Eugene Lang Inaugural Remarks

Jonathan Veitch Inauguration Remarks
Eugene M. Lang
Founder and President, The Eugene M. Lang Foundation
October 24, 2009

Colleagues and friends, thank you for the privilege of sharing this very meaningful occasion with you. I know Occidental as one of this country's select and respected liberal arts colleges and as a dynamic colleague in Project Pericles. And I know Jonathan Veitch as a very special friend and, until recently, the outstanding and deeply appreciated dean of my namesake Eugene Lang College of the New School University in New York. In being here now, especially after Alice Duff's generous introduction, there may be reason to clarify my identity: Am I a philanthropist by presenting you with Jonathan as the new leader of Occidental College? Or, in so doing, am I a masochist who invited the painful concern of replacing him in New York? Well, no matter! Right now, all of us enthusiastically recognize and welcome the significance, the responsibility, the support and the commitments that are implicit in acknowledging Jonathan Veitch as the new leader of Occidental College - or, as the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago headlined on its front page, the "Accidental Occidental President."

Clearly, Jonathan has found a community after his own heart at Occidental, a community where students are challenged to see the connections between their studies and current social issues - a college with innovative professors like Dr. Adrian Hightower who requires students to apply physics to conduct energy audits for community partners - with a dean like Dr. Eric Frank, who strongly supports Occidental's CCBL, its Center for Community Based Learning - and its dynamic director, Maria Avila, who has so effectively linked Occidental to the nationwide community of Pericleans. Also, we specially recognize the unpremeditated coincidence that Jonathan Veitch is the first transfer-president of Project Pericles.

As has been noted, I founded Project Pericles in 2001 as an organization designed to implement the proposition that higher education has a primary obligation to include social responsibility and participatory citizenship among its essential learning values - a proposition to which all Periclean institutions are formally committed.

The philosophy of Project Pericles goes beyond casual voluntarism. It calls for thoughtful initiatives and daring responses to social and economic issues. It regards social responsibility and participatory citizenship as essential elements of higher education - curricular and co-curricular - in the classroom, on the campus and in the community. It encourages students to understand the values of our democracy and responsibilities of citizenship in association with career aspirations and community concerns.

Project Pericles now has 24 diverse selected Pericleans located across the country. And as we extend the horizon of our experience, we will eventually be able to welcome all colleges and universities to become Pericleans. Meanwhile, I invite you to share my pride in two Pericleans who are represented here today - Occidental College and New School University - and forgive me if I also claim as "present" my alma mater, Swarthmore College.

At New School University, as dean of Eugene Lang College, Jonathan Veitch established a genuinely significant and creative Periclean enterprise. His rapport with students and faculty - his ability to enlist their ideas and involvement - was outstanding. He established a legacy that joined New School faculty, students and the community in coalescing a remarkable range of academic disciplines, innovative courses and student commitments with defined learning objectives. Examples include the Institute for Urban Education that he established to address issues facing young adults from underserved populations and help them prepare to become college students and community leaders - a Prison College Program that he initiated to educate inmates and explore issues of prison education and its effects on recidivism - and a program of special significance to me - the Lang College-I Have a Dream Collaboration, a long-term, sustained, curriculum-supported series of programs that appropriately tie the college's curriculum to educating and mentoring local children from low-income backgrounds.

In fact, with propriety, imagination and relevance, Jonathan set the pace for the entire New School University in taking command of its Periclean commitment: to educate students for civic and social responsibility. Altogether, I believe that Jonathan Veitch and Occidental are made for each other - that personally and through Project Pericles, they help make this a more just and compassionate world.

Thank you.