III. Good and Great
As a nation, we find ourselves in a period when university consumers, regulators, partners, and communities are more vocal than ever about what they expect and want from universities. Some students and parents say that universities should primarily be training centers that prepare graduates for the job market.
President's State of the University Address
"...We must focus on what it means to be a good, and great, university."
Success After Emory
Despite an unfavorable economy, the options open to Emory College graduates are as bright, creative, and diverse as the young alumni themselves. Read and watch success stories from the Class of 2009, reflecting the best features of our graduating classes—inquisitive, energetic men and women more than ready to take their place in the world.
In 2009, a graduate of one university brought a lawsuit against her alma mater because she had been unsuccessful in securing a job in her area of study. We hear from our community that they want us to be good employers. (We are, in fact, the largest private employer in our county and one of the top three in the region.) Our municipal leaders want us to be an economic engine and, in Emory’s case, a source of healing. Donors want us to be a good investment.
Although we are indeed all these things, we must be much more. Although we satisfy these expectations and wants of society, we must go beyond them—indeed, in some sense, beneath them to society’s foundations. The measure of us will be in meeting society’s needs—even if society is less aware of the needs that universities, especially research universities such as Emory, can and must meet. To a large extent, the means by which we satisfy the legitimate utilitarian wants of society will be by focusing, first and foremost, on providing what modern society needs in order to flourish. Three simple but hard-won words must precede our name: good and great.
The challenge is this: in spite of there being little external pressure at the moment to do so, we must make our first priority the excellence of our intellectual community. Through effective mentoring, hiring, and promotion practices, we must add daily to the distinction of our faculty. At the same time, we must foster intellectual engagement and provide a place for courageous inquiry. We must be a place that celebrates knowledge, sometimes just for its own sake, and that seeks through art, literature, and the elegance of science to help guide the world to a more civil society.
Emory University on BigThink
Big Think is a global online forum connecting people and ideas. More than a dozen Emory experts have contributed to Big Think’s expanding platform of knowledge multimedia, discussing their thoughts and theories on the economy, health care, religion, and other current topics.
Few places besides our universities are called to serve precisely this purpose, to be a home for a vibrant life of the mind. Society may be increasingly articulate about what it wants, but it also needs things such as our Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, our Oxford College, our Fox Center for the Humanities. It needs our fundamental research as well as translational work. It needs our artistic exploration. Furthermore, to the degree that we can be true to these unique facets of our calling to be a powerful intellectual community, we also will give society more of what it believes it wants from us.
We will be a better mentor of students preparing for the marketplace, but we will prepare them also for citizenship as engaged scholars. We will be a better employer and economic engine. But to yield to those who urge us to employ more of our assets to shore up failing enterprises, or to make attractive concessions to new businesses at the cost of pursuing our primary purpose as a powerful intellectual community, would ensure over time only that the very things that make Emory a jewel in our region’s crown would tarnish.
To the degree that we become a better university, we will become better able to diagnose and heal the world’s diseases. Emory already operates the largest hospital system in the state. Yet perhaps Emory will do still more, not by tending to larger numbers of patients but by developing new treatments and devices that will be adopted by other physicians around the world. In this way, millions who never even set foot in one of our hospitals or clinics might well benefit from Emory’s care. By tending to our primary call as an inquiry-driven intellectual community and doing what community health systems are not called to do, we will broaden our impact globally while at the same time enhancing our attractiveness locally.
The state of Emory University is sound, good, and promising. It remains my deep pleasure to continue to serve you as president.
James W. Wagner
President of Emory University
NCI Designation for Winship
This year, Emory’s Winship Cancer Institute earned the coveted National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Center designation. It is the first medical facility in Georgia to earn this distinction. Winship joins an elite group of sixty-four cancer centers nationwide on the forefront of the battle against cancer.
Winship’s NCI designation will benefit patients through increased access to new clinical trials and technologies. “We are very proud of Emory’s Winship Cancer Institute for achieving this important designation,” said Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. “Winship has served as a model in establishing collaborative research programs and in working statewide to address the pressing issues related to treatment, education, and access to care for cancer patients.”