University Day 1980

The cornerstone of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was laid October 12, 1793 at what is now Old East Dormatory. On Sunday, October 12, 1980, the University Day celebration was held. It was the occasion of the formal installation of Christopher Columbus Fordham III as Chancellor of the University. We now present the installation of the Chancellor by President William Friday with the consolidated university system and the address of Chancellor Fordham. I'm Famiciel Henderson. Christopher Fordham's career is known to all of us, and we are delighted that his intelligence, his accumulated administrative experience and skills, his energy, and his goodwill are all now directed toward his performance as Chancellor. His commitment to the essential academic activities of this university is clear. His enthusiasm for this place is unbounded, and his is a warm and generous spirit and words

like compassion and loyalty and tolerance and love appropriately characterize his relationships with other people. Being this kind of person has qualified Christopher Fordham to take his place as a worthy successor to Robert House and William A. Cock and Carlisle Citizen and Fairby Taylor, each of whom as we've learned is also a son of Chapel Hill. Christopher Fordham knows that Chapel Hill holds a special place in the hearts and minds of thousands of alumni and friends. A special place that has been earned by the superlative performance of the men and women of the faculty, staff, and administration over these 187 years. He understands that this special relationship is nurtured and grows stronger when the

university excels in teaching and conducts basic and applied research appropriate to a distinguished institution and when the institution reaches out, as Governor Hunt said, to solve the pervasive and troubling problems for the betterment of society. And Christopher Fordham knows that the freedom to perform these functions courageously and without arrogance, the freedom to follow truth and the freedom to be a vital, creative, disturbing and responsible university commands his best efforts at all time. I now have the privilege to invest Christopher Fordham with the authority and responsibilities of the Office of Chancellor, so I ask him to come and join me at the lecture. Christopher Fordham, by the authority vested in me, by the Board of Governors and the state

of North Carolina, and by virtue of your election by the Board of Governors, I do now declare you, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And I charge you to a full realization of the responsibilities laid upon you by this office to the necessity for courageous and constructive thought in their fulfillment and to the duty and privilege of seeking out the intellectual and educational needs of the people in order to achieve the high destiny which was the vision and purpose of the founders. The Board of Governors of the University is well pleased to place the leadership of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill into your hands. I count it our good fortune that I may now officially install you as the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ladies and gentlemen, Chancellor Fordham.

Governor Hunt, President Friday, Chairman Jordan, Chairman Bowles, Chairman Pollett, President Saunders, President Church, distinguished alumni awardees, dear colleagues on the faculty, members of the student body and staff of the University, alumni, trustees, and guests.

May I add my warm words of welcome to all of you as we celebrate University Day, 1980, and needless to say I am deeply grateful for the words that have been said from this podium, the eloquence of those words, and I take them to mean a genuine tribute to this institution. I am grateful to the Governor for being here at considerable personal hardship. I am grateful to these marvelous musicians, the band and the choirs, and the pit, and the marvelous commemorative anthem which we heard which was an original composition by Dean Johnson. I am grateful to every one of you for being here. Almost 200 years ago, soon after the birth of our nation, a lamp was lit with the founding of this University in Chapel Hill.

Wrought from an humble and at the same time glorious beginning at the side of the David Poplar, the institution in its early years represented access to college education for the youth of a pioneer state. Its students were mostly the sons of working people, as North Carolina was not a rich plantation state. At times along the way, creative and sturdy individuals, over a wide range of disciplines, achieved prominence as members of the faculty and leaders of the faculty, and I need only mention the names of Davey, Calwell, Battle, Spencer, Winston, Alderman, Venable Chase, Graham, to recall visions of courage among the giants of earlier university generations. But it was not until well into this century that the university emerged as an important national citadel of scholarship.

