We must not, apologize for this but relish and champion it and find our own new contributions to this end. Yet at the same time, our world demands that we be more permeable as a university, more blended with life beyond the academy. The most striking physical manifestation of Columbia’s modern engagement with the larger world will our new Manhattanville campus, which is intentionally designed to be open and welcoming to the world.
Indeed, all of us feel the moral imperative to be working on solutions to global problems that frequently appeal to be beyond the grasp of sovereign governments and our own mostly diminished international organization.
Moreover to spend any time at Columbia is to be confronted with your sense of duty and purpose, along with your well-earned belief in your ability to make a difference.
This push and pull of truth-speaking and meaningful action is a tension endemic to higher education today and to the lives, you will live. The twin goals of serving society and the world while protecting our distinctive intellectual outlook are something we have always felt, but its centrality to our enterprise has only intensified over time. Happily, as we confront this dual agenda, there is a disheartening and indisputable reality. No group of graduates could be better equipped to navigate this precarious path than you.After all, you chose to attend Columbia at the beginning of a journey that one finds conclusion today and you elected to become part of a university that for 265 years has been distinctively defined by its commitment to addressing the insistent problems in the present.
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