My predecessor, Bill Boyd, president of the University from 1975 to 1980, once observed that the three most enduring institutions of Western civilization are the church, the legislature, and the university. Parliaments and universities date at least from medieval times, the church from far earlier.

As it turns out—contrary to some of my expectations as a youth—significant parts of my life have been engaged with each institution. I grew up in the Medford branch of the Presbyterian Church, where my family, at various times, served in positions of responsibility. This occurred perhaps not so much at the “will of God” as at the will of my mother. Church choir, Westminster Fellowship, participation with the alleged “ruling clique” of high school Presbyterians, Reverend Kirk West officiating at my marriage to Lynn—these were part and parcel of my coming of age. I look back gratefully and with fond nostalgia on these formative experiences.

I served three terms in the Oregon state legislature, from 1975 to 1981, and continued my involvement with that assembly through my eleven years as state attorney general and to this day. My current position has maintained my link to the third enduring institution. I am privileged to have worked at the University of Oregon since 1971 (with the interregnum of my years in elected office) and for the past fifteen years as its president, a position I leave at the end of June.

With all that personal history, a surprise invitation to speak from the pulpit of Eugene’s Central Presbyterian Church before classes began last fall led me to reflect on how these enduring entities have been both linked and locked in struggles over their linkage.

These three institutions now stand independent of each other—for public universities, in ways commanded by our Constitution’s requirement to separate church and state. Yet both history and common purpose link them. Indeed, each institution has its credos, individual legends, founding stories, and sinners. And whether from constitution, catechism, or charter, the formal ceremonies and procedures of each have sacraments and rituals steeped in powerful symbolism.

Each entity has its legends. Jefferson, Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Saint Francis of Assisi, John Calvin, Kingman Brewster, James Bryant Conant, Reverend Theodore Hesburgh. Each institution has its founding stories: King John yielding to the demands of his armed barons on the meadows of Runnymede and signing the Magna Carta, the Grand Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Moses descending with his graven tablets, the schools of Athens, and the medieval streets of Oxford and Bologna.

Of course, each entity also has its sinners: Judas Iscariot, Aaron Burr, and perhaps any university president who made a decision that did not please every constituency. Buffoons and scalawags have shared the capitals, pulpits, and campus offices along with the true seekers and pure of heart. For every Abraham Lincoln there can be a Richard Nixon. For every Dietrich Bonhoeffer we can find a Jim Bakker. For every Mr. Chips there is a Dean Wormer of Animal House fame.

But something besides longevity and legends and beyond saints or sinners ties these human institutions together. They struggle for things that will occur in a time frame longer than that of an individual life. They aspire to maintain focus on the enduring, not merely the immediate. Even with this focus, of course, things are never perfect in paradise.

These entities always are in the hands of fallible humans, so they have unavoidable associations with shameful arrogance and inhumanity. But they also share something at their core that moves each of them toward an extraordinary purpose. Sometimes glacially, sometimes haltingly, sometimes in breathtaking leaps, each moves inexorably toward an uncommon good.

• • •

I see four fundamental ways in which these formative institutions—church, legislature, university—are similar.

First, what each of these institutions does matters. Their purposes are not trivial. They have values—and it is values that center us, carry us, and inspire us in all the better work that we do. The church at its greatest insists that we put aside our daily task lists and résumé-building pursuits to achieve deeper purpose and contemplate greater meaning. The legislature not only establishes the policy of the day, but it also commits to rules and processes that help to ensure that representative government can endure the sudden swings and panics that afflict any society. The university advances knowledge through teaching, scholarship, and research. We give new generations the tools to critique and create knowledge to serve society. Universities matter profoundly.

Second, the formative institutions are often similar in their manner of arriving at the truth. The Presbyterian brand of Protestantism carries with it a healthy skepticism of authority. It anoints the “priesthood of all believers” and overtly legitimizes very separate paths one may travel to spiritual understanding. A republican form of government in its legislative incarnation takes care not to mix the formal authority of church and state. American versions of republican government regard theocracy as a form of tyranny. The legislature rebels against dictatorship in the governance of its proceedings, and its parliamentary manuals of procedure protect the right of dissent. In the public university incarnations of the academy, a primal sin is the demand that its community members accept unchallengeable dogma in the pursuit of truth. In fact, the concept of academic freedom tolerates an unusual messiness of opinion and often forgives substantial idiosyncrasies of lifestyle if those who wear academic gowns are sincere and determined in their pursuit of a glimmer of the truth. Academic orthodoxy accepts pluralism and skepticism if it is accompanied by dedicated inquiry. It regards dogma as the enemy of discovery.

