Dean Barron's Inaugural Address

Thank you so much for your warm welcome to the Jackson School and the University of Texas. I am truly just delighted to be with you and to be a part of this School and this University.

I want to begin by thanking Bill Fisher. All of you know his many accomplishments better than I do, and he isn’t retiring, so I don’t want to stand up here and review his history. Instead, I want to think about Bill’s contributions in terms of this school and the magnitude of what is happening here.

Increasingly, when a donor provides a significant gift, they want it to be directed – they attach “strings” of various kinds – sometimes with foresight and occasionally not. They rightfully have to believe that their gift will travel forward in time and become a legacy that serves a valuable purpose by supporting students or providing excellence or longevity for a program. Almost always, they have to believe in the institution and they have to believe that their hard-earned money is a good investment in the future. Now, I look at the Jackson gift and I am astounded not just with its magnitude but at the simplicity of its guidelines – to support the geosciences, both in basic and applied research, particularly in the areas of water, energy, minerals and the environment. The goal is quite simply to create a top five geosciences program. I do not believe that Jackson would have given a gift so significant, nor be so trusting that we would use it wisely, if he didn’t truly believe in this School and its potential. And, I simply can’t imagine that John Jackson’s belief would have been that strong if Bill Fisher hadn’t been extraordinarily adept at describing all of our strengths, as well as our potential to be truly great.

Consider also, that our destiny is entirely in our own hands – we aren’t embedded in the competing interests of a diverse college. Our future depends only on our vision and our commitment to excellence. Again, I can’t imagine we would have such an outcome if the leadership of this fine university did not come to see the future of geosciences through the combined eyes of John Jackson and Bill Fisher.

Bill, we all owe you a debt of great gratitude. Please, everyone, join me in thanking him for all that he has done to create the Jackson School of Geosciences.

Now, what next?

I marvel at the extent to which so many people out there in the world are watching us and speculating on just how wisely we will create our future. There is no doubt that some of our colleagues believe we will squander a good portion of it – they are sure that we will be the rich kid with a trust fund where motivation is optional. There are other colleagues who sense that the vast majority of geoscience programs in the U.S. rank close together as “good” programs, that there is a second grouping of a dozen or so that stand out as exceptional, and now they are sensing that there is one program that could pull away from even all the rest. Now, I hesitate to have you think that I am overly competitive, but frankly I don’t want to meet any of those expectations – I want to knock their socks off.

To me, that means that every dollar we have must be viewed as an investment and we should relish every opportunity to compete our ideas, through proposals, presentations and papers, against anyone out there. The “dollar” that we generate in the applied and basic science marketplace is actually worth more because advice, criticism, and feedback make us even more competitive for the next dollar. Every competition we enter also announces the magnitude of our motivation and the level of quality of the Jackson School.

So, how should we invest?

Well, the first title that I would like to claim is to be the most student-centered college that this University has ever seen, and to far exceed any other earth sciences program anywhere. What does it mean to be student-centered -- (1) A sense of community on day one; (2) Support services through tutoring, advising, and career services that ensures student success; (3) A sense that the School is an academic home, not a place just to take classes; (4) Truly superior teaching; (5) Proposals, investment and recognition of our efforts in the scholarship of education not just research; (6) Course access and advising that allows you to complete your degree in a timely fashion; (7) Scholarships that ensure access for every qualified student; (8) A program that is beyond courses and grades because it is focused on opportunities. In my view an honors student gets great grades, but a scholar goes after opportunity – student leadership, study abroad, internships, and undergraduate research. We need to actively promote scholars. There are already many great elements of a student-centered college in the Jackson School, but in my view it is time to take it to a whole new level.

The second title – I don’t have a catchy phrase – but I would like to claim the title for developing star power, for enabling really gifted people to define the future of our disciplines. I say this in contrast to collecting “stars;” collecting the people who have defined the present status of our discipline. I like the idea of an ad for a new member of our team that seeks the best and brightest, regardless of geoscience discipline, whether research scientist or faculty, and who really believes that they will be the cutting edge. And, once we hire them, we have an obligation to encourage, mentor, reward and enable. When the Jackson School hires a young faculty member or scientist, I want the rest of our colleagues in other universities, government labs and industry to say “there is someone to watch,” because there is recognition out there that the Jackson School chooses wisely, senses potential, and then, that we are vested in promoting their success.

Well, I also want the title for breadth and depth. We have to make sure every element of our core is strong. But, I believe our long-term success depends on our ability to expand our domain to encompass the broader areas of geosciences as defined by Jackson’s gift. I think we have to do this by deliberate hiring in clusters or themes that strengthen and expand our scope. The challenge will be to choose the areas that extend our domain naturally, building upon our already formidable strengths. The directions that all of you want to take will say a great deal about whether our vision matches the magnitude of the Jackson estate.

