I grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, a working-class town with at the time
three General Motors plans. My parents were both immigrants, they're actually
both refugees. My mother came here on the second Liberty ship that brought
refugees from Europe after the war. She was a survivor of Auschwitz.
She was the... sadly, the only member of her family and actually the only Jew from
her town who survived the war. My father was born in Minsk and was brought here
by his family as a child to escape the pogroms of Eastern Europe.
I've often said that this is a remarkable country for many, many reasons.
Where else in the world can you go, literally in one generation from off the
boat with nothing, to enjoy the kind of life and opportunity that I've enjoyed
that my parents and my sister also enjoyed? And I think higher education was
at the root of that. Part of what motivates me is to ensure that others
have the same kind of opportunities that I've enjoyed.
Harvard is a special place, but it's also a special place to me. It's where I
figured out that I was the teacher at heart, it's where I figured out that I
wanted to be a scholar and devote my life to scholarship, it's where I
developed my lifelong passion for higher education.
These are interesting and challenging times for higher education, and part of
what attracts me to this opportunity is the chance to speak not just on behalf
of Harvard, but on behalf of all that colleges and universities stand for. This
is the first time I think in our history where people have seriously challenged
the value of colleges and universities. Both they've asked whether or not it's a
worthwhile investment on behalf of students and their families, but also
people are raising questions about whether or not colleges and universities
are actually good for society. Clearly I believe that they are, I
wouldn't be here if I didn't. We scour the world to try and admit the very best
students, we create remarkable opportunities for young people, we do
research which literally changes the world, but also I think it enables the
American dream. It gives people opportunity, to do things that are almost
unimaginable, absent it. That's why our colleges and universities are so
important, and this particular place is so important. One of the most important
people in my life was my fourth and fifth grade teacher. Her name was Shirley
Chandler, and I learned a tremendous amount from her, not the least of which
was she taught me the importance of listening to others. I think most of us
have been touched by great teachers in our lives, and we encounter them at all
levels. Great faculty inspire their students,
they take a lifelong interest in their students, they mentor their students, and
continue to try and help nudge them along. That's what we do at a place like
this. And I think if we're lucky we never stop learning, and we never stop
encountering great teachers. I would say there were a few things that I'm really
proud about during my tenure at Tufts. Probably the most important achievement
was dramatically increasing access by raising a lot of money for financial aid.
In improving access we greatly enhanced the diversity of the student body. I
think diversity is important for a lot of reasons, but the most important is
that it's a pathway to excellence. We would never attract the very best if we
excluded people because of their background or their race of their
ethnicity, or any other criteria. We need to both reflect the world that we
live in, but also to shape that world. Ultimately, we learn from our differences.
Sometimes I worry that in today's world we think of higher education only in
terms of what it does for the individual. With this extraordinary education also
comes responsibility, and it's responsibility to make a difference in
the world. Now different people are going to do that differently and that's fine,
but I want to make sure that all of our graduates, no matter what they do,
understand they have a responsibility to engage. What we can't afford is to have
good people not get involved, because if that happens, then we we have no standing
to complain about outcomes. We are responsible for making the world a better place.