Music gives us a language that cuts across the disciplines, helps us to see connections and brings a more coherent meaning to our world.

Education must prepare students to be independent, self-reliant human beings. But education, at its best, also must help students go beyond their private interests, gain a more integrative view of knowledge, and relate their learning to the realities of life.

The connectedness of things is what the great university is all about, and I believe the great university in the coming century will be described as a community of scholars.

An incompetent teacher is even worse than an incompetent surgeon because a surgeon can only cut up one person at a time.

Book CoverTo have people who are well informed but not constrained by conscience is conceivably, the most dangerous outcome of education possible. Indeed it could be argued that ignorance is better than unguided intelligence, for the most dangerous people are those who have knowledge without a moral framework.

In an era when careerism dominates the campus, is it too much to expect students to go beyond their private interests, learn about the world around them, develop a sense of civic and social responsibility, and discover how they can contribute to the common good?

A poor surgeon hurts one person at a time. A poor teacher hurts 130.