I want the Jackson School to be recognized as having a face that is friendly, welcoming, enabling, can-do, supportive, and warm. The face of any college is its support staff. They are the first to talk to a student or a parent. They are the first to reach across this university to touch the people in financial systems or sponsored programs or human resources to solve a problem or pave the way. They are often the first contact that someone reaches from the outside world. Promoting professional development should be a priority, as should be rewarding those that are committed to our success. And, most importantly, the support staff need to be part of the team when it comes to our vision, because most assuredly, they will be instrumental in its execution. I don’t know everyone here yet, but I am so proud of the warmth and commitment that I sense.

I also want to say something about diversity. Speaking broadly, science and engineering in this nation will fail if the population of scientists and engineers don’t start to look like the population of Texas, the population of the U.S., and the population of this planet. I don’t really care if you decide to look at this issue from the viewpoint of demographic projections, or human justice, or the tragedy of wasted talent. Many of you have heard me say this before. We need to empower the next generation of scholars, and it isn’t the job of one or two people assigned to the task – it is everyone’s job. We also won’t be truly great if we aren’t an international school. The reach of our discipline is obviously truly, and quite naturally, global. The job of a university is to develop knowledge and to build human capacity. The future academic greats in the geosciences will be the ones that recognize the importance of combining the mission of a university with the global reach of our discipline. This is the reason why I already love GEOFORCE and the Latin American Forum. But, it needs to be “just the beginning.”

What is so remarkable, so wonderful, is the fact that we can do everything that I have described, and then some. But...

1. We are going to have to make every dollar count. Frankly, no matter what anyone thinks, there aren’t yet enough resources in this school to be as great as we are going to be – I see a significant part of my job as selling our potential to our alumni, to foundations, and corporations.
    
2. We also can’t afford to waste our time and energy in inefficiencies. We have to be deliberate in removing burdens and fostering successes. For that reason, I should always be promoting the development of strong, effective, self-governing units that everyone can count on to do everything well. Of course, my office has to have responsibility for oversight, but I would rather have effective policies and know that we follow them because they made sense.
    
3. We need to focus on those things that make us more than the sum of our parts. We can be much stronger if we develop and promote partnerships. My office should be adding value to what you are doing by promoting collaboration, cohesion, and interactions, by ensuring top-notch support, and by developing incentives and appropriate reward structures. My office should be expert in celebrating your successes.
    
4. We need to be really connected – to all those great past graduates, to the demands that society is placing on our discipline, and to the future of all of our students. There is just such potential in promoting every possible connection between all those who have come before, starting with our first student, extending to all our future graduates, even those not yet even enrolled.

In short, a Dean’s office should focus on strategy, effective and flexible governance, a sense of community, and advocacy.

We also have some significant challenges. The cultures of our three units are very different. Pickle is quite a distance. There is a sense that we are starting to know each other, but we don’t really, do we? We are going to experience some real growing pains. We will be challenged to determine when we act for the whole, when we act for the unit or a subset, and when acting for a unit is really promoting the whole. We have to find the ways to embrace the differences between our units that yield strength, yet eliminate those differences that make any unit less able or that prevents us from becoming a team. We are going to make mistakes. I am going to make mistakes. We absolutely have to foster a culture of trust, collaboration communication, and consultation so we can work well together and so we can minimize mistakes.

In my view, we have to begin our time together with a strategic plan, one that is visionary (as opposed to mundane goals centered on statistics and percentages). It needs to engage and excite. It needs to define the path for our investments, and it needs to be able to attract the next set of resources. It needs to focus on the scholarship of teaching as well as the scholarship of research. It needs to empower the next generation of students. Promoting collaboration and cohesion itself needs to be a strategic objective. It should play off the existing strengths of this school and this university. In short, its power should match our potential and it needs to belong to all of us. I truly want everyone that wants to be involved to have opportunity, whether student, faculty, research scientist, staff, or alumni.

If I close by looking back over the priorities that I have just outlined, it is clear that the true priority is people – how you attract them to the Jackson School, how you empower them, how you promote them, how you best celebrate their achievements, and how you develop a community that reaches back in time and extends far into the future. I will do my best as your Dean to give “people” my full attention. You have my promise that I will do my best to be an advocate, a facilitator, and a communicator. I am counting on being partners in creating the single greatest geoscience program ever.

Thank you for the invitation to be a part of such a great adventure.

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