[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 21170-21172]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  IN TRIBUTE TO DR. ALEXANDER GONZALEZ, PRESIDENT OF CALIFORNIA STATE 
                         UNIVERSITY SAN MARCOS

                                 ______
                                 

                     HON. RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 9, 1999

  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I was honored on Sept. 1, 1999, to take 
part in the first inauguration ceremony of the California State 
University San Marcos, and to listen closely to the remarks of its 
energetic President Alexander Gonzalez.
  The CSUSM campus represents a way station on the road to the American 
Dream for thousands of people of North San Diego County today and for 
tens and hundreds of thousands of people in Southern California 
tomorrow. While San Marcos until recently could claim to be the newest 
Cal State campus, like the community where it is located, it is growing 
and maturing. And now, in its tenth anniversary year, Cal State San 
Marcos is the sole four-year public university in one of the most 
rapidly growing regions of the country. And it is North County's only 
federal depository library.
  And it is becoming truly great.
  You can see its new greatness with new buildings arising on campus, 
new housing in the works, and a new outdoor facility for track and 
field. Even the long-overdue replacement of the Twin Oaks Valley Road 
interchange is under way, serving this campus and the surrounding 
community.
  But its true greatness is more difficult to view on first glance. It 
is less evident in its buildings than in its people--in the legacies 
established by the late State Senator Bill Craven and its first 
president Bill Stacy, and in the person of its current President, 
Alexander Gonzalez.
  Cal State San Marcos is on the front lines of training a new 
generation of quality teachers for our schools. it is instructing this 
generation and the next about the tremendous

[[Page 21171]]

new opportunities available in science and technology, and in commerce 
and entrepreneurship. It is doing this for an increasingly diverse 
population of young people and adults, many of whom are the first in 
their families ever to obtain a college education.
  For the vision of President Gonzalez is for men and women to gain at 
his campus the tools they need to achieve and, in the case of the many 
teachers that this campus trains, to pass that tremendous dream on to 
others.
  North County's community future will be built upon the CSUSM campus, 
upon its people, upon its students and alumni, and upon President 
Gonzalez. With the work done there, the people of the community I 
represent will be better citizens, and a stronger community, making a 
brighter future.
  I am honored to insert into the permanent Record of the Congress of 
the United States the remarks delivered by President Gonzalez on 
Inauguration Day, and commend them to my colleagues and the public.

                           Inaugural Address

                          (September 1, 1999)

