October 4, 2001
Message from the President: With pain, sorrow come reaffirmation
The beginning of the fall term is traditionally an exciting time, but this year the mood is somber. We are shocked and sorrowful for the terrible losses our nation experienced on Sept. 11. We are all trying to make sense of these tragic events and decide what our individual and collective responses should be. Above all, our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who perished in the tragedies. As the wreckage in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania continues to be cleared day after day, the enormity of the damage becomes more evident and our sorrow for the human losses will not go away. We sense that even with the passage of time, our world has been permanently changed.
Along with the pain, I believe this crisis has thrust special obligations and expectations upon institutions like the University of Washington. It is too early to enumerate them fully, but some of the things our community should do are already apparent. First, we should be a place where every person is treated with respect. This means being proactive in supporting all the members of our community regardless of national origin, ethnicity, or religious faith. Everyone has the same rights as everyone else to study, work, and live peaceably at the University of Washington. This obligation requires our community to be a place where all ideas, even unpopular ones, can be heard.
Next, the University of Washington should renew its commitment to preparing all of our students for citizenship in a global society. For that’s where they will surely be, no matter where they actually live and work. As a university community, we need to devote much of the year ahead to discussing what it means to become educated for responsible global citizenship and how to ensure that all our students have that kind of education.
Third, we must be a resource for the larger communities of which we are a part – a place where people can come to learn from us and from each other. Many of our academic programs have students and faculty whose knowledge and experience are relevant to the tragedies of Sept. 11. Through seminars, lectures, and round-table discussions of all kinds, the University of Washington can help people understand what happened that day and prepare for what may lie ahead.
Finally, we should do all we can to strengthen the alignment of our university’s teaching, research, and service with 21st century global, human challenges – in health care, environmental protection, economic opportunity, preservation of the human spirit, and in closing the divides that separate rich from poor, north from south, literate from illiterate. This means converging our research across the disciplines on real human problems, speeding the transfer of knowledge to the larger society, and expanding the areas of impact where we can make a difference in the world. It means gaining understanding from the humanities, arts, and social sciences about human conditions and cultural differences among men and women everywhere.
If these calls and obligations, born of the tragedies of Sept. 11, sound familiar, they are. These are our traditional missions and obligations, but now they are more sorely needed than ever and certain to be carried out through fresh means and in new ways appropriate to the crisis of terror and to the demands of the 21st century.
Many events have already been scheduled across our three campuses to provide opportunities for reflection upon the events of Sept. 11 and to share ideas about what happened and the responses we can make. Information about those events and other related activities may be found at http://www.washington.edu/oue/sept11.
Please join with me and with all the members of the UW community in reaching out to those who need help and support at this time. Let us also work together to ensure that our University becomes ever more relevant to the problems, challenges, and opportunities of our world.
