CEU's Shattuck Launches Frontiers of Democracy Initiative in Sept. 19 Address

The following is the text of a speech given by CEU President and Rector John Shattuck on the occasion of the opening of the 2014/15 Academic Year on Sept., 19, 2014. Shattuck launched the Frontiers of Democracy initiative in this address.

CEU Opening Ceremony 2014

Remarks of John Shattuck
President and Rector
Central European University
Budapest
September 19, 2014

I want to welcome our new students.  Please stand up so we can give you a special Opening Day greeting! 

Let me tell you a little about yourselves.

You’ve been chosen from nearly 3500 applications, and your class is one of the most highly qualified that CEU has ever had. Congratulations!  You are a tapestry of the world.  You come from 87 countries across the globe, from Albania to Zimbabwe, and you’re joining a university community that has students, faculty and staff from over 100 countries, and this year had applicants from an incredible 127 countries around the world.   

I know from my own experience what it’s like to be a new student in a foreign country far away from home.  When I was 18 I was the only American exchange student in – believe it or not -- Damascus, Syria.  I arrived before the Ba’athist Revolution, when Damascus was a safe and open and beautiful city.  It was the first time I’d left home, the first time I’d flown in a plane!  As you might imagine, I was pretty anxious about all this, but I made it through, and my experience had a profound impact and ultimately influenced me toward an international career. So I welcome you to Budapest, and if you ever feel homesick just imagine how I felt as an American student in Damascus!

Budapest is a wonderful city, and a great place not only to study but to have fun.  Everyone has their favorite thing to do here, and mine is biking.  You can go up and down the Danube as far as you want, and up and down the Buda hills until you wear yourself out.  And you’ll find other CEU bikers out there, as I often do, so enjoy yourselves and study hard, but not too hard to have fun in Budapest!

Let me take a few moments to reflect on our university at the beginning of our 24th year.

We offer degrees in many fields, but all based on the same principles.

First is the pursuit of truth.  Perhaps this should go without saying.  But in a world of propaganda, the pursuit of truth is difficult, like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Second, is an honest relationship with history.  History is filled with unpleasant truths that politicians try to sweep under the rug.  The pursuit of truth means that we shouldn’t let them.

Third is freedom of thought and speech.  It’s easy to tune out those with whom you disagree, and much harder to hear different points of view.  But that’s what we do at CEU.

Fourth is respect for the dignity of individuals and groups.  CEU is one of the most diverse communities in the world, and our strength comes from the mutual respect in which we hold each other.

Fifth is the rule of law.  This is a big one.  Law is a bulwark against the abuse of power.

Sixth, we are committed to challenge conventional wisdom and think critically.  This is the intellectual heart of CEU, and it’s what we should try to do every day.

A quarter of a century ago these six principles brought down the Berlin Wall and liberated Central and Eastern Europe.  They are the principles of an open society, and they inspired the founding of CEU. 

Today they are challenged across the globe, just as they were in the 20th century during fascism and communism. 

But today’s challenges are more complex and often more difficult to recognize.  They come from other kinds of “isms” – nationalism, authoritarianism, racism and all their variations – that seduce people and destroy democratic and open societies.  And these “isms” are found wherever political parties or groups and their leaders begin to question the rule of law as a model of governance, or to undermine democratic principles through prejudice or greed or corruption or mismanagement.

I’m pleased to say that in the midst of these challenges our university is flourishing.

We’ve recruited excellent students like you from all over the world.  We’ve brought together an outstanding international faculty immersed in the study of human affairs.  We’ve become a center of excellence in teaching and research.  We’re among the top five universities in Europe today in successfully competing for EU funding in the social sciences and humanities. All parts of CEU are among the best in this region, and several of our departments are ranked among the top 100 in the world.   

Looking ahead, the generosity of our founder, George Soros, and many other supporters, is allowing us to make daring plans for the future.

We’re sharpening our open society mission at a time when closed societies are coming back into vogue.

