Convocation Remarks delivered on Founders Day, February 25, 1995
Today we celebrate and plan: celebrate an idea and an institution; and plan for a future that, if we apply ourselves courageously and diligently, can reassert the College's leadership role in education and steer the Union ship past education's Scylla and Charybdis.
This day is truly remarkable. It is remarkable in that only seventeen institutions share our longevity; it is remarkable, too, in its similarity to our other major milestones.
At each of our past milestones, we also combined celebration and planning. Although those occasions were marked by somber notes, Union clearly was an institution that moved forward. In 1895, despite the fact that Union's great president, Eliphalet Nott, lamented that he would soon pass from the scene, he had the vision to introduce engineering for the first time at the liberal arts college level (by the way, Nott was wrong; he was to serve Union for another
twenty-one years). In 1895, during the College's centennial, President Andrew Van Vranken Raymond presided over an institution that still had not reemerged from its nadir following the Civil War; yet, Raymond and the College had the vision to bring the great Charles Steinmetz to Union and have him introduce electrical engineering into the curriculum. And, in 1945, at the sesquicentennial Founders Day, Union found itself in a less than celebratory mood, for World War II was still raging and Union's president, Dixon Ryan Fox, had suddenly died a month before; however, Union like other colleges, was planning to welcome the returning veterans to the campus and to join in serving them as they had served the nation.
What we do today will be in keeping with what has transpired before. Well-positioned, but faced with the pressures confronting all of higher education, Union once more has a unique opportunity, an opportunity that, thanks to a generous grant from the General Electric Foundation, will enable the College to develop the engineering curriculum for the 21st century and bring liberal arts and technology together in a way to provide a model for all of higher education.
The institution that we celebrate today is Union. Yet the idea we celebrate had its origin well before 1795. The idea for Union's illustrious history can, like all of American higher education, be traced back to ancient Greece. Indeed, the belief that knowledge is power, and that it can be acquired through effective and logical reasoning, through persistent and hard work, is hardly unique to Union.
What is unique, though, is how this wonderful college came into being. In the midst of the Revolutionary War, in 1779, the townspeople of Schenectady petitioned the State of New York for a college; in 1795, during the presidency of George Washington, they succeeded in obtaining a charter for an institution of higher learning in Schenectady, “the land beyond the pine plains,” thereby marking a departure from what had taken place at the seventeen other colleges that had been chartered before Union. For the first time, a non-denominational institution was born, an institution that was a union of all faiths and that specified in its charter that no person of any religious denomination shall be excluded from the College on account of his particular religion. Moreover, as Union's first president, John Blair Smith, concluded, education should not be the providence only of the elite. In this country, said Smith, where the path to honors and offices had been open to all, so also should higher education, and the dissemination of knowledge; at Union, therefore, the sons of farmers and the sons of patroons would be equally welcome.
Early on, too, Union chose a decidedly different path from its seventeen brethren. Like those institutions, the acquisition and transmission of knowledge was the primary raison d'etre. However, it was the application of that knowledge, and. the recognition that that knowledge is a living entity, that distinguished Union. For those teaching and learning at Union, knowledge grew, changed, had meaningful applications.
Taken separately, the acquisition, transmission, and application of knowledge have relevance; together, though, they have more than relevance, for they have the power to change the world. From its earliest days, Union has recognized and encouraged the dynamic interaction among these three aspects of knowledge, for, as
Eliphalet Nott stated, “in the acquisition of knowledge, you are never to be stationary, but always progressive.”
That approach was evidenced early on and is equally evident today. From the introduction of the modern languages into the curriculum, to the addition of the hard sciences, to the introduction of first a general program in engineering and then in electrical engineering, Union has not shied from the application of knowledge that has been acquired and properly transmitted.
More recently, the spirit is demonstrated in the broad range of international study opportunities, on the emphasis on undergraduate student research (not only in the sciences but also in the arts, humanities, and social sciences), and on a recognition of the need to revamp an engineering curriculum for the 21st century. Yet the real challenge is before us; we must afford students seeking a broad liberal arts education the opportunity to be exposed to technology in a pedagogically sound and non-threatening manner.
Certainly, while most first-rate educational institutions are willing to confine themselves to the acquisition and transmission of knowledge, there are other institutions that have emphasized the application of knowledge. Yet what makes Union distinctive is our belief-a belief that truly can be traced to the very first years of the College-that the three ideas must work together and that they can do so effectively in the intimate setting of a small liberal arts college.
These attributes will serve us well as we face the obvious and many challenges in our third century of service. As important as this philosophical basis is, and as lovely as the beauty of this first planned campus in America is, ultimately it is people who will make the difference. The right people without the right idea and the right setting, and the right idea and setting without the right people, can each provide something of worth. In the final analysis, though, it is the triumvirate of our idea, our setting, and our people that will help propel us into our 21st century.
As we celebrate today, we have reason to feel proud of our history and the future promise of our distinctiveness. It is the strength of that history and distinctiveness that has made the difference in the experiences that so many in the Union family have had, including so many of you, and it is that historic and ongoing distinctiveness that will lead the Union ship safely past the modern-day Scylla and Charybdis.