                         Dr. Alexander Gonzalez

       Mr. Chairman, members of the Board of Trustees, Chancellor 
     Reed, students, faculty, staff, honored alumni, and 
     distinguished friends of CSU San Marcos--
       I accept this presidential insignia and the 
     responsibilities it represents with a profound sense of 
     optimism and my total commitment to building this young 
     University's next decade of excellence.
       When I arrived in 1997 as interim president, I promised to 
     give 100% of my effort to the challenges the university 
     faced. I knew I would keep that promise. But it became 
     quickly apparent that the faculty and staff, as well as the 
     citizens of North San Diego County and the greater Southern 
     California region we serve, were prepared to match my effort 
     with an equal effort of their own. To all of you--partners in 
     building this University--thank you for the vote of 
     confidence that led to the honor of my assuming the 
     presidency of CSU San Marcos.
       A typical inaugural speech might emphasize the present 
     state of the University and a vision of its future. However, 
     many of you have heard that speech from me, just last week in 
     my convocation address. So, given the current challenges of 
     higher education, today I would prefer to share some of my 
     thoughts about the role of a university president within that 
     context.
       In doing so, I can take advantage of the unusual 
     circumstances of this inauguration, one that comes more than 
     two full years past my initial appointment as interim 
     President, to reflect upon what I have discovered through 
     attempting to provide leadership at this young institution.
       As Mayor Smith mentioned, the motto of the city is ``Valley 
     of Discovery''. The phrase comes from the discovery of the 
     valley, named by Spanish soldiers chasing horse thieves on 
     St. Mark's Day, April 25, 1797.
       The Spanish soldiers came looking for horses, but 
     discovered instead a fertile valley, a land of great beauty, 
     indeed, a great discovery. Fifty years later, Major Gustavus 
     French Merriam came here from Topeka, Kansas looking for 
     farmland. He homesteaded 160 acres in north Twin 
     Oaks Valley--just the other side of the clogged highway 
     overpass you might have taken to get here. Unlike the 
     Spanish soldiers, he discovered exactly what he was 
     looking for. And he began to create--literally--a land of 
     wine and honey amidst the Twin Oaks.
       Of course, these discoveries were not new. Before either 
     `discovery' Native American people already lived here and 
     some still live here today. They had inhabited this terrain 
     for centuries. Similarly, university leadership, even in a 
     rapidly growing valley that many new inhabitants are just now 
     discovering, is not necessarily about staking out new 
     territory. In many instances, the problems of leading a 
     university remain the same as in the past. One challenge of a 
     presidency is to bring a fresh perspective to the cyclical 
     problems that universities face. As Hungarian scientist 
     Albert Szent-Gyorgyl wrote, ``Discovery consists of seeing 
     what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has 
     thought.''
       Ironically, CSU San Marcos frequently has used language 
     that implies no history at all, as if the external and 
     internal forces governing universities had never existed. The 
     first brochure about the campus referred to it as built 
     ``from scratch'', and the first catalog talked about building 
     ``from the ground up''. But the historians among us know that 
     there is no ground zero; our present always contains our 
     past. We know that events and circumstances occur within 
     frameworks of meaning, of time, of geography, of culture.
       CSU San Marcos exists within the particular histories of 
     higher education institutions in the state of California and 
     the United States. In fact, the young university soon became 
     bound within the constraints of tradition, from the CSU 
     system and from each individual's past perspective of what 
     had worked or failed at the last university where each had 
     been. So, history and tradition already govern this new 
     enterprise. University leadership requires, in part, 
     rediscovering the same problems that we have had all along, 
     but encouraging the entire campus community to contribute new 
     solutions.
       The process of leadership has always been multi- and not 
     unidimensional. Yet, since coming to San Marcos two years 
     ago, I have also dwelled in the land of discovery, facing new 
     challenges of public higher education and new ways of 
     thinking about leadership. And while I have confronted novel 
     situations, perhaps the greatest challenge that I have 
     discovered at San Marcos is the fact that the bounds of 
     tradition present the greatest barrier to discovery and 
     creativity. The traditions that guide us can also thwart our 
     attempts to break from the usual and push beyond the limits 
     of convention.
       We need to bring new perspectives towards meeting these 
     challenges, a point of view based on student achievement and 
     student success. Traditional structures, traditional 
     measurements, traditional calendars won't do the job.
       Neither will a traditional presidency. In the fall '98 
     issue of THE PRESIDENCY, Stan Ikenberry asks his readers: 
     ``Where are the giants? Where are the Conants, the Kerrs, the 
     Gilmans, and the Hesbergs?''
       I do not believe that we will find a new leadership for 
     higher education by revisiting the past, invoking the good 
     old days when the towering figure of President overshadowed 
     the university campus. The gentlemen Presidents just 
     mentioned--and it goes without saying that 
     educational leadership was the province of a few 
     gentlemen--were ``larger than life'' public philosophers. 
     They were men--always men--convinced of their destiny to 
     lead not only their institutions, but also the nation. 
     They followed the tradition of millenia, the ``great man'' 
     as leader.
       Times have changed. We seek new ways to meet old 
     challenges, but also innovative ways to respond to the new 
     realities of student needs. We have learned that no one 
     leader can create a new university; no one individual can 
     assure that the university succeeds. Instead of a ``cult'' of 
     leadership wrapped around one individual, we should evolve 
     into a culture of leadership. We need to utilize leadership 
     throughout our organization, not solely in the Office of the 
     President. This model doesn't imply that everyone becomes an 
     administrator, multiplying our layers of bureaucracy. It does 
     mean that everyone takes responsibility for solving problems, 
     and whenever possible, doesn't simply pass our students to 
     another office, another professor, or to another university. 
     And I believe that we--teachers, faculty members, and even 
     the university president--are uniquely able to utilize such a 
     model of grassroots or distributive leadership.
       How will we do that? In a culture of leadership, leadership 
     will be understood as an interdisciplinary endeavor. We will 
     incorporate both the disciplines we have set about to master 
     in our chosen fields as well as the culture in which we 
     reside, that we will never master, only negotiate. This is 
     the kind of leadership teachers already understand very well. 
     And what is a teacher? A teacher is a guide, who both 
     facilitates discussion and listens, who teaches by example, 
     and learns by teaching. John F. Kennedy stated, ``Leadership 
     and learning are indispensable to each other.'' Despite the 
     decades since his comment, we are not yet accustomed to 
     thinking of interactive guidance as leadership. Perhaps the 
     times and challenges are ready for us to do so.
       Let me give an example of this sort of teaching and 
     learning leadership. In the book, Sacred Hoops, Coach Phil 
     Jackson talked about his work with Michael Jordan. With such 
     a gifted athlete, no coach could do much traditional 
     ``coaching'' to improve Jordan's basketball skills. Instead, 
     Coach Jackson focused his efforts with Jordan on making him a 
     leader of the team. Within five years of joining the league, 
     Jordan began to see his role not just as stealing balls and 
     scoring points, but as a leader-teacher whose job was to help 
     raise the level of play of every other player on the team.
       I see the job of university president as a leader teacher. 
     That kind of leadership requires a few things of us. First, 
     we must have teachable points of view. Of course, we need to 
     have views on how the world operates and how to get things 
     done, but this is never sufficient. We also need to invest 
     the time and effort to make those points of view teachable to 
     others. We need to think about our experiences, draw lessons 
     from what we know, and figure out how to share those lessons 
     with others.
       Second, we need a serious commitment to teaching, to make 
     it a top priority in everything we do. I learned this best 
     through my mentor, Elliot Aronson, who is known primarily for 
     his work as a researcher. But Elliot knows it is his mentors 
     and students who teach him and inform his understanding of 
     the world. It is his own serious commitment to teaching that 
     has produced a new generation of great researchers. I am 
     certain that he knew of the wise counsel of the great 
     scientist, Linnacus, who recommended this practice centuries 
     ago.'' A professor can never better distinguish himself in 
     his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true 
     discoverers are among us, as comets among the stars.''

