In his convocation address to the graduate and professional students, President Richard Brodhead stressed the importance of specialization in education. He called upon students gathered in the Chapel Thursday afternoon to focus their inquiries in order to harness the “power of higher learning for the larger social good.”
Brodhead noted that the founders of Duke had two dreams in mind: to make this a place of “outstanding intellectual eminence” and “a place of real leadership.” The University trains men and women of distinct promise, he said, to lead the world’s great institutions and care for the world’s great needs through their specialized knowledge and deep reflection. “If I could ask one thing to you as you start out, it would be to set your own sights sufficiently high,” he challenged.
Brodhead mentioned two of the great renaissance men in modern history, Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin, but he noted that the place of major discovery in the last century, has become the place of specialized expertise. Using the example the unraveling of DNA, he showed that it is in limiting the scope of our studies that the larger mysteries can be understood.
As the graduate students enter into a “space of intense, demanding concentration,” Brodhead wished them the joy of their discipline. He forewarned them that they will have to struggle toward and eventually win expertise, but he also implored them to not allow this focus narrow them beyond the point where narrowing is “needed and productive.”
The greatest contributions, Brodhead said, have come from those who have retained a larger sense of humanity even as they have limited their strategic purposes. He noted that many of the most interesting problems are radically interdisciplinary at their core, and the men and women who are most able to tackle them are the ones who have been trained to grasp their many dimensions.
Brodhead called Duke the American university that sponsors the most vibrant culture of cross-disciplinary exploration. The issue of care at the end of life, for example, is a complex biomedical and bioethical issue that is approached at Duke through a cooperation between the Schools of Medicine, School of Nursing and Divinity School. “To get the full benefit, you have to reach out from your home base, and to remember to want to reach out.”
Finally, the president asked the new students to consider, deep down, what their studies are really about—the degree to which they remember to ask what their knowledge is good for, and what service it can render to human life in their time.
Ending on a lighthearted note consonant with the rest of his speech, Brodhead joked that “hanging around in pulpits seems to have activated the preacher in me!” Imploring the new students to “approach this place with broad ambitions and high aspirations,” Brodhead finished to hearty applause as he bashfully waved good-bye from his pulpit.
Graduate and professional students reflected on Brodhead’s speech as a very warm and inspiring welcome to the Duke community.
“His speech was very impressive. I’m an international student and I’ve never encountered anything like this before. He’s a very funny guy. He made himself seem just as human as we are,” said Wenke Apt, a graduate student in public policy studies from Germany.
Sharon Yeh, a student in the Nicholas School of the Environment who hails from Coronas, Calif., was particularly struck by Brodhead’s comments on specialization versus generalization. “I think it is very good for everyone to have their fields of specialization but sometimes society still needs generalists,” she said.
Most students were most impressed by Brodhead’s personable presence and wit. “I liked how down to earth he was. He is very funny-—like how he waves hello and good-bye and how he made the accidental reference to Duke as Yale when he was introducing [Dean-elect of the School of Nursing Catherine Gilliss],” said Lauren Braun, a student in the School of Liberal Studies from Hahira, Ga.
“I think his speech showed that he wants to get in touch with the students,” noted Durham native Michelle Newman-Thornburg, who works in the Sanford Institute for Public Policy Studies. “It seems like you would be able to get an appointment with him to talk about student issues, and that is really important.
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