To Emily Dickinson, “there is no frigate
like a book to take us lands away.” Perhaps.
However, for me it is even more pleasurable to take a
frigate — or a bike, bus, car, train, or walk — to
places afar.
After declining invitations for six
years from Nanjing Normal University in China, I finally
accepted this summer. Why? Because I wanted to see again
former President Tan Feng Liang, whom we honored in 1996
and who is seriously ill. Because I felt I could time the
visit to the Handover of Hong Kong (which, thanks to the
hospitality of Sandy Dawson '74, I got to enjoy aboard a
boat in Hong Kong harbor). And because I would have the
time following the visit to fulfill a thirty-year dream
of taking the Trans-Siberian Railway for six days from
Beijing to Moscow.
The trip was everything that I had
hoped for — and more, far more. From interesting
fellow-travelers from around the world to surprisingly
good food, from endless miles of corn, rice, wheat,
forests, and barren Siberian space to endless time to
think and plan, the trip was wonderful. For me, travel is
an addiction, an addiction that requires more and more of
you, and, in exchange, it gives you much, including the
time to think about what you want to do.
Although others who have taken the
trip, and who have written about it, suggest taking a
stack of books, I rejected that advice. After all, I
wanted to see the countryside and talk to whomever I
could — and I wanted to think.
I used the 146 hours in part to think
about Union — about a splendid past year and the
challenges ahead. In George Bush's not-so-immortal words,
I focussed on the “vision thing.”
Rice paddies. Corn
fields. Wheat fields.
For the past seven years, with a broad
mission statement that was the result of a faculty
drafting committee and a strategic plan that has been
updated twice, we have maintained a very clear idea about
what we are trying to accomplish. What we have done, we
have done by plan, not accident.
We have had a full enrollment, seven
new or renovated buildings, a successful $150 million
campaign, balanced budgets, an increase in the College's
endowment from $80 to $200 million, exciting student
efforts to diversify the College through theme housing,
and strong initiatives to revitalize Schenectady that are
beginning to bear fruit. By themselves, these efforts
are, in my view, not enough, although most colleges in
America would be more than happy with them.
Oil fields. More
corn fields.
We have begun to separate ourselves
from the crowd. It will be the successful
“completion” of those efforts in the academic
arena, combined with a much stronger attempt “to get
the word out,” that will bring us to our next level
of excellence.
Endless plains.
Endless forests. Chinese faces, Russian faces.
Union was founded as a union of
religions. Quickly, though, it became a union of theory
and practice, and it is this continuing and enhanced
emphasis that will truly distinguish our college in the
coming years. In short, Union has been, is, and will be a
college that teaches theory and practices its
applications.
With our sustained effort to foster
terms abroad and exchanges, we have reached the point
where well in excess of fifty percent of each class now
studies abroad. Not only does our success in this arena
place us among the top dozen colleges in America, but,
more importantly, our students are learning to be at home
in the world — from Costa Rica to China, from Kenya to
Korea, from Puerto Rico to Poland.
Lake Baikal. The
Angara and Volga.
They are also at home in the world of
research. Whether through our own Charles Steinmetz
Symposium and the National Conference on Undergraduate
Research, Union students are, year-in and year-out, among
the largest presenters of work that they have developed
with our faculty. In the process, they are writing more
and learning to express themselves better orally.
Borscht and
Stroganoff. Pirogi and Piroghki.
A third area where our students and
graduates must feel at home is in their community. While
Union students have long been involved in a range of
activities in Schenectady, we initiated last fall
community service as part of our orientation. We are not
the first school to require service, but we are among the
leaders, and our students are learning important lessons
which will aid them at Union and beyond.
Irkutsk.
Novosibirsk. Omsk. Ekaterinburg.
Taken together, our efforts in
international study, student research, and community
service make us stand apart — from everyone. However,
our capstone effort must be to bridge the liberal arts
and technology so that, in fact and not only word, all of
our students will be broadly educated and technologically
aware.
More plains and
forests. More cities and rivers. And the beauty of the
Urals.
Ultimately, however, we need one other
ingredient to bring us to our next level of excellence —
more passion and pride. There are only 28,029 of us in
the Union family: 640 of us who work at the College,
2,044 who study at Union, and 25,345 who are members of
the alumni body. Until everyone associated with Union
recognizes just how good we are and champions the
College, we cannot get even stronger, especially when one
realizes that, in the aggregate, members of the Union
family — employees, students, and alumni — constitute
less than half the student population at Miami-Dade
Junior College.
When, not if, we succeed in these final
efforts, and when, not if, we promote our efforts
nationally and internationally, our students and our
college will be the beneficiaries. After 9,001 kilometers
across Manchuria and Siberia, after 5,625 miles across
plains and through mountains and forests, nothing could
be more obvious, at least to me, than that we have our
“vision thing” and that Emily Dickinson was
wrong.
Roger H. Hull