humane sentiments had been once barely expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion with the same ease and tranquility as if no such action had happened."

Smith, here describes the limitations of compassion. It is often a very small step from not really caring about others to believing that "we" are more important than "they". Increasingly globalization is bringing us into contact with others and their "other-ness". The increasing human interactions that globalization imposes may reduce this habit of rejection and alienation. Interaction with others from foreign cultures and foreign lands—even those from New Hampshire or...Manhattan—can spark curiosity, the table stakes for learning and understanding. How can we educate our students, our American students, to take seriously the reality of lives outside America?

At Champlain we are hatching plans that will result in our students more often leaving the United States for a semester or a year of rich learning. We plan on beginning study-abroad sites and encouraging our students to encounter first-hand this phenomenon of "other-ness". It is my hope that every Champlain College student will have been exposed to another people and their culture before she or he graduates.

A recent study by the Institute for the International Education of Students reported that 98 percent of study-abroad students said that the experience helped them better understand their own cultural values and biases. Eighty-two percent of the students said that study-abroad contributed to their developing a more sophisticated way of looking at the world. If Champlain graduates are to become leaders in their professions, then experience with other cultures and customs will be mandatory given the multinational flavor that will characterize virtually all companies in the future.

This past Monday's edition of the Wall Street Journal contained an entire section entitled, The New Diversity. In the cover article, Carol Hymowitz calls workforce diversity "a business imperative." David Thomas of Harvard Business School is quoted in the article:

You want employees who can serve customers different from themselves. And you want an environment where employees aren't afraid to share perspectives that are unique to them.

We are also taking a close look at Champlain as a college community. I believe that Champlain is an institution of insufficient diversity—racial/ethnic, socio-economic, and geographic. It is evident to me that Champlain will benefit significantly from our efforts to diversify, and so we will become a more diverse institution. It is my hope that our future will be characterized by a cacophony of dissonant voices in our classrooms that cause both students and faculty to question their own comfortable assumptions, their own certainty about how the world is, or is not.

This past May in Newsweek, flatlander George Will wrote an article on how much we humans have in common. Quoting from Bill Bryson's book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Will makes the point that if we each look back eight generations, to Lincoln's day, we are each directly descended from over 250 people. "Look back to Shakespeare's day and we are directly descended from 16,384 ancestors. Look back 64 generations to the Roman Empire, and we each have a thousand trillion ancestors."

This would all be fine except for the fact that not that many people ever lived on the planet! We are all one family—Vermonters and flatlanders alike. I don't want to shock you but it seems entirely possible, Governor, that you even have a few traits in common with some Democrats. We all have essentially the same DNA because we are all blood relatives.

If we can teach our students this simple fact, that we are all more alike than we are different, then we have begun to scale the walls built by isolationists. If we can teach our students that the reason we experience the world in "we" and "they" terms is because of our own failure to reflect, because of—as George Will states—"an excess of certitude" which is "the greatest threat to civility, and ultimately to civilization." If we can teach our students the dangers of certitude, if we can instill perpetual curiosity in them, if we can make our students intellectually pugnacious, and if we can give them marketable skills, then we will have fulfilled the promise of a Champlain education.

It is, indeed, a high bar. Few, if any, institutions clear that hurdle. I truly believe that Champlain will be among the very first to blend professional preparation, a comprehensive and rigorous core curriculum, and a comfort with other-ness—at home and around the globe—in such a way. I believe that we must. The professions of the future, and the future itself, will be far too important to be left to the uneducated.

I have lived long enough to know that the joy is in the journey, that the most difficult struggles are, ultimately, the most worthwhile. It is with this joy of celebrating the journey that I fully commit myself to this happy struggle, to this Champlain College.