We must continue our commitment to the broadest possible range of ideas, opinions and positions, all freely expressed and earnestly defended. Imposed orthodoxies often avoid rather than addresses issues. Colleges and universities must defend the right of all members of the community to advance popular or unpopular thoughts or opinions. But we must also remember that threatening, disruptive, drunken or abusive behavior, racial or sexual harassment directed against individual students or anyone else are not components of public or private discourse nor civil society. T he value of an education at Brown or anywhere else lies in enhancing a man or woman's power of rational analysis, intellectual precision and independent judgment.
Education is the use of the mind.
Our students need to learn how to integrate and synthesize the knowledge of disparate fields. Paramount to their success will be the ability to make connections among seemingly disparate disciplines, discoveries, events and trends and to integrate them in ways that benefit the commonwealth of learning. We must strive continuously to cope with the fragmentation of knowledge into narrow specializations. Our mission is not to prepare graduates for the first year of their careers but to prepare them for the rest of their lives - to teach students to think critically, to give them perspective for reflection upon their own lives and a standard by which to measure their achievements. As president of Brown, I have seen nearly 20,000 graduate and undergraduate students become alumni.