These institutions are similar in a third way. Each is based on a faith. The church—as Dostoyevsky’s novels so profoundly explore—has faith that there is a life and existence broader than the tangible, that there is a transcendence beyond earthly evil. The legislature still is premised on the heritage of Milton and the writings of John Stuart Mill that the free marketplace of ideas in a democratic society will result in actions for the public good. And the university pursues its endeavors asserting a belief that the discovery of knowledge will serve an ultimate good, not the forces of evil.

Finally, each institution is distinguished by enduring service above and beyond the life spans of its inhabitants. Each seeks to demonstrate that it is part of the meaning of a good life, of citizenry, and of selfless service to others.

• • •

These are the lofty ideals. Of course, legislatures can be muscle bound, partisan, and not fully democratic. By one thoughtful calculation, twenty-one senators representing well less than 20 percent of the U.S. population probably can block any proposal in Congress. Churches can be bloated, exploitative, and bastions of self-righteous intolerance. Universities can be inward looking, self-satisfied, and smugly tolerant of mediocrity.

Although these institutions in a general way, over the long run, move toward an “uncommon good,” in the particular and the day-to-day they are challenged and sometimes fail to live up to the enduring values that underpin them. Failures of church and state are well documented. But it is the challenges to the ideals of higher education that I want to address here.

I deeply distrust ideologues, a reaction intensified by my extended experience with the Rajneeshee commune in the 1980s, my early studies of totalitarianism, and the lessons I learned from the role of the Oregon Citizens Alliance during my campaign for governor in 1990. The fusion of government with religion usually corrupts both. Every time I see excessive orthodoxy in an academic it makes me more resistant and skeptical. The road to hell is paved with the steely-eyed zeal of good intentions. This—among other influences—has led me to a philosophy of leadership in which good intentions matter less than good human consequences. A skeptical capacity to weigh the human outcomes of one’s actions is something that each of these institutions, at its best, should foster. For me the ability to produce positive consequences matters—virtuous intentions and catechisms less so.

Universities face a paradox in public perceptions. In this country, as a society, we perceive universities as more important than ever before, as do the world’s emerging nations. And those nations clearly do. China, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan—Asian countries that I have visited many times—invest huge amounts in education, and they already possess highly educated citizenries. Polls tell us that Americans know that higher education is a key to economic competitiveness as well as civic progress. But those opinions do not translate into support for public funding for universities, funding that has declined for decades. We have not given higher education the priority it deserves. We risk failing our children and grandchildren. For the first time in our history America’s youngsters, as a whole, may be less well educated than their parents.

The University of Oregon has never had the investment capital to match the power of its capacity or rightful ambition. We have been underpowered but powerfully overachieving. It is amazing how good the University is, given these daunting financial challenges. But we are far better off now than when I was asked quite suddenly to assume the presidency in 1994. At that time, we had felt the full devastating effects of Measure 5, the property tax limitation bill passed in 1990. I honestly did not know where the next dollar was going to come from to build anything. Now, our recently concluded fundraising campaign has given us a sense of breathing room and opportunity that I did not foresee. Financial challenges will always be with us. But they haven’t defeated us yet. Looking ahead, we can seize this great opportunity to build on the good work of those who have gone before us. We need to explore new models to better fund flagship public universities like the University of Oregon, not to be “private” but to better fulfill our public mission.

We face challenges beyond financing. One set is generational. We are amid truly disruptive forces in the traditional ways we form communities. Much of this challenge stems from new electronic communication technologies. Students who run for campus office, for example, once campaigned by meeting personally with potential voters in and around the EMU. They still do some of that. But now they often communicate with virtual communities through Facebook and other social networks. The medium is amazingly universal, systematic, and viral. It is second nature to the current generation of students, who tell me that their younger siblings have adapted it even more fully to their identities and patterns of interaction. Yet no one fully understands whether these new methods of connectivity ultimately will deepen human relationships or fracture them. The answer to that question has huge implications for how we teach and learn. It also has vast personal and cultural consequences.

At the same time, our faculty members are sometimes more connected to external worlds of peers than they are to colleagues in the next office. They teach, discover, and reside here. They may interact socially to considerable degrees. But often their intellectual communities occupy virtual spaces that are the product of powerful World Wide Web connections. Our still important face-to-face interactions confront these centrifugal forces that have the potential to weaken the internal culture of the University. That challenge is compounded by the pending retirement within the next decade of as much as 40 percent of our current faculty.

