I'm enormously grateful to have the opportunity to give back and to serve
this institution. This is a place that has given me and my family an awful lot
I was a law student, I had my first teaching job at UVA and was on the
faculty for 15 years. It's where my wife Katie and I met in
law school and it's where we raised our four kids and I have a lot to learn and
I look forward to talking with and meeting people from all across the
University. I think in order to lead and not just manage an institution of this
complexity people need to understand why it is they're doing something. They need
to understand and need to believe in the goals that the institution is
trying to achieve. I was a first-generation college student I know
from personal experience that higher education transforms lives. It opened up
doors for me that I never even knew existed and one of the most important
things it did for me was expose me to ideas and people I had never come across
growing up in a small town in New Jersey. These really should be places of
opportunity. I think it's one of the highest responsibilities of a university
to ensure that it has a diverse and vibrant group of students and faculty.
I think there are a few things that make UVA special, obviously the history of UVA
is unmatched I think it continues to have a distinctive if not unique culture
and that's not only what makes UVA special in the world of higher education
but it's what makes it special to me. It's a place where students and
faculty are engaged, where they explore ideas and take ideas seriously, but it's
also a place where disagreements are handled civilly. It's a place where
people are kind to one another it's a place where people care about one
another. That sense of shared enterprise that everyone is there to learn, to
progress, and to give back. I loved raising our family there. Our kids were and remain
enormous UVA sports fans. If you ask me what I'm looking forward to most about
returning I would probably say Bodo's first, UVA sports second, depending on the
day and depending on the game. I think that universities have always been
propelled by students. Students at universities today I think are
remarkable they are engaged they're inquisitive they're creative they're
active and I think they are actually a force for positive change at
universities. They are less bound by traditional disciplines and more and
more are pushing universities to become better and I think that's as true today
as it ever has been.
I watched the events of August eleventh and twelfth unfold online and like many
I was heartbroken and horrified by the invasion of white supremacists, neo-Nazis,
the Klan, and sickened by the violent display of hatred that turned deadly.
Watching these horrific events unfold I thought of a speech that Harvard's
president Drew Faust gave after the Marathon bombing in Boston and the theme
of the speech was "run toward" and she talked about how first responders and
spectators ran to help those who were in need and while I was watching this event
and thinking about this job I kept thinking, run toward.
I spent a fair bit of time thinking about the topic of grace and I gave a
graduation speech about it. That single word encompasses a remarkable and unique
constellation of concepts so it encompasses humility it encompasses
courage it encompasses gratitude and it encompasses forgiveness and the message
I tried to deliver to the students was the idea of leading with grace that is
leading with those qualities in the forefront of your mind.
I was adopted as a kid and my father used to always tell me, "I don't know what
to expect from you, but what I will expect is that you always try your best."
And I know that sounds really simple but that lesson has lived with me ever since.
I've passed it on to my own kids and whenever I approach something new that's
the only thing I'm trying to do. I can't control the results always, but I can
control my own effort. And I'll be motivated every day by a single goal of
making the University the best place it can be.