Inauguration of President Nair

By Lorna Stern, Vice President, Arcadia University

Just over two weeks ago, Arcadia University installed its 22nd President, Dr. Ajay Nair. I wish all of our community around the world could have been present to join in the celebrations, listen to the speeches, march down Easton Road to the food truck festival in Glenside, as well as dance to the rhythms of Korean drummers to old tunes from the American Song Book.

Installations of university presidents are both solemn and celebratory events, expressing the themes and ideas of the new presidency and the institution, as well as drawing together the faculty, staff, and students onward into a new era. Further, installations are events that reach beyond the stone walls of Arcadia University to include the local community and draw them into support of education and educational opportunities that should serve everyone.

President Nair's inauguration week began with an all-campus address and assembly with Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, who spoke passionately about the death penalty and her life's work in seeking to eradicate the death penalty in the United States. She made a persuasive argument to the student body, in particular, the freshman class, who are all reading her first book - Dead Man Walking and using it as a basis to discuss questions of legal justice in the criminal justice system in the United States. 

A presidential panel discussion where several university presidents, including Dr. Nair, gathered to explore questions of justice and inclusion in higher education. 

There was a walk from campus into Glenside to celebrate a mural lighting with the community. The mural, which was installed in two phases, was designed and painted by Arcadia students and faculty and sponsored in part by Cheltenham Township. 

And finally the installation of President Nair with speeches from state, county and community officials, the President of California State University, Dominguez Hills, California, Dr. Parham, State Senator Art Haywood, members of the staff and faculty and finally, and our own Dr. Alan Jansen whose eloquent speech is below. 

The entire installation was followed by a buffet on Haber Green, various dance and music groups representing different cultures and groups from our own students to community groups. A the end of the evening as night fell, a spectacular firework show that lit up the sky over the castle concluded these historic events. It was quite a week and quite a day.

The overarching theme of the week was Re-Imagining Higher Education: From Inclusion to Justice and this theme will be echoed in various dimensions throughout the coming year of institution-wide planning, budgeting, and visioning. 

I would recommend that you listen and watch some or all of the videos, in particular, the speech from President Nair and the speech from Alan Jansen. Alan has kindly shared a slightly edited version of his public remarks for reading ease.

Reimagining Our Higher Education Community:
From Inclusion to Justice
Lessons from the Life of Nelson Mandela:

Good afternoon President Nair, Members of the Board of Trustees, Honoured Guests and Colleagues and friends. I am greatly privileged to represent my colleagues in The College of Global Studies across the Globe but I am equally privileged to be able to share a few observations and insights from the life of our late President, Nelson Mandela, especially in this the centenary year of his life.

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the World” This one of the most famous of Mandela’s quotes on Education and it speaks to the huge responsibility that we have as educators in this noble profession. The hundreds of thousands of young people who pass through our doors of learning each year across this country and the millions more across the globe, are looking to us to be the influencers, the enablers, the catalysts as we create spaces of learning that do not just place people in high paying positions but also shape their thinking so that they graduate as citizens who have a commitment to make a difference in the world. It’s up to us. In an acceptance speech given at Seoul University in 1995, Nelson Mandela spoke to this idea of our higher education institutions being places that play a role in the pursuit of justice:

We concur with Seoul National University that higher institutions of learning such as this one are not merely production houses of uncaring and one-dimensional graduates. We are at one with you that they are not ivory towers of self-fulfilling excellence. Rather they are, and should be, the fertile soil out of which the seed of democracy and human rights can sprout and flourish’ He added that ‘universities should play a central role not only with regard to socio-economic matters, but also in deepening the culture of openness, democracy and justice’ My remarks today will be largely based on a gleaning of some of the speeches Mandela gave at various universities across the globe. These speeches capture the essence of his thoughts on the role that that places of higher should play in society. In reflecting on the title from ‘inclusion to Justice’ I wish to state that it if we are going to be inclusive with respect to our institutions, then we need to recognize that we cannot talk about inclusion without an uncompromising commitment to justice. I hold the view that when a commitment to justice is is part of the bedrock of an institution, then we will begin to see inclusiveness at a broad level. But it’s a commitment to justice that will touch every corner of our universities and colleges from Boards to Faculty, from Curriculum to the deployment of resources and from enrolment demographics to funding. This is not a message that is popular at a time when enrolments are down and finances are in short supply.

It is this regard that I wish to raise three key points that I have extracted from Mandela’s life as we sit here today trying to reimagine what Higher Education might look like if we were to to see education become this powerful weapon that changes our world.

