A third and most commendable example is now emerging from the new federation that the University has forged with The Carter Center. President Carter has nobly demonstrated how intellect can be fused with mission, ideas with projects, conception with delivery. Now we must discover new ways to link more powerfully the agencies of thought with the agencies of enactment. In that linking, we will find ways to strengthen our international understanding, and we will bring to our students, as well as more of our faculty, a recognition of the global citizenship to which we are all entitled. While you bear in mind the phalanx of brutal challenges that higher education is now facing, learn to protect the great investment that has made education so strong in this country.
Higher education is now short on revenues but long on attracting criticism.
So defend it and champion it. Most importantly, remind all American citizens just how magnificent an experiment higher education has been in this country. It has educated millions very well and is a triumph of brains and ingenuity. The world watches it, admires it, and comes to fill its classrooms. The finest young people in this country spend some of the best years of their lives on its campuses.