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Incoming
Presidents of Columbia and NYU Address American Academy
December 7, 2001- The incoming presidents of Columbia
University and New York University, Lee C. Bollinger and John Sexton, told a
recent gathering of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that New York
City needs collaboration between their universities in the wake of the
September 11th attacks. The president-designates spoke in front of an audience
of distinguished Academy Fellows that included Alan Brinkley, Gordon Conway,
Denis Donoghue, William T. Golden, Barbara Goldsmith, Paul LeClerc, Richard
Meier, Albert Murray, E. John Rosenwald, Adele Chatfield Taylor, and Harold
Varmus. Bollinger and Sexton, both Academy Fellows, discussed the future of
higher education in general, as well as the challenges facing New York City.
"Lee and I will attempt to write an agenda of cooperation," said
Sexton. "What was an opportunity to create a special collaboration effort is
now a moral imperative," he said, referring to the fact that the two are
longtime friends and colleagues. Both are attorneys who served as law clerks to
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger.
"We are moving from a world of interdisciplinary cooperation to an
inter-university and inter-institutional cooperation," said Bollinger.
Both president-designates referred to the city's international
character. Sexton pointed out that over 150 countries have populations in the
metropolitan New York region. With that in mind, he suggested some pragmatic
steps that both universities can take to increase collaboration and assistance
to the city. Specifically, Sexton and Bollinger called for a sharing of ideas.
Sexton mentioned such pragmatic responses as sharing the cost of "huge research
machines" while Bollinger called for universities to work together to serve as
a clearinghouse for ideas and information for the intellectual community.
"There's never been a time in humankind when universities were more
important," said Sexton, "but there's never been a time when they've existed on
the verge of such change."
Sexton says Universities have Encouraged Faculty as Independent
Contractors
Sexton criticized universities, especially at the "elite" level,
for being risk averse. He said institutions of higher learning have "indulged,
encouraged, and nurtured even, the notion of a faculty member as an independent
contractor, a person who does what he or she wants, when he or she wants, with
relatively little formal obligation."
Bollinger called the last 10 years a glorious time for education,
but warned that state funding will "most certainly decline" in the coming
months and "that will have consequences." He also discussed the growing funding
disparity between private and public universities.
Bollinger Calls Affirmative Action a Societal Responsibility
A champion of affirmative action, Bollinger said "diversity is not
only a higher education issue, but it is a pervasive national commitment
through business, media, the military and beyond to try to deal with the issue
of integration in society with the important benefits we all gain from that
diversity."
Lee C. Bollinger is currently president of the University of
Michigan and formerly served as Dean of the University of Michigan Law School
and Provost of Dartmouth College; John Sexton has served as dean of the NYU
School of Law since 1988.
Patricia Meyer Spacks, the American Academy of Arts and Science's
45th President, presided over the Academy meeting. This year, the Academy
elected 38 members from the New York region. A formal induction ceremony was
held for those area Fellows unable to attend the Academy's National Induction
last October, and included Fellows Irene Diamond, Teodolinda Barolini, Ralph
Larsen, Walter Wriston, Burt Neuborne, Antonio Gotto, Jr., Antoine Compagnon,
Isidore Edelman, Martin Lipton, Roy Radner, Robert Ryman, Manfred Schroeder,
Morris Tanenbaum, Richard Meier, William J. Willis, Alan Cameron, Philip
Hamburger, Edmund Phelps, Harriet Zucker-Franklin, and David Freeberg were
among those taking part.
The American Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams and other
scholar-patriots "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance
the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and
virtuous people." The current membership of over 3,700 Fellows and 600 Foreign
Honorary Members includes more than 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize
winners. Drawing on the wide-ranging expertise of its membership, the Academy
conducts thoughtful, innovative, non-partisan studies on international
security, social policy, education, and the humanities.
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