The Enterprise University

New York University has been blessed. At each of the critical junctures in its history, it has found a vision for itself, one that suited it and propelled it forward. Though universities are among the oldest of organized institutions, we at NYU have avoided a fixation with the past, charting a course not by what we see in the sky presently but by the stars we believe lie over the horizon. We have embraced boldness in our imaginings, carried a belief in ourselves well beyond the expectations of others, and possessed the courage to reshape ourselves.

We are at such a moment again.

This University has come very far. It was born of an idea in the early 19th century that a new and young country needed a fresh and different institution of higher learning, one that was not simply an entitlement for the elite classes, but instead an opportunity for those in a burgeoning city who wished to know more and to do better. Since our founding, we have endured profound difficulties and enjoyed times of remarkable growth and progress.

Today NYU is strong, but it can and should be stronger. There is so much more we want to achieve. Given the quality of our existing faculty and students, I believe that NYU is poised to effect a category change: a transformation in the years ahead from a leading university to one that will be among a handful of "leadership universities," embracing and executing their core mission with such manifest excellence that they are the models others strive to emulate.

We have arrived at this threshold at a time of dramatic change in the creation and transmission of knowledge - the vastly accelerated pace at which new knowledge is generated, the new and more rapid manner in which knowledge is conveyed, the breakdown of boundaries between long-established fields of inquiry. This kind of profound shift can be daunting, and the challenge for higher education will be to strike the right balance between innovation and preservation.

NYU has inherent advantages that will permit us not just to cope with change, but to capitalize on it and get the balance right. If together we do that, NYU can become one of the first exemplars of what universities will be in this new century.

The advantages are all round us. First, the literal ground of our being is the geographic capital of the world - New York City. Second, we are not only in but of the global environment that is manifest in our city; every day we live the interconnection of the world of ideas and the world of action in a unique way through the porousness of the boundary between our University and its surroundings. Third, because we are relatively new to the first rank of research universities, we are not overburdened by entrenched or anachronistic structures and archetypes; we are well practiced in seeing, working and collaborating across traditional divisions. And finally we are imbued with the spirit of New York, a spirit of both dream and dissatisfaction, nourished by ceaseless aspiration, and captured in our affirmative lack of contentment and our constant striving to do better.

For us to create the NYU made possible by these assets, we need first of all to promote change within our own walls: changes in culture, in the level of interaction in the University, in our decision-making. We must be energized in every one of the University's nerve centers.

During last year's transition period, we started our effort to match the changes around us with internal changes of our own. We were guided by certain values, most especially a belief in the importance of consultation and engagement. Some of the most meaningful guidance over the past year came to me directly in my Saturday sessions with faculty and in larger meetings with faculty, students, administrators, and others. In all, I personally spent hundreds of hours listening to our community and testing ideas across the range of its citizens. The members of the transition team participated in a similar process, which also reached out to the whole university community. We must continue the dialogue and embed it in our nature.

Over the summer, the university leadership team and the deans began defining and implementing our strategy for the University—probing our self-definition, concentrating on key issues, and overcoming institutional reticence. This team continues its efforts through a set of working groups—charged with generating, eliciting and evaluating ideas and initiatives. We established new mechanisms for collective decision-making, such as a Faculty Academic Priorities Advisory Committee. And we have affirmed that the guiding principle in all University decision-making will be the advancement of our academic mission.

Over the next year, Provost David McLaughlin and the rest of the leadership team will develop strategies for building the finest possible faculty - a faculty of leaders who live the vocation of teaching as well as scholarship and creativity. An engaged faculty, committed to sharing with our students in the classroom and outside of it, is the greatest gift that we can give to our community. The team will focus on ways to attract and retain the most talented student body, eager to embrace this opportunity and the unique learning environment we will create on our campus by drawing on the unmatched vibrancy and diversity of New York City.

We will build on areas of strength, emphasizing in particular our arts and sciences core. The excellence currently within our University cannot just be maintained, but must be continually nourished and enhanced - for which we will make the necessary commitments. In addition, we will make strategic investments in developing new centers of excellence. This strategy will value especially those initiatives that advance not just one department or school but other parts of the university as well.

The university we foresee is not a collection of islands in isolation, where scholars or disciplines gather together but stand alone. We envision an enterprise model, which rejects the notion of faculty member as independent contractor and moves toward the ideal that each person who accepts the title of professor simultaneously accepts a larger duty to the entire enterprise.