1. Transformation:

I mentioned earlier that a commitment to inclusion will of necessity require a commitment to justice, and I want to add that a commitment to justice will require a commitment to transformation at a structural level. This has been the ongoing debate in Higher Education in my country as a new generation of students are asking questions about our Strategic Plans, our Mission Statements, our Appointment priorities, our Academic Policies, our Funding Models and our curriculum content. Nelson Mandela, on accepting multiple Honorary Doctorates from some of the leading British Universities at Buckingham Palace on 10th of July 1996 stated: ‘We are busy transforming our higher education system, from one that was oriented towards serving the interests of small and privileged minority to one that is geared to helping meet the needs of all South Africans. As we do so we are faced with many choices and decisions’

Despite these words of Nelson Mandela, the biggest hurdle to transformation in South Africa is dealing with generational privilege. Most of our institutions of higher learning are built on privilege and in many cases on ill-gotten privilege. My alma mater, the University of Cape Town, a top 200 ranked institution, is a good example of such a place. It was built on ill-gotten privilege and it was exactly this that catalyzed the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement, which in turn gave birth to the Fees Must Fall movement and various other groups now calling for the Decolonization of our institutions of higher learning. The Transformation Agenda is not new but I worry that we are revisiting it at a time when there are many other competing voices. Voices focused on provincialism, self-interest and a fear of the other. I believe that US institutions too stand in need of transformation so that students, staff and faculty will be welcome irrespective of their economic standing, their sexual orientation, their country of birth, their gender or their religious beliefs. We need to ask the question: Are our institutions really supportive communities of learning for LGBTQI persons, for first generation students or for International students from places whose religions and cultures are far removed from our own.

2. Accessibility:

If we begin with a strong commitment to Transformation as the just thing to do then we will have no choice but to interrogate accessibility to our institutions. It is not enough I believe to simply address accessibility at a policy or even funding level. Again, it has to be a reflection of our commitment to justice and transformation. In the case of underrepresented groups and may I say especially less privileged groups, many institutions have thrown scholarship finding at the problem only to find that it is not sustainable. I mention one thing for the sake of time: ‘Voice” Students who do not have a voice are marginalised. I have had the privilege semester after semester of witnessing first generation students, most of them from African American homes, thrive in their classes at our local public universities because for the first time they have found a space to raise their voices. A space where often they are not the tiny minority, a space where they are made to feel that their stories are validated.

Let me share something from my life and living under an apartheid regime. One of the hardest things for me was not being chased off a white’s only beach, or being told to use the back door of a store to buy a cold drink. The hardest part was the pain of marginalization. When you are ‘the other,’ the one who is looked upon with suspicion, the one who hears racist comments and you feel too afraid to fight back with a response. That is what our LGBTQI students, our African American students, and our first gen students go through every day on our campuses. That’s injustice of a high degree and we need to change that.

There’s much more to say about accessibility but I will give Nelson Mandela that honour from an address he gave in May 2005 at Amherst College: Today we ask Amherst College, and all of America’s great colleges and universities, to do more. The challenges of ensuring full access, according to ability rather than wealth or privilege, have not been met. Until they are, we will forfeit some of the talent and genius that the world sorely needs. We cannot afford the loss.

3. Partnership:

The higher educational landscape is suffering from one of the ills of our western democracies namely, competition Much of the resources are being stretched because we are competing for the same dollar. If we begin to reimagine the university through the lens of justice, transformation and access, perhaps we will be forced to look at ourselves sharing resources and forming partnership with like-minded schools in our towns and cities that in turn allows us to focus on building capacity in our local Community Colleges investing in under resourced grade schools and in under resourced colleges abroad. Arcadia University through the College of Global Studies has the model but more can be done and needs to be done. Nelson Mandela as an elderly man saw this when addressing the University of Leiden in 1999:

A greater exchange of students will be enriching for both our nations. On the one hand it will contribute to the development of our country and the rebirth of our continent. And on the other, we do believe, contact with the young people of my country will enrich and enlarge the insight that your youth has of your history and I dare say the multi-cultural character of your society.

In conclusion, I leave the words of Tata Madiba with you President Nair, “All institutions of higher education have the obligation to open the door more widely. Above all, those who educate most rigorously carry the highest obligation. You have the quality, the ability, the standing, and the support to press further. I hope you will show the will.” (Amherst College, May 2005)

President Nair, I personally hope that you will be given the opportunity to implement your vision of justice and inclusivity here at Arcadia University