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REMARKS BY:  DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:       INAUGURATION OF CHANCELLOR ROBERT M. BERDAHL, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
DATE:        APRIL 24, 1998

It's wonderful to be back at Berkeley.

I'd like to start by congratulating all of you for sending Berkeley's 3000th Peace Corps volunteer into the service of humanity. I love the Peace Corps. I'm a former volunteer to Iran - and I hope to make a return visit soon. When I was Chancellor of Wisconsin, Berkeley and Madison actually had a friendly competition over which school could recruit the most Peace Corps volunteers.

Berkeley is still the national leader, with Madison second. But unlike sports, this is a contest where I always want both the Badgers and Golden Bears to score big.

As many of you know, I was here in 1995 to help celebrate the UN Charter. And in 1990, I chaired a Visiting Accreditation Team at Berkeley. This was the higher education equivalent of the "white glove test." If there were problems to be found, we were going to find them. As it turned out, we did make some recommendations - but they only added more sparkle to a world class university.

We said it in 1990, and it's even more true today, Berkeley is a jewel in the crown of American higher education.

Today, I'm here to say welcome to a friend, a colleague, and an extraordinary leader in higher education: Chancellor Robert Berdahl

It couldn't have happened to a better man - or a better school.

When Mark O'meara won the Masters a couple of weeks ago, Tiger Woods slipped the Green Jacket on him and said, "You deserve it." Now, in Washington when you hear someone say, "You deserve it," it usually means two things. First, you better duck. And second, don't bother reading tomorrow's newspaper.

But that's definitely not my message today.

Dr. Berdahl, you really do deserve the honor and responsibility bestowed on you by the Regents, and faculty and students of the University of California at Berkeley. Anyone who has followed your career knows you were an inspiration - and trailblazer - at Oregon, Illinois and Texas. And although you can't seem to leave any academic institution without breaking a few hearts, it is an honor for me to make a return trip to California to say how glad I am that you're here - and to publicly affirm your rare combination of talent, wisdom and grace under fire.

Great universities need great leaders. And in Robert Berdahl, this campus and the people of California have definitely found one. So I congratulate Dr. Berhahl. And I congratulate the Berkeley family for bringing to this university such a distinguished scholar and academic leader.

I tried to find a quote from Chancellor Berdahl that captures why he's such an extraordinary leader in higher education. There are many inspiring ones out there about education policy and the difficult - but rewarding - road that lies ahead for American higher education. But the one I chose is this simple, but profound, appeal to parents. He said, "Thank you for entrusting your children to us."

After leading two universities, I know how easy it is to become focused on everything from budgets to curriculum to tenure. But all that is secondary to knowing and staying involved with students.

Once when I was at Wisconsin a mother called me and said she was very worried about her son because she hadn't heard from him in six weeks. So I called him in his dorm - where I'm sure he was hard at work studying. When I got him on the phone I said, "Joe, call your mother!" He said, "Who's this?" I said, "The Chancellor." He said, "Yes, ma'am."

So, Dr. Berdahl is right on the mark. Academic leaders are in the highest possible position of trust when parents send us their most precious possessions - their children.

But preparing those young people for the future is no easy task.

The fact is, what we take on faith today has a way of fading into memory and history tomorrow. The world that seemed so dramatic and uncertain when I finished college has changed completely. To take just one whimsical example, music that was considered cutting edge in 1970, today is used to sell minivans and mutual funds.

The question is: What will go from revolutionary to routine - and from unimagined to indispensable - in the 21st century?

We, of course, don't know for certain.

The Vice President just announced a $500 million dollar investment in the Next Generation Internet - the second generation of an information tool that most people at the start of this decade didn't know existed. Even Bill Gates once famously predicted that "640K ought to be enough for anybody." Well, as almost every ten-year-old now knows, it isn't.

The point is, from computers to citizenship, preparing students for the future means preparing them to face change - and make change - in the next century. That is the only way our nation will be able to compete in the world economy - and in a world where emerging and infectious diseases know no borders; science and exploration knows no limits; and the number of places around the world where Berkeley graduates can put their talents and training to work knows no end.

Many of you may be thinking: Isn't that the environment in which universities have always operated? My answer is: Yes and no.

Yes, universities have always trained one generation to build on the accomplishments of the preceding generation.

But young people entering Berkeley today, and in the coming decades, will be riding a treadmill that has gone from brisk walk to fast run. They will have to think quicker; have a better grasp of science and technology; understand and respect the histories of cultures not their own; prepare for a life of numerous career changes; and adapt to an unforgiving global economy. All the while trying to find the time - and summoning the wisdom - to raise their own children for a world that will be even faster moving than theirs.

This will be an enormous challenge.

But it will be possible - though only if American higher education does its part.

The place to begin is making sure every student is literate in science and computers. Whether you're learning to construct bridges or deconstruct Homer this is the Information Age. That means data is available in many forms and from many sources, and the surest way to be left behind is not to have a sophisticated understanding of how to use information technology.

Just last week a report came out showing that African American students have less access to the Internet than their white counterparts.

