INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Governor McGreevey, Deputy Mayor and Senator Rice, elected officials, Chairman Kennedy, President Emeritus Fenster, members of the Boards of Trustees, Overseers, and the Alumni Association of NJIT, distinguished guests, faculty, students, staff, friends, and alumni of New Jersey Institute of Technology, and those from the days of Newark College of Engineering. Thank you all for coming, and welcome.

It was that great American philosopher, New Jersey icon, and my fellow St. Louis native Yogi Berra, who said: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it. We did, we’re here, and we love it. Best fork we’ve ever taken.

The “we” getting here was pretty complicated. Two vehicles in caravan, a motorcycle and moped on a trailer, a chocolate lab, golden retriever, a terrier, three cats, and a wife on a several day trek to New Jersey. Just this side of the Pennsylvania border we stopped for our last break at a convenience type store out front of which was a 16 foot long picnic table with two sets of legs and two sets of benches. It looked well made, and we needed a picnic table for the back yard. I asked the proprietor, Who makes these tables? He said, We do. I asked him if they made smaller ones, single tables. He said, No, we just make them this length, then we cut them in half.

We knew New Jersey would be interesting!

In my few months at NJIT I have felt a kindred spirit of optimism, a can-do attitude that reflects what NJIT is and will continue to be. A kind of optimism that is hands-on, matter-of-fact, and looks for the better answer when most would say an adequate solution is at hand. The pessimist sees the glass half empty, the optimist half full. But we at NJIT look more closely. We all know from Yogi that “You can observe a lot by watching.” Unlike the layman, at NJIT we recognize that the glass is twice as large as it needs to be. And so the process of rectifying the situation begins.

It is exciting to take the reins of an institution with such a strong legacy of service to New Jersey, and such a growing reputation for driving innovation in our larger society. It’s exciting, and humbling. Humbling to find myself as only the seventh president of an institution with roots that have grown deep in Newark for nearly a century and a quarter, and to know, like others in higher education, that we will be tested and challenged on many fronts.

Times are changing, and so are we. It is the optimistic spirit and can-do attitude of NJIT that will allow us to address those challenges.

One test of our native optimism, of course, is that today we, as a nation, face lingering economic weakness — both at home and in the export markets that are so important to New Jersey’s information-driven industries. Publicly funded universities like ours are experiencing immediate and long-term planning difficulties as a result.

At the same time, the sudden emergence of the SARS virus reminds us that even as technology and medical science improve, serious new threats remain possible, and respect no national boundaries. And in addition to medical and economic challenges such as these, we have learned at great human cost that the collapse of the Soviet empire did not spell the end of war in our time, or for our nation.

Progress to address these and other economic and societal issues comes from the direct products of innovation. I am proud of the energetic role NJIT plays in contributing materially to the quality of life our society enjoys. NJIT faculty are leaders in environmental improvement efforts, programs to increase security and deter terrorism, and to investigate the interaction between society and its built environment. Research at NJIT ranges from evaluating local bus service to the utilization of New Jersey’s port facilities.

I would like to share with you some specific projects that exemplify the environment we are fostering at NJIT. Three of our younger faculty members were recently recognized with National Science Foundation Early Career Development Awards, prestigious NSF grants that recognize and support the work of individuals who show exceptional promise as both educators and researchers.

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Treena Livingston Arinzeh is employing adult stem cells in combination with supporting structures of biomaterials to repair bone damage. She is also developing a program for high-school teachers to introduce this exciting research into their classes, particularly to encourage minority students and young women to pursue careers in science.

Assistant Professor of Physics Carsten Denker is designing new instruments to study the sun at Big Bear Solar Observatory, which NJIT operates in southern California. His work will help identify solar phenomena that are responsible for various problems on Earth, including disruption of communications and electric power supplies.

Assistant Professor of Physics Serguei Savrassov is developing software tools for leading-edge materials research in fields such as semiconductor technology and superconductivity. One of his goals is to create Internet-accessible computer programs to enable individuals with a wide range of scientific and technical expertise to study new materials.

These NSF award-winners share something important in common: they reflect a transformation in the definition of the technological research university itself. Stem cells and biomaterials. Solar phenomena and communications and power grids. Software tools joined with semiconductor technology. Like so much of the best research being done today, NJIT researchers and students are participating in pursuits that bridge what we know as academic disciplines, and challenge the adequacy of the traditional academic structures of the research academy.

This system of academic disciplines served us well for many years, and will continue to be the foundation of our degree programs for NJIT’s 9,000 students for some time to come, just as it was for those 90 intrepid souls who first enrolled at the Newark Technical School in 1881. NJIT will continue to educate in many discrete fields of technical inquiry, and continue to be respected for excellence in so many of them.

Today, though, the complexity of research issues demands unprecedented creativity, diversity of interaction among academic disciplines, and partnerships among government, industry, and research universities. This complexity has prompted a paradigm shift for universities not unlike that which occurs in the sciences themselves, as the American historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn describes.

The technological progress of the twentieth century largely came from the physical sciences. In the twenty-first, it is the transfer of technology from the physical sciences and application to biology and the medical sciences that will drive much of our technological and economic progress. Harold Varmus, former Director of the National Institutes of Health and a winner of a Nobel Prize for Medicine, stated not long ago that mathematics will be required to understand the working of cells. At NJIT we are on that path, actively engaged in these new applications, through biomedical engineering, bioinformatics, mathematical and computational biology to name a few.

In short, as Yogi has pointed out, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” The need to meet new challenges with new thinking is what led President Lincoln to sign the Morrill Act, which established the system of land grant colleges to meet the demands of a rapidly industrializing America. To quote Lincoln “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew.”

