Dean Ernest J. Wilson III
Nov. 29, 2007
Unedited Remarks
Let me thank President Sample for his warm greeting, and the warmth he has demonstrated in all our interactions at this great university.
He has made it feel like family, the Trojan family. Steve, it is indeed an honor to have been selected to lead the USC Annenberg School for communication and I thank you immensely.
I am also deeply honored to be appointed to the Walter H. Annenberg Chair in Communication, last held by a giant in the field and one of my intellectual heroes, the late Everett Rogers.
Let me also extend my genuine and sincere thanks to Wallis Annenberg. From our very first meeting months ago, through our many conversations since, she has been a wise adviser, astute counselor, and has become a true friend to Francille and me.
Both Wallis and Mrs. Lee Annenberg have consistently pressed me to articulate and act upon a vision for the School that builds upon its great traditions, but that also seeks new and innovative ways to meet the opportunities and tackle the social challenges that confront us in today’s complex media environment.
When Wallis and I talk about the exciting and open horizons that lie before this great School, the conversation soars and time flies by.
I am delighted that other members of our board of councilors are here today, including chairman John Cooke.
Let me add that I could not have asked for a better guide and better provostial colleague than Max Nikias.
Institutions become great through the work of great leaders. I want to acknowledge the remarkable work of my predecessors in building the School, including Peter Clarke, Prof. Gerry Davison now dean of gerontology, and my most immediate guide and guru, Geoffrey Cowan.
I have known Geoff Cowan for many years, and during this period of transition he has demonstrated again and again his extraordinary generosity and selflessness. Aileen and Geoff have been truly welcoming to Francille and me, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Under Geoff Cowan's leadership, a hallmark of the Annenberg School became its role as an important campus forum. Especially since 9/11 and the lead up to the war in
These gatherings were often held in our Annenberg room 207. The room has become in many ways a symbol for rational, mutually respectful dialogue and communication.
With the approval of the provost, I therefore have the pleasure of announcing today that we are renaming Annenberg room 207 as the Geoffrey Cowan forum.
No man is an island, and no person can do anything of value alone. Over the course of our lives, we become who our families encourage us to become and permit us to become. That is certainly true in my case. I wish to acknowledge my family members here today, beginning with dr. Prof. Francille Rusan
Both of my children are here, Malik and Rodney, whom I love madly. I am so pleased that my brother Sule Greg Wilson has flown in for this occasion, and I express heartfelt greetings to my mother’s sister Sheila Gregory Thomas and of course my mother- in- law Georgia Tallier Rusan. And much love and a shout out to my multiple cousins and friends who are here today as well. I salute you all.
Steve, as you can see, Francille and I take the “Trojan Family” ideal very, very seriously.
Finally, by way of thanks and a special tip of the USC baseball cap, I want to acknowledge my fellow deans, especially the newbie deans.
A picture and a vision
Let me use these few moments today to paint a picture for you, and to share a vision. The picture is about how we human beings create, and how we innovate, how we select and fashion from the storehouse of the past, and the treasure trove of the present, new knowledge. Whether a new ballet or a computer software program human beings create through communication. It is through our bonds to others, within a given community, bound together through the exchange of symbols & sounds, that together we make knowledge.
The vision I propose today will I hope result in the Annenberg School being even more strongly positioned at the epicenter of the dramatic changes before us, achieved through our creativity, our innovation and our excellence.
We are already well on our way.
The world is now at the front end of a massive tectonic transformation, as Steve Sample indicated. We are shifting rapidly from an industrial society to something else - a post industrial, networked, media-drenched society driven by new knowledge, fueled by brains not brawn, where education and authority are more distributed, more bottom-up and globally interconnected. Change is constant, high velocity and high impact. And at the center of these changes? The communication revolution itself.
These remarkable, almost magical changes naturally lead one to think large and noble thoughts, but let me start by being more blunt and prosaic: “how in the world can I teach this stuff?”
In the fields of communications and journalism as our faculty look to the future, we are often driven back to the basics: What do I teach, how do I teach? Do I remain the ‘sage on the stage’ or become the ‘guide on the side’?
Fortunately, we have the basic ingredients we need to become even more of a leader, in fact, the leader in this transition to a networked, global knowledge and communication society. USC Annenberg is already a great School that sits at the center of a great research university, in the center of a great city.
Our next challenge is to develop and deepen our already superb schools, including such centers as the Norman Lear center and the Knight Center for Digital Media.
Our vision therefore must be nothing less than to create the digital future.
Before outlining 3 main elements of such a vision, let me change pace and offer some reflections of a more personal nature.
