So choices must be made, and to make them wisely is a demanding and difficult challenge. Moreover, we want to advance in relation to the competition. The deans of every college at Vanderbilt will have to try, together with their faculty colleagues, to identify those areas and initiatives to be undertaken that will permit the college and Vanderbilt as a whole to rise to the next level of visibility, so that Vanderbilt will be among the foremost colleges and universities in the United States. At the same time, we must ensure that Vanderbilt retains its own unique character. One of the challenges of any dean at a place like Vanderbilt is to make sure there is the right leverage between undergraduate education and scholarship, not opposition, and that each supports and amplifies the other.
People like to talk about balance between teaching and research.
That means that one builds on the other. I think of research and undergraduate education at Vanderbilt propelling each other to higher levels. We have the kind of environment for our undergraduate students that puts them in contact with people who are at the forefront of their fields and at the forefront of intellectual pursuits and that is an enormous benefit to undergraduate students, a benefit they wouldn't have at an undergraduate four-year liberal arts college. At the same time, we're providing the faculty with contact with undergraduate students so that their research is connected to undergraduate teaching. Civility, challenge, expectations.