By then several important traditions had become its heritage, and I shall mention only five of these traditions as examples which I hold to be especially dear. First, the university's deep roots in the soil and in the people of North Carolina. This sense of fundamental identity is an important base for the quality and character which have evolved here, and this identity is not and has not been restricting. This university is truly national and international in its scope, and through the relationship between its strong base in the state and its global outreach in a multiplicity of disciplines and endeavors, it serves as a critically important value for the people of the state, a wide, wide window to the world. This concept of a great university which belongs to the people of the state has thus far survived

and flourished perhaps as effectively in North Carolina as anywhere in the world. A second established tradition is the university's commitment to freedom, freedom of expression, freedom to dissent, freedom to be wrong. Indeed, in many ways, the great state university is truly at the frontier of freedom in our society. The search for truth, knowledge, and understanding is complex, and in the minds of men and women, rarely simple and easy. The unpopular view, the dissenter, the maverick philosopher, will surely find intellectual companionship and solace here. A visionary concept does not always appear virtuous in Genesis or in gestation. The university must be a haven for ferment and creativity.

Ideas, hypotheses, theories, suppositions, whatever their origin and content must always be subject to expression and scrutiny in the university. Despite ambivalence and uncertainty on the part of some in periodic crises in the past, the people of our state have sustained the university and its commitment to freedom, the search for truth and knowledge, and in the open and free expression of individual and collective views. This heritage of freedom, spanning generations, is not casually to be taken for granted. Many educational institutions have been subjected to restrictions in their freedom, to explore and to express. By administrators, trustees, legislators, and others. Perhaps the fundamental pioneering spirit and the small farm, small business ethic of North Carolina.

Together with the great good fortune to have the right people at the right times, all together helped to build this tradition of freedom here. Say the advent of increasing regulation and growing centralized bureaucratic control at all levels, threaten creativity and freedom. It is fervently to be hoped that we can achieve increasing justice in our society without the sacrifice of freedom. And whatever the origins of this freedom of expression in the university, society is its beneficiary. A third deeply ingrained tradition which we today celebrate is the university's steadfast commitment to scholarship, to excellence, and achievement. The value to society of an institution where there is intense motivation and the capability to reach for the stars on the wings of the mind is unestimable.

At a time in history, when we have begun to have doubts about ourselves and our ultimate destiny, the sturdy commitment of this institution to excellence and to achievement is more important than ever. And this commitment can here be characterized as confident and collegial, false gods and superficial institutional aggrandizement abound in higher education as in other endeavors. Let our commitment to excellence and to knowledge, understanding, and truth transcend the expedient and be construed by us all as in the service of society and for the betterment of mankind. A fourth tradition which we inherit is that of societal leadership and the tradition of important contributions from among our former students. These contributions must surely reflect both classroom excellence and the out-of-class

room experience by the extraordinarily talented students who come to Chapel Hill. As mentioned by Professor Albert Coates in his book The University as a Magic Gulf Stream of North Carolina, it could be said even some years ago that more than 120 students had gone out from the university to be attorneys general of North Carolina and other states. More than 40 had become justices and chief justices of North Carolina and more than 18 other states. 32 had become governors of North Carolina and eight governors of other states. These had gone out to become state senators and state representatives. One student had left the university to become president of the United States, one vice president, and many to become cabinet officers. Over 50 to become ambassadors, 25 United States senators and well over 100 United States representatives. Hundreds had gone out to become leaders in business, education, research, the performing

arts, law, medicine, journalism, athletics, and almost every field of endeavor. Surely one of our greatest traditions is the extraordinary productivity of the university's former students. And what of today's students? Absolute purity of spirit does not seem to characterize the human condition. In such an evaluation, however, one needs to remember that ambivalence is a poignant and fundamental aspect of human behavior and human destiny. There are always elements of good and bad, constructive and destructive and positive and negative. And we have as a society the unrelenting tendency to highlight the negative, to find the flaws, to chastise even the chase. I find the students of today to be bright, competent, and high spirited.

There is a perceptible tenor of serious purpose and light heart. Among our own student body are many, many creative individuals of high potential with a wide range of interests and with remarkably diverse backgrounds. The students of today are truly the hope of our society. I believe in them and I am optimistic because of them. The fifth great tradition of the university is to be found in the special human spirit which exists here. The warmth of the human environment and the easy collegiality among faculty, students, and many townspeople have been noted and recorded through generations. Such qualities are by nature fragile and the good spirit and will of many people are required to sustain them.

