My speech at the inauguration of the SLU President
Ed Feser is prepared to lead Saint Louis University to a more equitable and loving future
I have the privilege of serving on the board of trustees at St. Louis University. We’re very excited to have attracted Ed Feser, former provost of Oregon State University, to be our new president. Despite my many differences with the Catholic church and the historical actions of the Jesuits, the values of Jesuit higher education today are quite meaningful and useful in framing the challenges facing colleges and universities.
Ed asked me to be the keynote speaker at his inauguration, and I got a chance to work through some of these things. My remarks start at 42 min in, and text is below. Stay for Ed’s speech - fearless presentation of the challenges facing higher education and the road ahead.
Hello, everybody!
Congratulations to the people of John O’Leary University!
Actually, although I think it’s still called Saint Louis University in some circles, my soul IS on fire and I hope yours is, too..
What a happy day this is for us all.
And congratulations to President Feser and Kathy.
In our line of work we have a saying, any day you put your robe on is a good day.
Today is one of those days.
Ed and Kathy, since you got here, you probably have felt the need to correct people on several things. Now that isn’t a good way to win friends and, Lord knows, you need a lot of friends. So, I’m going to save you some trouble and maybe some heartache. Here are the answers to some of the questions you have of St. Louisans. The questions themselves should be obvious.
Yes, we know it’s not really an Amoco station.
Yes, we know that a cracker with cheese whiz on it isn’t actually pizza.
Yes, we know we are not pronouncing Creve Coeur and DeBaliviere correctly.
And yes, we know you can now get a reservation at Pastaria.
It wasn’t always this way, so don’t take it for granted.
I understand you have had many common adventures for new presidents. Like Bob who works at Chaifetz asking if you had any proof that you were the president before he let you in.
Or the student parked in your parking place who – when you asked him to move – told you to be careful because the president sometimes parks there.
Don’t worry, they’ll figure it out.
And you’ve probably figured out that you work with a lot of priests. Remember that they have a very different job from you. And that may be difficult, because there are four ways in which your jobs are very similar.
1. You visit the sick.
2. You ask your congregation for money.
3. You occasionally put on a robe and stand in a pulpit and try to say something inspirational.
4. Everyone thinks they know how to do your job.
I’m going to come back to #4 in a minute, but first, here are some things about Ed.
Red Bluff to Corvallis
Ed Feser grew up in the west in national parks where his father was a ranger. He was born in Canada because it was the closest hospital to their Montana cabin in Glacier National Park.
They got their groceries by snowmobile.
After a stop in Olympic National Park, the Fesers moved to Lassen Volcanic National Park where Ed attended a two-room schoolhouse in Mineral, CA. There he developed his appreciation for access to education.
Ed was drawn to Jesuit values at the University of San Francisco where he learned the benefits of Catholic higher education in the college classrooms and the nave of St. Ignatius Church.
He learned what it means to have a university and a city truly connected.
He met Kathy on a semester abroad, and when they came back, his friends wondered how a city boy from California was dating a country girl from Georgia.
They had it backwards – Kathy is from Atlanta, Georgia. Ed is from Red Bluff, CA.
In 1980, the population of Red Bluff was 10,000 people.
Ed and Kathy went to Chapel Hill where he got his PhD and joined the faculty in City and Regional Planning.
One of his colleagues was some smart aleck who was raising hell in the chemistry department.
That was me.
From Chapel Hill, Ed and Kathy moved to the University of Illinois where he rose up the ranks to interim provost before moving back to his roots in the west to be the provost of Oregon State University.
Jane Lubchenco is an Oregon State faculty member who has served the United States on environmental issues in two presidential administrations, including as the director of NOAA. I asked her if she had anything about Ed I could share in this talk.
She did.
“Ed was the most amazing Provost I’ve ever known,” she said. “He’s the consummate, inspiring leader. He’s able to make tough decisions with everyone on board or at least respecting the decision. He makes change possible when it’s needed -- and does so at the speed of trust. He earns trust. He listens -- and is always thinking about what’s best for the people of the institution. These traits would be valuable in any age, but they are particularly relevant today, as universities and society navigate troubled waters. He’s deeply committed to higher education and the overarching importance of creating the best possible learning, growing, thinking, and discovering environment for students, faculty, and staff. Can you tell I miss him?”
We can, Jane, but sorry – Ed’s in St. Louis now.
Questions and answers
And that brings us to today. Since arriving in St. Louis -- and waiting for everyone to realize he can park wherever the hell he wants – Ed has lived up to Jane’s billing as a leader who listens while not being afraid to push forward.
And she’s right that we need that right now.
Student government president Grace LoPiccolo told me that she can tell Ed knows that SLU wouldn’t exist if the students didn’t want to come here. That he asks the right questions about the well-being of the students and how to make sure they find a way to belong.
And that’s a rare thing right now – and this gets back to my point about everyone thinking they know how to do Ed’s job.
Because despite what you might read in the press or overhear at a board meeting, universities are not hedge funds. They’re not real estate companies. They’re not sports corporations.
They’re schools.
And sorry everyone, but they’re not here for the donors. They’re not here for the board. They’re not here to chase the latest buzzwords around AI or quantum.
They’re here for the students.
The rest of us are here to support that.
All the acrimony and division that are ripping higher education apart boil down to this simple point.
And we can help. We can help by ensuring that our actions reflect the true reason that St. Louis University exists.
And by realizing that we have entrusted exactly one person with all of the information needed to decide what those actions are, particularly when those decisions are ones nobody else wants to make.
I promise you from experience that he already knows things about this place that NONE of us wants to know. So, since we don’t have that information, it’s better to mostly give him support and occasionally give him advice rather than the other way around.
Fortunately, we can do that with someone who won’t forget what he learned in the desert of Red Bluff or the pews of St. Ignatius.
Which means SLU doesn’t have to hire consultants to run an offsite with butcher paper to find our North Star, core values, or mission statement.
It’s right there in the apostolic preferences and the Sermon on the Mount.
And in Jesus as a 12-year-old boy sitting with the rabbis for three days, listening and asking questions.
“Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.”
These twin ideals of compassion and knowledge propel us forward to a more equitable and loving future.
President Feser is prepared to lead us there with his own Jesuit education and his stellar record of academic accomplishment.
And because he knows that in the long run, it’s not the university presidents, politicians, and business executives that will lead us out of the caustic world we are currently living in. It’s certainly not the podcasters and the pundits (by the way, that’s me).
It’s the people who actually talk to folks and understand them. Who get their hands dirty and meet people where they are.
It’s the family practitioners, the clergy, the social workers, the nurses, the schoolteachers, and the civil rights lawyers.
“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”
It is not the influencers or the power brokers but those who tend to the least of these who will lead us.
And Ed Feser is going to make sure that we’ll teach those people here.
We’ll teach them in the liberal arts tradition and the academic principles of knowledge and free inquiry.
We’ll teach them in the ideals of a Galilean rabbi who was not afraid or ashamed to touch and be seen with those marginalized by disease, poverty, and injustice.
We’ll teach them in the Jesuit traditions of compassion and higher purpose.
And we’ll teach them in this amazing and crazy city of mispronounced French words where barbecue is inexplicably made from a cow.
We will do these things because Ed Feser has spent his life learning and defending these traditions and ideas.
Because he didn’t come here by accident.
And because Ed Feser is not the president of just any university. He’s the president of SAINT LOUIS University.
People of St. Louis and Saint Louis University: welcome your new president.
Ed Feser.
Congratulations to us all!