[[Page 21172]]

       In his classic book on social psychology, The Social 
     Animal, Dr. Aronson writes that, in order to grow, we must 
     learn from our own mistakes. But if we are intent on reducing 
     dissonance and finding comfort, we will not admit to our 
     mistakes. Instead, we will sweep them under the rug, or worse 
     still, we will turn them into virtues. He concludes by 
     saying, (quote) ``The memoirs of former presidents are full 
     of these kind of self-serving, self-justifying statements . . 
     .'' (unquote)
       That will not be the case for this President, nor this 
     campus. Together, I trust that we will seek to foster a 
     culture of leadership that is, above all, about learning. 
     This culture is also about people, not person. I challenge 
     each of us as leaders to become teacher learners. We are not 
     only part of a culture of leadership--we are the culture 
     itself. We are attracted to institutions like CSU San 
     Marcos--faculty to teach, students to learn, presidents to 
     help this process--because of values we find here or values 
     we wish to bring here. New to this Valley of Discovery, I 
     have learned that we must inculcate the value of shared 
     leadership, of the leader as teacher learner, or we surely 
     will not meet our collective challenge.
       Soldiers came to this Valley searching for something they 
     had lost, and they discovered a beauty that they had not 
     known existed. The first homesteader found promise and 
     developed a land of wine and honey. What is it we have come 
     here to do? What have we yet to discover among the Twin Oaks?
       Let me finish today by telling you the beginning of the 
     story. The Spanish soldiers who arrived did not know the old 
     indian legends about the land that they discovered. 
     Overlooking our valley to the south is a mountain the Indians 
     called Wee-la-me. It was here on that mountain, the legends 
     said, that the indian Wind-Spirit brought the first students, 
     Native Americans, to teach them together before they were 
     divided into tribes. The most important lesson on the 
     mountain, Wee-la-me, was learning the beauty of the Spirit, 
     duty towards each other, and songs of love, of battle, and of 
     death.
       Change was not a good thing for those first settlers of the 
     region. The legend says only that ``the good spirits left 
     them.'' But perhaps, through thinking again of our duty to 
     each other, part of that good spirit may return to us. The 
     duty of President, as I've tried to suggest, is not paternal. 
     It is not about running the campus, nor supervising, and 
     certainly not about dictating change. Our duties towards each 
     other revolve around leading each other towards discovery, 
     towards teaching and learning. The primary job of the 
     University President is to foster that discovery, growth, and 
     change, to ensure that we fulfill our duty to each other.
       Honored guests, dear friends and colleagues, thank you 
     again for the confidence you have placed in me. Let us 
     continue to lead each other towards discovery.

     

                          ____________________