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Editor's note: The following excerpts are from "Public Service Or Lip Service?: Outreach At A Major Research University," a speech that Carolina Chancellor James Moeser delivered March 27 as part of events celebrating the 10th anniversary of The William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.
The complete speech will be available online at http://www.unc.edu/chan/
The late Albert Coates, the founder of Carolina's Institute of Government and a
staunch believer in the service role of the University, loved to compare UNC's
outreach and its impact to that of the mighty Gulf Stream, whose "warming
effect upon the climates of adjacent land areas is reflected in the
extraordinary mildness of the winters -- permitting vegetables to grow and
flowers to bloom in the winter, and bettering the living conditions of the
people" in the lands it touches.
"From the coming of the first student to its open doors ... the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been a magic gulf stream flowing in an
ever-widening current through the lives of people in the cities, the counties
and the state of North Carolina and beyond -- tempering the customs, traditions
and habits of the people it serves and lifting them to higher levels of living
wherever it has gone."
I love those words of Albert Coates. I can't imagine a more appropriate
analogy, nor one that more fittingly describes Carolina's public service
responsibility and certainly our tradition.
In 1789, the North Carolina General Assembly chartered the University and
charged it with preparing future generations for "an honourable discharge of
the social duties of life, by paying the strictest attention to their
education." That included teaching citizens how to understand, how to improve
and defend the principles of our state and nation's fledgling experiment in
democratic government.
Carolina never strayed from that commitment. We have educated generation after
generation of citizens, government and business leaders, teachers, doctors, and
journalists. And the University has grounded them not only in the academics of
their chosen professions, but also the responsibilities and obligations that
accompany citizenship in an American democracy.
In the early 20th century, President Edward Kidder Graham fervently stressed
the University's role to serve the public -- the people for whom and by whom
the University was built, the men and women whose tax dollars supported the
school and those whose sons -- and a few daughters -- came to our campus to
learn. He touted our outreach responsibility in a campaign that encouraged the
people of the North Carolina to "Write to the University when you need help."
Citizens were urged to call upon the University when they had a problem, and as
a result, the campus library was deluged with requests from citizens, from
libraries, from the public schools and other colleges.
I'm confident that President Graham's appeal not only gave the people of North
Carolina an appreciation of the rich storehouse of talent and knowledge
available in Chapel Hill, but also helped those on campus shape their areas of
study and research in response to the queries they received. A two-way flow
communication between the University and the public was established.
Information traveled freely from the campus outward to the people of the state
and from the people back to Chapel Hill...
When I first visited Carolina last year, I was struck, as I'm sure many of you
have been, by the beautiful stone walls that surround the older campus. Some
universities are enclosed by high walls or fences, but the low stature of our
walls is symbolic. You can stand on one side and look out into the world. Or
you can stand on the other and even reach into the campus. The walls keep no
one out and nothing in. While the stones may mark the physical periphery of the
Chapel Hill campus, they allow us to see out to our greater campus, the campus
beyond the Davie Poplar and the so-called ivory tower. They allow us to see and
respond to the campus that spans the state of North Carolina and the citizens
we serve.
I had the privilege to serve with 26 other current and former college
presidents and chancellors on the Kellogg Commission on the future of public
and land-grant universities. One of the key areas our commission examined was
the need for our institutions to return to their public roots. Indeed, in our
1999 report, the commission called for colleges and universities to become
truly "engaged" with their communities -- and with the word "community" defined
in the broadest possible terms.
We wrote: "Engagement goes well beyond extension, conventional outreach, and
even most conceptions of public service. Inherited concepts emphasize a one-way
process in which the university transfers its expertise to key constituents.
Embedded in the engagement ideal is a commitment to sharing and
reciprocity....defined by a mutual respect among the partners for what each
brings to the table.
Thus engagement involves a redesign of teaching, research and service to bring
our campuses and communities closer together, building on the synergy that
exists between them. An engaged university can enrich student culture and help
change campus culture by increasing opportunities for students and faculty to
gain access to research and new knowledge and broaden internships and
off-campus learning opportunities. ...At the same time, an engaged university
puts its knowledge and expertise to work for its off-campus partners...
When I arrived in Chapel Hill, I received data that indicated many people
believe that Carolina...is the single most important institution in this
state's history -- not just the most important university, but the most
important institution -- now and in the entire history of this state. One
citizen who was cited called us "the state's greatest man-made asset," while
another noted that "Carolina must understand the world and bring us the
future." The public has tremendously high expectations for us. We cannot -- and
at Carolina, I would argue, do not -- consider engagement an option...
Sir Wilfred T. Grenfell summed it up eloquently: "The service we render to
others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that
man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of the world is not `to have and to
hold' but `to give and to serve.'" What a fitting sentiment as we consider
university engagement and public service...
As the state of North Carolina's economy shifts from manufacturing jobs, from
textiles, from all the aspects of tobacco and from all the aspects of the old
economy, it will become, in fact, a knowledge-based economy. The trick for a
great research university is to transform the knowledge created there into the
engine that drives the economy of the future. This may be one of the most
significant ways in which we engage the people of this state...
As the Friday Center enters its second decade, we have new opportunities to
serve the people of North Carolina, new opportunities to engage them, and new
technology to take to them. This Center will remain a vital conduit for the
University to reach out to the public, one that will become increasingly
important in this third century of public higher education. Bearing the proud
names of William and Ida Friday, two Tar Heels who share an unparalleled
commitment to public service, how can we expect less from this Center? How can
we expect less from ourselves?
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