The collaborations that we will foster at NJIT — with industry, government and other institutions of research and higher learning — will grow accordingly. We need only the right vision, and to be willing and ready to embrace it.

Our own “thinking anew” takes place against a financial backdrop in New Jersey that looks very dark today, and may for the foreseeable future.

In setting priorities, which we must and will do, it is our duty to acknowledge the wise investment that proper planning always represents. I want to commend Governor McGreevey for showing vision that again is necessary to the future of New Jersey in his establishment of the Commission on Jobs, Growth and Economic Development. The Commission is charged with making New Jersey’s university research sector a strong partner for industry, thus stimulating and facilitating the transition from the industrialized to the knowledge-based economy.

NJIT’s long success in fostering business growth in New Jersey is well documented. For example, our Enterprise Development Center is the oldest and largest business incubator in the state. It is among the largest university-operated technology incubators in the U.S. More than 50 businesses have graduated from our incubator program.

Perhaps a simple statistic is the most telling: nearly one-quarter of the state’s engineers hold degrees from NJIT. It is from those beginnings here on this campus in Newark that New Jerseyans go on to discover new medicines, create new communications technologies, devise new ways to keep our citizens safe, and become leaders in technology-driven business concerns. When New Jersey Business ranked the state’s top 40 executives under age 40 for 2003, four of them were NJIT graduates.

They, and all NJIT alumni, are the University’s best ambassadors. The visible success of our graduates in not only technical but executive positions helps demonstrate something important. The only public technological research university to bear “New Jersey” in its name is more essential to our economic future today than ever. I consider it the greatest privilege of my career to work to ensure that this legacy is continued and enhanced.

NJIT is also proud of its participation in the economic life of the City of Newark. A recent study by Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and CEOs for Cities notes that institutions such as NJIT have replaced smokestack industries in America’s urban core as the drivers of an economy now based on health care, finance, computing and telecommunications. Universities have become vital sources of commercial intellectual property and indispensable advisors to industry and government as well as major employers and purchasers of goods and services.

I salute Governor McGreevey and Mayor James, my good friend, for all they have done to move this state and city and forward, often against budgetary and other obstacles. NJIT is committed to making the most of what has already been achieved, and we are proud to stand tall with you in this our home city.

Being situated in an urban center captures another critical aspect of NJIT’s core mission: providing true opportunity for the young women and men of the nation’s most diverse and densely populated state.

The truth is that we need diversity in order to prosper. Our nation’s economic and social well-being depends on it. Hard work and technical excellence know nothing of race or gender, color or creed. Advancement of the human condition comes from bringing together the most talented people, tools and ideas. New Jersey has these in abundance, and our campus is where they come together productively as demonstrated by the accomplishments of two students I’ll mention.

Kathleen Gilbert, a doctoral student in chemistry, has been awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health to carry out research on "Molecular Modeling of Drugs Potentially Useful in the Treatment of Cocaine Abuse.”

Dawn Bennett, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, is serving a one-year internship at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico under an NSF-supported Minority Access and Graduate Networking doctoral fellowship. Her team is testing electromicrofluidics, a technique to control and manipulate microscopic particles in flowing fluids for the segregation and concentration of biological material.

Perhaps you noticed that both of these accomplished students are women. Technological professions have been poorer for want of the contributions of women for too long. We are committed to rectifying that at NJIT.

Like nowhere else in America, our students come to Newark from all walks of life. They leave having benefited as much from their interaction with faculty, staff and each other as from their formal instruction in the classroom and laboratory. These experiences provide the true fabric and identity of a mature university.

Our goal must be to continue to build a campus that meets social as well as intellectual and physical needs — a community of the mind that fosters thoughtful sensitivity to many points of view, to the humanistic and the artistic as well as awareness of scientific and technological frontiers. When students leave us, they become alumni, and we want to ensure that future generations of alumni feel an ever-strengthening bond with NJIT’s continuing growth and all that it means to the future of our society.

Last Friday, I attended the Annual Student Semi-Formal. As an aside, Joel Bloom our Vice President for Academic and Student Services advised me that the students would want us out of there by about nine-thirty so the real party could begin. But back to the point I want to make. When Senior Class President Nicole Fusco introduced me, she commented that “Behind every good man is a better woman.” So, I’d like you to meet that better woman, my wife Beth. What I have done I could not have done without her support and understanding, and those of you who have come to know me at NJIT know that she must have a lot of understanding.

Thank you, Beth.

I’d like also to introduce our daughter Allison Moroney and her husband Brian from Alexandria, Virginia and our son Erich Altenkirch from Pullman, Washington.

Thank you for being here and for your support.

Let me close by expressing a great sense of admiration for, and debt of gratitude to, Saul Fenster. For twenty-five years he worked, not just to educate generations of outstanding students, but also to position this university for growth, for continued service to New Jersey, and for the inevitable changes in life and in technology that are the stock in trade of technology professionals. So thank you, Saul.

Saul’s vision is what brought this university not only to its current position and reputation, but also its sense of identity and momentum. To build on such a legacy will be a test of vision and endurance. But we will do that, with integrity, with civility, and with uncompromised resolve. I have seen what can be done, and I can assure you that I will not falter in my optimism nor let my energy or focus wane. Some say the glass is half empty, some say half full, but you and I know the solutions we need will demand a different way of thinking, perceiving and acting. Foremost will be more creative partnerships with government, industry and each other, by drawing together the best talent in New Jersey from every quarter.

There’s a lot ahead for us to do to size that glass properly. With your help, we will do that as we meet with optimism the challenges ahead.

Thank you.