Kent Syverud

Transcription

So good afternoon everyone. Well thank you. Thank you all for being here. My name is Ryan Williams, I am the Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management and the Director of Scholarships and Student Aid. But today I am very pleased to greet you as a member of the Chancellor's search committee. Thank you all for taking the time to be here with us today. on this very important occasion. We come together as the culmination of a search process, a process that included representation on our committee by faculty, students, staff, alumni, deans, and trustees. Just as critical as search committee members, we heard from each of those constituencies directly through open forums, surveys, and the web. On behalf of the search committee, thank you to all of you who shared your thoughts, insights, and passions for SU with us, the committee, all of which is led us on a path to being here together today. So now, I have the honor and pleasure of inviting to the podium the chairman of the SU Board of Trustees Dick Thompson. [applause] I have a few words to say about Dick. Dick, a native of Rochester, New York, is a 1967 graduate of the Maxwell School's Political Science Master's Program here at SU, who came to us with an undergraduate degree from SUNY Albany. He served in the US Army in the Vietnam War earning a Bronze Star in the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster. Leaving service as a Captain, he earned his law degree at Catholic University while working on Capitol Hill, after which he was Staff Director and Chief Counsel for the House Committee on Government Operations. He later joined Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he rose to top management as Senior Vice President for Public Policy and Government Affairs. Today he is Senior Counsel with the Washington DC law firm of Patton Boggs LLP, and is admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court. He and his wife Jean, who was raised in the Syracuse area, are part of multi-generational SU families and have been extraordinarily generous to SU. This is seen through their volunteerism, service in numerous leadership capacities, and in their financial support for students through the Remembrance Scholarships, and their leading in SU's recently concluded, precedent-setting fundraising campaign. And just recently on July 1, on the very first day of SU's membership in the ACC, they announced a seven-figure transformational gift to support SU Athletics. Please join me in welcoming, Chairman of Syracuse University's Board of Trustees, Dick Thompson. [applause] Thank you Ryan, very much. Good afternoon, and welcome. Thank you all for being here particularly on this steamy day. About 30 minutes ago it was raining cats and dogs, we thought we might have to move this inside the Sheraton but glad it cleared up so many of you could get here. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I first want to thank Judge Alper and the whole committee for the terrific process in which they engage in selecting a new Chancellor. It was inclusive and collaborative ensuring that all constituencies, as Ryan mentioned, of the SU family had a voice in the process, and extremely thorough. Most importantly it was very successful It couldn't have been without all of you students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends, we had students and faculty and staff on the selection committee, many of them are here today, because you embraced the opportunity to contribute to this vitally important process by articulating your love of Syracuse University as well as your aspirations for what we can achieve. This is a great day, in fact it is a historic day. In the 143-year history of this institution, there have only been 11 chancellors. We've had the good fortune to be guided by great stewards who've played leading roles in making this one of the world's great universities. For the past decade, our current Chancellor Nancy Cantor, has led us to making this university-- to paraphrase the words engraved in the entry to Maxwell Hall-- Greater, better, and more beautiful. Her announcement nearly a year ago gave us the opportunity to plan and assure smooth leadership transition. Nancy, on behalf of everyone here, and to the whole university community, thank you for all you've done, thank you for being with us here today. [applause] She won't stand up. As you know, as you know from my message earlier today yesterday the Board of Trustees, affirming the unanimous and enthusiastic recommendation of the Chancellor's Search Committee and the Board's Executive Committee, selected our next chancellor. We're delighted that he could be with us here today, and I'd first like to introduce his wonderful wife, Dr. Ruth Chen, and their son, Steve. Please stand up. [applause] It is now my honor and pleasure to formally introduce you to our next chancellor. He's an outstanding, experienced, skillful, and revered academic leader. He's a keenly astute thinker in the higher education, and the crucial role it plays, and will play increasingly in the world. He is admired as an intellectual and a professional, he is a public servant and a public scholar. He is an award-winning teacher. He is an academic innovator, and he is a proud son of Upstate New York. Please join me in welcoming Chancellor-designate Kent Syverud. [applause] Thank you Ryan, thank you Dick, for the welcoming words for all your service to Syracuse University. First things first, I want to separately acknowledge and thank our Chancellor Nancy Cantor. Nancy, you have been an extraordinary leader in higher education at Syracuse University and all over the world You are so often ahead of everybody else on issues of access to higher education, on issues of commitment to community, on true diversity of people and viewpoints, and on scholarship in action. I don't think there's a University leader anywhere in the world who has done more to organically connect a University to its community than Nancy Cantor has done. I know that lots and lots of people in this community know it and honor you for it, and I really thank you for your leadership. [applause] I owe my own thanks to many people who brought me to this special place today: my family, my wife, Dr. Ruth Chen, my sons, Steven, Brian, and David, have been understanding and supportive of me for decades and they remain so on this next adventure. My faculty colleagues, my students at my current school, Washington University, have taught me so much and they will be so hard to leave in January. The Chancellor's Search Committee here, under a truly inspired leader in the Board of Trustees, Vice-Chair Judge Joanne Alper, was truly unifying and affirming. The committee really showed Syracuse to be great University. The Syracuse University Board of Trustees led by Dick Thompson, who has spent so much time on this transition, has been supportive and understanding, and both Dick and his wife Jean have been overwhelmingly welcoming Ruth and to me. And finally, like, I suspect, every person in this chapel, I have been blessed by transforming teachers and mentors. My fifth-grade