Our graduates are using their CEU education in inspiring ways -- by reforming economies, leading democratic governments, promoting human rights, helping refugees, running universities, teaching students, creating start-ups, managing businesses, fighting corruption and working to build a better world.

Now I’m sure your asking yourselves how can I prepare for this kind of promising future?  I have two words of advice: think critically.

We live in a world drowning in information and starving for truth. 

Facts today are often less accepted than opinions, analysis less favored than advocacy, justice less served than prejudice. 

As CEU students you’ll need to think for yourselves, to guard against attractive lies, resist easy conclusions.

We’re committed to critical thinking as a principle of open society, even as different models of closed society are cropping up all over.

There are authoritarian models that promise stability by silencing opponents.

There are nationalist models that appeal to fear and racism to justify exclusion.

There are majoritarian models that claim to be democratic while sweeping away the checks and balances that protect political minorities.

There are economic models of an unregulated market that produces wealth for the few but imposes hardships on the many who are left behind.

And, of course, we should also think critically about democracy itself, which Winston Churchill famously described as the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Governance in Europe and the United States today is plagued by dysfunction and urgently in need of reform – in politics, in economics and in they way governments relate to their citizens.

But once again, in the midst of all these challenges, CEU is thriving, and stronger than ever. 

We’re renewing and expanding our campus. We’re building bridges between the humanities and the social sciences.  We’re offering innovative programs in public policy and business. We’re educating students to navigate a contested world.  And we’re defining ourselves as a frontier university.   

Here on the frontier, CEU will take a stand for the principles that define our university.  We will do this by examining democracy, its many variations, its strengths, its weaknesses, its friends and its enemies.

Starting this week, and over the next two years, we are planning a far-reaching series of conferences and lectures under the theme, “Frontiers of Democracy”.

The first two events in this series have taken place this week.  The History Department hosted a keynote speech this morning by the distinguished Cambridge political theorist and historian of ideas John Dunn, on “Toleration, Trust and the Travails of Living Together Globally”; and yesterday the School of Public Policy hosted its first lecture of the year by the Founding Director of the European Stability Initiative, Gerald Knaus, on “The Rhetoric of Reaction - Pessimism, Complacency and Newspeak in 2014”.

Our series will look closely and critically at what makes a democracy – free elections, free speech, free media, the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, a regulated market economy, the protection of minorities, civil liberties, civil society and the intellectual freedom of universities and cultural institutions.  What do these concepts mean today?  How are they interpreted in Europe, in North America, and around the world?  Why are they supported or rejected, and what are their benefits and costs in different societies?

A university should be at the center of debate, and that’s what CEU will be in this exciting next chapter of our institutional life.  We will seek out many points of view.  We will invite experts, practitioners and officials with differing perspectives.  We will examine all the forms of governance that claim to be democratic.  We will look at the problems of constitutional democracies, and the seductive appeal of majoritarian democracies.  We will explore the ways in which democracy can be undermined from within, and what can be done to prevent that.  We will look at challenges to democracy in Hungary, in the EU, in the US and far beyond.  And we will do this in a framework of tolerance for competing views.

There are basic questions to be asked, and it will be role of CEU working with many partners to address them.  What is the value of democracy today?  How can liberal democracy be revitalized?  What are the costs of illiberal democracy?  Do new civic approaches and even a new vocabulary need to be developed to support democratic values?    

These questions are at the core of CEU’s academic fields – the humanities, the social sciences, law, public policy and business.  New areas like cognitive science, network science, religious studies and the School of Public Policy offer new perspectives. Unique parts of CEU like the Open Society Archives provide historical perspectives – for example the Yellow Star Houses program that commemorated the Hungarian Holocaust last spring and received international media attention.  And many other parts of the university and our partner institutions will contribute their own perspectives to this far-reaching inquiry.

So, let me once again welcome you to our 24th academic year.  It will be an exciting year, and you will have an important role to play as members of our remarkable CEU community of students, faculty, staff and alumni, here on the frontiers of democracy.