This is a trend we must reverse. But better access to technology is just the beginning. The bigger challenge we face is to prepare this generation of young people to use technology as a guide, not a substitute, for judgment and morality.

We can - and we will - build faster, smaller, cheaper computers.

We can - and we will - learn more about the Human Genome and how to change our genetic make-up.

We can - and we will - explore planets, explore hidden corners of the ocean bottom, and explore deep into the human mind.

We can - and we will - become even more of a global village, with greater international cooperation in health, science, and trade.

But - can we - and will we - make sure that our science never gets ahead of our ethics?

And can we - and will we - make sure that our belief in progress never gets ahead of our belief in citizenship?

The problem is not scientific advancement.

No one believes in the importance of supporting research and discovery - the creation of knowledge - more than I do. I have long advocated greater scientific literacy for all Americans.

In particular, we need a Congress that's literate in science.

This year we're proposing a Research Fund for America that will include a historic 50 percent increase over five years in the budget of the National Institutes of Health.

Still, scientific knowledge - in fact all knowledge - must be tempered with human values, restraint, tolerance and the need to make sure that we move ahead without leaving anyone behind. After all, we're only three years away from 2001, the year that Arthur C. Clarke turned into a metaphor for technology run amuck. But we don't have to look to science fiction to see that the wonderful tools we build can create problems as well as solve them.

Look at the Year 2000 computer problem.

Governments around the world will spend billions of dollars to keep computers from taking themselves - and us - on an odyssey back to the year 1900. These computers may not be "Hal" saying, "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that" - but in 2000 many computers will be acting like they have minds of their own. My point is that as we cross the threshold to the next century, great universities like Berkeley must focus on keeping their students where they belong - on the cutting edge of knowledge.

But an edge has two sides - and, as I've suggested, the other side of having knowledge is using that knowledge to strengthen our character, our communities, our nation - and our world. Yes, I said, "our world." That's what universities in the 21st century must do: Train students from every continent not just to fill jobs, but to fulfill their roles as citizens of the world

Berkeley is the ideal training ground for this.

Today, the sun never sets on Berkeley graduates.

And as your 3000th Peace Corps volunteer demonstrates, Berkeley is a window on a 21st century world where international bonds of friendship trump international border, and where protecting our global future, begins with understanding global norms of citizenship.

How do we mold citizens of the world?

By promoting - and even rewarding - public service with the same enthusiasm that we now promote and reward athletics.

By encouraging students to join the Peace Corps, or in some other way to give back the blessings they've been given.

We mold citizens of the world by doing more to encourage young people to register and vote.

By devoting class time to ethics with the goal of teaching students to think critically about the uses - and potential abuses - of the knowledge they are gaining.

We mold citizens of the world by understanding that we are preparing students for their third job, not their first.

To do that we must teach young people not just discrete skills, but the broad sweep of history; insights about the mind and spirit from philosophy, art and religion; poetry, which Shakespeare said, takes the "forms of things unknown [and] turns them to shapes," and sociology and anthropology - because they are tools for understanding how communities grow, survive and thrive.

And we mold citizens of the world by making sure we never give up our long struggle for equality of opportunity; human dignity; national reconciliation; and world peace.

This raises the central question of diversity.

With his usual eloquence, Robert Berdahl has made the case that diversity on campus strengthens the campus, because it broadens the intellectual and cultural horizon of an academic community - making a good university even better. As President Clinton has said, "When we give all Americans a chance to develop and use their talents, to be full partners in our common enterprise, then everybody is pushed forward."

But Robert Berdahl is also an outstanding citizen - which is why he has pledged to uphold the law and make it work, by giving greater scrutiny to the thousands of applications for admission that Berkeley receives, and broadening the criteria for what constitutes a highly qualified candidate.

Still, we shouldn't put our heads in the sand. Making the new system work will not be easy. But I have confidence in Dr. Berdahl and the faculty and students of Berkeley. I know you are committed to letting in the intellectual breeze that comes to us because we are a nation made up of the world's nations. As a proud American of Lebanese ancestry, I tell you: that is our strength. And we must never lose it.

Let me add that last word on affirmative action has certainly not been written - by the courts, Congress, the Administration or the American people. That is why the President launched his national conversation on race, and national actions, such as a commitment to eliminate racial disparities in six critical health areas by the year 2010.

This conversation on diversity will continue. And we all need to be a part of it.

Doing so - frankly - is one of the high callings of a citizen of the world.

It will require the leadership of not only Dr. Berdahl and his senior administrators, but also this extraordinary faculty. In the 1990 accreditation report I wrote: "Berkeley's brilliant faculty has already demonstrated that it can create and sustain a world class university. There is no reason to believe these new challenges of diversity will elude the faculty's enormous capacity for learning and leadership."

Those words are just as true today as they were at the start of this decade.

So as we end this century, your new Chancellor inherits a world class university,. and faculty and student body for all seasons - in an age of change, challenge and international partnerships.

Let me again congratulate you and this extraordinary university community on this special day.

Thank you.