teacher, Shirley Berger, at Iroquois Middle School, who for the first time in my life insisted that I could be better than mediocre and I could achieve great things; my college teacher, Dr. Walter Giles, who showed me that great college teaching requires rigor; and a teacher, who knows each student by name and by story, my law school teacher, Allan Smith, who insisted that I become a professor, and who modeled for me the university administrator as open-minded servant and steward; and finally Sandra Day O'Connor, who taught me that a determined and positive can-do attitude can drive even a person offered only a job as a legal secretary to end up at the Supreme Court of the United States. I have been truly lucky in the mentors and institutions I have known. "Syracuse took a chance on me and I have made the most of it." I heard that sentence over and over again during this search process. I heard it from Syracuse board members, I heard it from students, I heard it from faculty, I heard it from alumni, and I heard it from staff. "Syracuse took a chance on me and I have made the most of it." That statement is wonderful combination of humility and ambition. That statement represents this university and this country at its very best. None of you was perfect when you came here, you had much to learn and you knew it. You did not feel entitled, but you did feel responsible for seizing the amazing range of opportunities and activities and courses and ideas across this university-- you made the most of it here in Syracuse, around the world, and over your whole lifetime. And that attitude, your attitude, inspired me to say something simple to you today. I have two words for you. Two words for all in this chapel and all on this campus and around the world who love Syracuse University I have two words for all of you who want this university and all its parts to have a future even greater than its amazing past. I have two words for all on the faculty and the staff, who have poured their hearts and their brains and their sweat into the teaching and research and service and infrastructure of this special place, year in and year out. I have two words for our amazing students, who come to Syracuse from near and far in search of a great education and lifelong friends. I have two words for all in this city, in Onondaga County, in Central New York, in Upstate, who care about this university and this region, and who know, who know that we are blessed with the best people anywhere in the world-- people who are capable of doing miracles when we all work together. I have two words for everyone who wants us to storm the ACC in both men's and women's sports. I have two words, in short, for everyone here in Hendricks and around the world who bleeds orange. Two words: I'm in. [applause] I'm in with all of you who have these loyalties, and these hopes, and these dreams. Like you, I'm committing everything I am and everything I have to this place, to our team, to achieving greatness here through patience, and hard work, and loyalty, and a cheerful can-do attitude. Why am I in? Well, first because this feels like home to me. I was born and grew up in Upstate, I'm a proud graduate of Irondequoit High School near Rochester. That means that I grew up getting my groceries from Wegmans, my clothes from Sibleys, my hamburgers from Carol's. That means I spent my summers as a Boy Scout and counselor near Cranberry Lake. That means beer, to me, is Genesee Cream Ale. [laughter] That means baseball means the International League. When I grew up, Syracuse meant many things: the State Fair, air conditioning, and The Chiefs, but most of all Syracuse meant college. The first true University I ever saw was this one. I can never forget the first time I saw Crouse College up on this hill, with the bells ringing and all kinds of people moving among these fantastic buildings. I bet many of you remember the first time you saw this campus as well but what an impression it makes on you when you're a child. There were all kinds of people here then, people who looked smart, and people who looked different, and people who looked strange, and amazingly, people who looked like someone I could aspire to be. I've been away from Upstate except for regular visits to my family for years now, but that first vision I saw of Syracuse University has never faded, and that university, our university, has kept achieving miracles and getting brighter. I so admire what the faculty has achieved here in each school, in each program. I learned long ago the true value of intense interaction with faculty colleagues. It is that vibrant exchange of ideas among great faculties which invigorates me, and most importantly, what makes the university so much better. And I so admire the students here, as wonderfully modeled by the three students on the search committee: Ivan, Patrick, and PJ. I am grateful and humbled to follow great chancellors to this duty today, including Tolley, and Eggers, and Shaw, and Cantor. Indeed as I stand on this sacred space where so much history has happened, I feel encompassed by a cloud of witnesses, past chancellors and faculty and students, who have been sitting in this space over decades. I have read hundreds pages of our history, in fact, I have read 5 volumes, these volumes, from our library, a great library at the heart of this campus. You should visit it. [laughter] This great history compels me to end these remarks with the same humility and ambition that I heard from each of you who told me Syracuse took a chance on you. So here it goes. Those were generous introductions, especially from Dick Thompson, But I want you to know I still have so much more to learn. So much more to learn about this university, this city, and this region. I need to learn from each of you: each student, faculty member, staff member, alumnus. I need to learn how to bleed orange. I will work hard to learn exactly that. I will do so because I want with all my heart to steward this great place to an even greater future. I am absolutely certain today that we are going to accomplish great things together, that we are going to turn heads, that we are going to manage occasional hardships and disagreements just fine and with cheer and dignity, that we are eventually going to flatten the competition, including Duke, [laughter] and that along the way, we will help the whole world see Syracuse as the best university and Central New York as the best place that anyone could want to be. With only 11 chancellors in its very long history, Syracuse takes a chance whenever it selects new chancellor. Today I am truly honored that you have taken that chance on me. I mean to make the most of it, with your help, with your advice, and with your support I will do that. I'm in, and I sure hope you are too. Thank you so much. [applause] [enthusiastic applause] Thank you so much, Chancellor Syverud. And with that I would just like to bring today's event to a close, and thank everyone for their time, for their participation, for their passion for Syracuse University, and for welcoming the new chancellor and his family to Syracuse. Thank you. [applause]