These challenges—and the many others we face—require us to examine and adapt the way we pursue our core missions of teaching and research. But every challenge contains an opportunity, and enduring institutions will seize those opportunities or they will cease to endure.

• • •

I recall so vividly special memories of the “uncommon good” we nurture.

Some years ago, on one of those wonderful, colorful, but very foggy autumn days on campus, I walked back from lunch at Rennie’s along Thirteenth Avenue, headed toward Johnson Hall. The fog was just clearing and the emerging light shone beautifully on the maple trees, glowing with bright crimson, orange, and yellow. A young woman on a bicycle and a walking friend approached me, about ten yards away. The student seemed to recognize me, jumped off her bike, and ran up asking, “Excuse me, are you the president of the University of Oregon?”

“Why, yes, I am,” I said.

“I just want to shake your hand,” she said.

“Why do you want to do that?”

“Because I love the University of Oregon,” she said, with a big long emphasis on the word love. She was filled with youthful exuberance and genuine joy on that beautiful, pastoral Oregon day. I felt a powerful sense of unbridled engagement from that young woman, who obviously was thrilled with her experience here.

Like the church and the legislature, universities matter. The University of Oregon matters because of what we did, what we were, for that young woman. We changed her life, and because of that she will change the life of her community, and on it goes. We transform lives through knowledge, from generation to generation. Long ago now, I used that forward phrase in my investiture remarks because it describes universities at their best. That “transformation” is the result of careful planning of courses and majors, and skilled teachers and researchers, but it also happens through the magic and serendipity that is almost inevitable when intelligent, sensitive, motivated people—with all the insecurities and ambition of youth—assemble together at a place like the University of Oregon.

The University of Oregon seems unusually capable of spurring those individual transformations that, in turn, change society for the better. Two of our characteristics might seem to be contradictions, but in fact they are complementary—and they were the first two impressions I had of the University when Lynn and I arrived here in 1971, five days after our marriage. One was the beauty and serenity of the campus. But our second simultaneous striking impression was the sense of bustling raw energy, the joy in discovery, the companionship that one feels with people who are incredibly liberated by an environment of human possibilities. That combination of a serene and beautiful setting and an engaged intellectual community make this a remarkable launching pad for students like that exuberant young woman cyclist.

The beauty and energy that I found when I arrived here remains, but we have become a better university as well. In the past, we had grand men and (relatively few) grand women on our faculty. If you had looked thoughtfully, greater numbers of grand woman also held this place together in webs of support offices and through ways we recognize in retrospect as heroic. But now, we have grand men and women in the classrooms and labs, who are gaining far more scholarly recognition, making far more powerful discoveries, and are much more likely to be regarded as leaders in their fields than even the great faculty of the late sixties and early seventies.

We have added or remodeled eighteen or nineteen buildings in my tenure, buildings that my successor won’t have to fund or build. The structures are symbolic because they are so dramatically visible, but what really is important is what happens when creative people are in facilities that are equal to the quality of their talent, their inquisitiveness, and their energy.

Our promises to donors have come true already. To visit a Beverly Lewis and say, “If you make that gift, then we can keep great people and they will make discoveries that relate to how we recover from injuries or strokes”—and then to introduce her five years later to someone who is doing exactly that work and who has obtained a highly competitive federal grant that will bring millions of dollars and more life-saving new discoveries . . . that is the power of energy, faith, and belief.

To be able to tell Lorry Lokey that our greatest need was the music school addition and then to show him musical performances occurring in the new space that he and 200 other people helped to make possible . . . that is thrilling.

To see the strongest freshman class we have had in years and years and to see the University of Oregon increasingly become a destination of choice . . . that is profoundly gratifying.

We are more poised now to become a creator of human opportunity than we ever have been. I leave this present calling supremely proud of what we have accomplished, but even more excited about the opportunities that will be created for generations who will succeed us.

The challenges will not go away, but the university will endure and advance, because, like the other lasting institutions, the values at our core reach beyond the individual and the transitory to the universal and timeless. We are the keepers of an extraordinary legacy. I thank you for the privilege of helping to advance it for the uncommon good.

Dave Frohnmayer will continue to teach at the University. All of us at Oregon Quarterly have been honored by his frequent presence in our pages and have felt privileged to work under his leadership.

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