The progressive nature of the institution and the concern of its faculty and students for the well-being of all people has contributed perhaps more than any other single factor to the progressive image which the state itself has enjoyed. The university is a larger place today than most of its alumni remember it to be. But so is the state of North Carolina. And we must remember that the university's present size has at least two advantages. One, the substantial number of students who can be exposed to what the university has to offer. And secondly, the maintenance of both breadth and depth of scholarship in an increasingly complex world. This institution is in fact among the most comprehensive of universities. The intellectual and physical resources available to its students are truly remarkable. In the newest and oldest subjects, it teaches the faculty has breadth and depth.

And it is a superb faculty. Its accomplishments and its standards mean that an appointment to this faculty is alone a very substantial level of achievement and recognition. Thus size when joined with quality, commitment and collegiality may contribute in very significant ways to productivity and to opportunity. The complexities of the world and its knowledge base notwithstanding, it is vital that we maintain and nurture the special spirit with which this institution has been imbued. It is both real and metaphysical, perhaps akin to love of country, difficult to characterize and impossible to measure. It represents to its alumni a precious commodity carried forth from Chapel Hill, a special kind of joyous identity through life.

Not this special spirit live on and let us work to assure that it is more than pride and personal joy, that it is and that it begets respect for others. In times past, the institution was for the education of white male youth. Today our student body is over 50 percent women and almost 8 percent black. And our potential for fullest service to society and greater productivity in the future has thereby been immeasurably enhanced. We must be aggressive in our efforts further to diversify the student body and the faculty and the staff. The institution has poignant and important parallels with our nation. Its date of origin, its commitment to freedom, its respect for the individual, its struggle towards justice. There is yet another important dimension.

Its as yet unfulfilled dream of brotherhood and sisterhood characterized by genuine respect for others, equality of opportunity and equality of justice without sacrifice of freedom. Surely we have made progress, but we must find ways to advance this dream to full fruition for the very sake of our society and the university must provide leadership at the frontier of this noble cause. I ask in the special spirit which exists here that all in the university community lends support to this absolutely vital venture. Can these great traditions of this institution and its service to North Carolina and the nation be sustained and advanced? The answer must surely be yes, and the challenges are formidable. It will require among many other things committed and effective stewardship by the faculty and

its leaders, including the capacity to consider and effect prudent change and to make the very most of limited resources. It will require high motivation and commitment by our students, assorting out of serious purpose from trivialities, but with a light heart and a steadfast refusal to take oneself too seriously. It will require growing and generous support from alumni in the private sector, the critical extra margin of excellence, and it will require strong support by the people of North Carolina through their elected leaders and the university system. Among the products of the growing complexities of our nation is the advent of state university systems. Our own system began almost 50 years ago and reached its present level of 16 institutions in the early 1970s under the remarkable leadership of President Friday and in the wake of the turbulent 1960s.

There are legitimate considerations which favor coordination, orderly relationships, and regional and institutional equity. There are also vital considerations which have to do with institutional identity, integrity, and mission. It is easily understood that a progressive people would wish to sustain an institution with special qualities and traditions of excellence and national and international prominence achieved over all most two centuries. Those of us here today and all North Carolinians have inherited this great institution from our full bears. Its special attributes, precious as they are, will not be sustained and nurtured in the future without sacrifice. I am optimistic. The state itself and public higher education in North Carolina are blessed with strong and enlightened leadership.

The forces which would, in the name of other priorities, dilute and diminish the contributions which this institution has made and can make to North Carolina and the nation must be steadfastly resisted and overcome. Because this place, in all of its glorious natural beauty, on this fall Sunday, represents an undeniably lofty expression of the human spirit and symbolizes such aspirations for future generations. I believe that the character and excellence, the light and the liberty of the University of Chapel Hill, as a beacon for all of the people of North Carolina, will be nurtured and will survive as a special expression of its people. Let us rededicate ourselves on this day to the enhancement of the contributions of this University, now with respect and affection for my sturdy companion in life, my wife Barbara, I pledge my best effort for this noble cause, which is this University, and I ask for

the help of all those who share this vision. Thank you. This has been the University Day celebration and installation of Christopher Columbus Fordham III as Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Famiciel Henderson and this is W.U.N.C. Chapel Hill.