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

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.

As I watched my grandfather work with people who were impoverished, I began to understand that to be truly human, one must serve.

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?

In the end, excellence in education means excellence in teaching, and if this country would give the status to first grade teachers that we give to full professors, this one act alone would revitalize the nation's schools.

To push for excellence today without continuing to push for access for less privileged students is to undermine the crucial but incomplete gains that have been made. Equity and excellence cannot be divided.

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