April 6, 2025
Roughly 40 years ago, I sat in the audience in this very hall. I was a first year, first generation college student.
Bart Giamatti, President of Yale at the time, delivered a speech that was both forgettable and left an indelible impression. I say this because I cannot remember anything that Bart said. But I vividly remember feeling there was a seriousness of purpose to this place, that I would be challenged, and that I would also be inspired. And so it was for the four years that followed.
I have very much admired the presidents of Yale who followed Bart, but because of the time and place I first heard him, President Giamatti became something of a hero of mine. Which is why I looked up some of his speeches when I became president of UVA, and came across one he gave at MIT shortly after he stepped down from Yale. In that speech, he offered this very memorable observation:
“Being president of university,” Bart said, “is no way for an adult to make a living.”
I am embarrassed to admit how many times I have thought of that quote during these last seven years while being both an adult and a president of a university.
I agree with President Giamatti’s observation, but not for the reason he gave. Being a university president is indeed no way for an adult to make a living, but only because it has to be a labor of love.
No amount of prestige, power, money, or minor celebrity status is enough to sustain a good leader. To succeed as a president, I am convinced, the president has to love the institution she or he is serving. It’s not the only trait a president must have—wisdom and courage, among others, are crucial as well. But love is indispensable.
It also has to be the right kind of love. The love has to be sober, it has to be tough at times, and above all else it must be a love that is courageous.
Maurie McInnis loves Yale, and she loves it in the right way.
Her love of Yale is sober. Maurie and I had mirror opposite academic lives that eventually intersected. She was an undergraduate at UVA and a graduate student at Yale. I in turn was an undergraduate at Yale and a law student at UVA. We both ended up on the faculty at UVA and then in leadership at UVA.
I think it is an advantage for a president, like Maurie, to have been a graduate student at the institution she is now serving. Graduate students know and hopefully love their alma maters. But in my experience, they are rarely infatuated with their graduate schools, nor do they have nostalgia-tinged glasses that color their view of the past, the way that some undergraduate alumni do.
To give you one example of what I mean, as an undergraduate here I lived in Silliman College, including during the dining hall strike, so I spent a LOT of time at Naple’s Pizza. A few years ago, I visited Yale’s campus and discovered--to my completely irrational horror--that Naple’s pizza was shut down. I immediately sent a text to my friends from Yale, with the measured conclusion that, and I quote: “The Yale we knew is dead.”
That’s not sober love.
Sober love is more discerning, to say the least. It is clear-eyed about the past and the present, but it is also keenly focused on the future. I know Maurie appreciates and deeply respects the storied history of this place and its traditions. She knows we are all accountable to the past. But I also know she is rightly focused on what this place can and will be. She is focused on how Yale can be the best version of itself. That is sober love.
As for tough love, it is important for presidents to be able to say no, and to make hard decisions. Maurie served as a provost, which is all you need to know, so to speak. A provost’s number one job is tough love. She also believes deeply in the core mission of Yale and in the power of education and the importance of research, and she knows that these are worth fighting for, preserving, and advancing despite any headwinds, internal or external.
Last, and relatedly, the love has to be courageous. By this I mean the president must put the interests of her institution ahead of her personal interests. This requires, among other things, a willingness not simply to disappoint your critics. It also requires a willingness to sometimes disappoint your friends, all in service of the goal to do what is best for the institution. It means a willingness to take personal risks in order to advance the interests of the institution, and an absolute refusal to take institutional risks in order to advance the interests of the person.
I have seen Maurie take courageous steps, time and again, in her career. She has always focused on the best interests of the institution she is serving, which is more important now than ever, given the intense turmoil in and outside of higher education.
All of which is to say that that Maurie possesses the indispensable trait of a successful president: She loves this place. In fact, I’m quite sure she loves Yale almost as much as she loves UVA, which is saying a lot! (I’m kidding.)
Maurie loves Yale, and she loves it in the right way. I am confident you will love her back. Thanks for having me. It is an honor and an immense pleasure to be here with you to celebrate Maurie’s inauguration.