The enterprise model is not limited to faculty. It is equally essential and equally powerful when it is generalized. Every one of us, from the President of the University to the incoming freshman, is privileged to be here. But we must understand that we live in a time when the interconnectedness of rights and responsibilities has become a guiding principle of our society; this principle, like all ideals in an imperfect world, is not perfectly applied. But across a wide range of endeavor, there is a consensus that those to whom a good is given must give something back in return. As citizens of the university community none of us—faculty, students, or administrators—can excuse ourselves from this obligation. While the enterprise model will not appeal to all, there are many of the very best who will find irresistible this call to community.

The enterprise model also means that the university must transcend the old pattern where departments and schools could inhabit the same campus, but too seldom share the same dialogue. The borders between disciplines must not be barriers to learning. So at NYU, we can and will uphold the well-developed core norms and standards that protect the rigor of our work, while taking new pathways that connect traditional fields in untraditional ways.

In short, what we want for our university in its vision, its operations, and its interactions among faculty, students and administrators is a dramatic move toward collaboration. A stunning example is the way we confronted, starting in the first month of the transition, a challenge to the entire community that arose in the area of health.

The changing nature of health financing nationwide presented a threat to the capabilities and mission of our Medical School, and the University itself. Our response, after candid discussion and planning, has been an unprecedented degree of collaboration involving colleagues in the University's administration and at the School of Medicine, led by Senior Vice President for Health Robert Berne, Executive Vice President Jack Lew and Dean Robert Glickman. That team, with the support of the faculty of the School of Medicine, fashioned a plan, since endorsed by the Trustees, which permits us to recruit top faculty, eliminate the School's operating deficit, and move ahead with the construction of a new research building.

One year into executing the plan we charted last September, we have met or exceeded each of our targets. Our Medical Center—its school and hospitals—is healthy today. A challenge successfully met has enabled stronger connections, some already in place, between faculty and students across the Medical Center and other parts of the University.

Our progress in health mirrors our progress in other areas.

The extraordinary work of the transition team (whose report is available online) led by Professor Norman Dorsen, Jack Lew and Diane Yu, and involving many members of our community, built a strong foundation for our progress. In the days ahead, Bob Berne will outline in more detail the situation in our health systems, and David McLaughlin and Jack Lew will share with you more details about what has been and is happening in their areas. Through a process of continuing communication—through the deans, through our faculty, student and administrator committees, through our elected Council representatives, and through informal mechanisms like Saturday sessions or town hall meetings—we hope you will become not only a participant but also a partner in creating the category change for NYU.

Some may say that economic conditions in our city and country today will make it harder for NYU to fulfill its promise. Flush times certainly would make it easier. But what is most critical is our own will and vision. I believe that the only thing that could slow our progress would be a lack of resolve. And what will drive us forward, economic slowdown or not, is the way we think about ourselves. The combination of our compelling ambition, the talent we have assembled, and the results produced in the past allow us to advance even in a troubled economy.

Our recent success in attracting resources confirms this view. Senior Vice President for Development Debra LaMorte and her team, with the continued wise counsel and assistance of Naomi Levine, have just closed the books for the 2001-2002 year with an impressive total of gifts in excess of $325 million. In recent months we have received 10 gifts, each of $5 million or more and 46 gifts in excess of $1 million. Moreover, we are well along in discussions with potential benefactors about gifts that are multiples of that number. Let me conclude this, my first formal communication to you as President, by asking you to imagine the University's future. Imagine with me an NYU for a new time that does things differently, and differently from other universities. Imagine an NYU where excellence is achieved through understanding that the best will come here and stay here because of the alluring prospect of being part of a compelling intellectual and creative enterprise - an enterprise characterized by collaboration, by innovative research and incandescent teaching, and by a shared commitment to each other. Imagine an NYU where we not only pursue but lead the way in both disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies. Imagine an NYU attentive and responsive to the concerns of its students, solicitous of their input, and committed to a true sense of community. Imagine an NYU that draws even greater vigor from even greater diversity; from the composition of our faculty and student body to the content of our curriculum, we must prize the contribution that diversity can give. Imagine an NYU connected to 300,000 alumni, each with an ongoing stake in our University. Imagine an NYU that embodies a spirit of public-mindedness through engagement with its neighborhood, city, nation, and world.

Much of what we can imagine is already part of our reality—but much more needs to be done—and we must do it in concert.

We stand today at a moment of great opportunity. As a community, there are relatively few events that draw all of us together. Next week, as we proceed with the installation ceremonies, we will mark not just a new presidency, not just the appointment of a new provost and a new leadership team, but instead we will open a new chapter in NYU's history. The ceremony in the atrium of Bobst Library on September 26 will highlight who we are—a community of scholars and creators and learners—and what we stand for, most especially the primacy of academic excellence.

Some of you will participate in these events. But more importantly, I invite everyone to participate in the enterprise we seek to create, in the NYU we are determined to build.