May 01, 2002
The academic president as moral leader: James T. Laney at Emory University
Dr. Stuart Gulley's recent book, The Academic President as Moral Leader, succeeds in illuminating several very important dimensions of Emory University's growth and change in the period when Dr. James T. Laney served as its President, from 1977 to 1993. Gulley's study gives a fascinating account of the search process that led to Laney's appointment, including the roles of the Woodruff brothers in helping to influence the presidential choice, and the solid bond of friendship and trust that Laney forged with them. It captures the dynamism and energy called forth from faculty and administrators by the challenges of determining how the new inflow of resources of the $105,000,000 gift given by the Woodruffs in 1979, should best be used to strengthen the University.
Gulley, now the President of LaGrange College, framed the study of the Laney years at Emory in relation to the presidencies of several other influential American academic leaders. These included Presidents William Rainey Harper and Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago, President Charles W. Eliot at Harvard, and President Horace Man Bond at Fort Valley. Against the backdrop of these other institutions and their leaders, Gulley highlights the distinctive moral vision, and its articulation, that Laney developed in guiding the Emory's growth. Gulley writes:
"Laney's speeches and articles allude to four elements which he believed were critical for a liberal arts education: (1) A commitment to competence; (2) A striving for the development of moral character; (3) An offering of an inclusive community of learning, and (4) An unyielding commitment to freedom of thought."
In expounding these four elements of a liberal arts education, Laney called for a development of competencies in students that enable them to become continuing learners. They would develop the ability to become self-generating inquirers, capable of updating their knowledge base to keep pace with change.
But beyond "learning to learn" his vision of the educated person called for growth in the moral development of students. From the time of Aristotle, he said, education has been concerned with the development of the character of the individual. "Education should inform the whole life of the person by impressing upon the individual the need to care for and advance the public good." (For Laney, character development and the commitment of the individual to serve were inseparable from the competencies that should be cultivated in the student.)
To achieve the moral development of the student, Laney held that the university must foster a moral community where differences in opinion and background are welcomed and civil discourse practiced. He described the community of the liberal arts as a "tableau of diverse peoples and many nations seated at a common meal, sharing bread and truth together… When successful, the community fostered by the liberal arts frees students from the parochialism of fixed ideas, making them 'unintimidated by pluralism'." Gulley writes:
"Implied in Laney's first three elements of competence, character, and community to be strengthened in the liberal arts institution, there was a critical fourth element, that of a commitment to freedom of thought. For the liberal arts community to build character through exposure to persons and opinions different from one's own, the time-honored commitment to free inquiry and free expression is essential. Laney was quick to note, however, that what is expressed requires thoughtful deliberation and careful articulation…. Only in the freedom of mind to question all things and to imagine all things can the human spirit seek its rightful home…Laney argued that at its best the liberal arts institution, with its four essential characteristics, is, in the final analysis, the structural expression of love."
Laney himself wrote:
"Love is not generally what we are about in the university these days. It is not generally regarded as the university's cardinal virtue. But [it is appropriate] to think of the university as the structural expression of love, to think of the university's edification in love. The direct result of this kind of educational experience is seen in students who show virtues needed to transform and strengthen society. Such virtues include honor, respect, courage, commitment to work, fidelity, good will, patience, discipline, restraint, and promise-keeping." (pp. 46-49)
Jim Laney—along with Bill Frye, as Provost of the University—supported and encouraged the development of the Center for Ethics in Public Policy and the Professions in 1991. Twenty-seven faculty members from across the University conceived the Center for Ethics as an institution, internal to Emory, to help nurture and strengthen this "structural expression of love" throughout the colleges and graduate professional schools of Emory. When this moral form of love takes institutional form, it emerges as honesty, justice and care for the common good.
As readers of this study, we honor Laney's legacy in this University and express our gratitude to Dr. Gulley for his welcome contribution to our understanding of Emory's recent history. In this context it is fitting to speak about the University's present involvement in reconfirming and strengthening Emory's commitments to academic and moral integrity. For today's students the internet and other forms of technological innovations offer a variety of modes of academic cheating and intellectual theft for students who are inclined to use them.
Under President Chace's leadershp, we have made an evaluation this year—with participation of students and professors—of the shape and condition of academic integrity in Emory and Oxford Colleges. Our findings, on the whole, are encouraging. Through this study, and in conjunction with seven other peer Universities, we are reconfirming Emory's historic commitments to academic and moral integrity. In welcoming new and returning students to Emory this fall, we will be implementing a more thorough and public initiation of the incoming class into the ethical traditions and practices of the University.
Near the conclusion of his book Gulley underscores President Laney's commitment to the moral dimensions of the office. He writes,
"The [recent] presidential literature is remarkably silent about the importance of the moral commitment of the leader. Yet, what makes Laney's presidency distinctive is his grasp of the moral authority of the president, in an era when integrity seemed in short supply… Laney was especially proud of the Freshman Seminar and the Luce Professors' Program, both of which fostered moral discourse on a variety of subjects. Laney also sought community discussions about apartheid in South Africa, rights of gays and lesbians, and racial issues on campus." (See pp221ff.)
For those of us who teach and lead in the Emory of today, and tomorrow, Gulley's insightful account of Jim Laney's principles and practices serves to remind us that the University, at its best, expects its citizens to think and act on the basis of justice and fairness. We are called to cultivate the virtues of intellectual and personal honor, and to exercise the role of responsible citizen leaders in the university and the larger community. We are the present custodians of a vital ethical tradition that lies at the heart of a great university's integrity and fidelity.
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