In life, one gets asked to do more and more things and eventually develops a personal calculus to decide what to do. Here’s my calculus, in a nutshell:
Is this enterprise important, with people I like, with resources to get the job done?
Finally, is it fun? (because all of us have at some point worked under conditions that meet none of these criteria!)
Let me review these 4 criteria:
A. Important. USC Annenberg is at the intersection of all that is important in the transition to an information society. Information content is
And politically -- let me offer the following syllogism: a free, independent press is critical to democracy; but the press today, especially the print media, is experiencing huge challenges and even declines. Ergo, to the extent that the responsible press declines, our democracy declines, and our grandchildren risk living in an
B. People I like. I’ve said a lot about this already, and it really is true. This is a remarkably collegial and friendly group all across campus.
C. Resources. Vision and energy alone cannot invent the future. You also need adequate resources. Given our trajectory, the demands on us for innovative leadership, and our future ambitions for global networked excellence, we are not there yet. But we have something many other communication schools don’t have - adequate resources to give us space to think boldly, to envision a better world that we can help create.
D. Fourthly, fun. This week is not atypical. Today at lunch I met with and introduced the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. Two days ago, I led a meeting on digital broadband issues with governor Schwarzenegger, organized by our own center for the digital future.
And I went to thanksgiving dinner with Quincy Jones, who also appeared last year at one of our center for public diplomacy events. What’s not to like?
Fun, resources, likeable people, important. The opportunities here at the
Professional life is critical, but it’s also about family life. Over the course of our lives we all develop ways of bearing the benefits of family, and also bearing the burdens and obligations of family. I hail from a long line of college professors and even an administrator or two.
My father, Ernest J. Wilson, Jr., was dean of international student affairs at
His
father, my great grandfather, was the first graduate of
These values of excellence were communicated to me around the dinner table where my father and his friends discussed everything from W.E.B Du Bois and Nietzsche to African independence and JFK’s new frontier.
So in one sense by becoming a dean at this great School I am staying in the family business, and trying in my own way to contribute as they did to the creation and communication of knowledge.
I am extremely proud to say that both of my sons, Malik and Rodney, are continuing the family tradition – both are excellent writers and budding intellectuals -- though Francille and I have tried desperately to steer them in the direction of business school! Jim Ellis, maybe you can help!
While this campus community, this epistemic community, decisively shaped my views of the life of the mind with all its possibilities, so did the society beyond the campus portals. Growing up as i did in the segregated south – i.e. the nation’s capital, - infused in me and my generational peers an unshakable faith that one could seek truth and beauty in poetry, literature and history, while also seeking justice and social change.
Indeed, it was an intellectual and a political imperative, not a choice. Every day we heard the dictum: “to whom much is given, much is expected.”
I have always believed that knowledge could and should be in the service of positive social change.
For example, we are witnessing a growing gap between the haves and have nots in many countries around the world, including in the
As Ambassador Annenberg put it so succinctly “to be of service to all people is the enduring mission of this School.”
Let me say a word about strategic listening
Communication leadership does not mean just talking more loudly; instead, communication is a two-way street. Our excellent faculty excel in such communications.
In august I invited all faculty to engage in conversations. On three themes: international, impact and innovation. Students too have participated in this dialogue.
From these conversations will emerge a more finished vision for the Annenberg School.
The first theme is international – knowledge must be learned, created and shared internationally. How do we internationalize from top to bottom, in teaching and service and research, in today’s rapidly globalizing world?
Impact : what impact are we having today shaping the scholarly discourse and agenda in our professions? But also what impact are we having right here in Los Angeles our local community?
We also need to have a presence in
Moreover, there is a growing demand in W
Innovation: This is at the core of all we do, and we must innovate with urgency.
We must provide our students with the sake they need in order to innovate in the future. Yes, you heard me right, and no, it’s not that ‘sake’,
Sake is an anagram I invented to capture the personal competencies of the digital age - skills, attitudes, knowledge and experience they are required to be communication leaders.
But recall the words of Mahatma Gandhi. He reminds us that we must become the change we would see in the world. So we too must change – all of us faculty, staff, and administrators, even the dean.
To the friends and supporters of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism who have joined us here today, I invite you to join us in our continuing mission to be of service to all people. We cannot succeed without you.
Let me close by again thanking President Sample for giving me this opportunity to lead the School into the digital future.
And let me again express the School’s and the University’s gratitude to Wallis and the entire Annenberg family for their generous support and guidance.
This is such an exciting time, and I look forward to sharing that excitement with you in the years to come.
Thank you.
