Rodrigo Avila Barreiro (TCW): Sir, thank you so much for accepting this interview. Talking to you is not only a pleasure but also a legacy for future CEU students. Sir, you are president emeritus of Stanford, and our University was lucky enough to have you as member of the Board of Trustees, a mission that you fulfilled for the last 12 years.
Could you please tell us, what it means to you to be member of the Board of Trustees of Central European University?
Gerhard Casper: Being a CEU board member is a privilege. It was I who had all the luck. University trustees normally serve institutions that have been around for a while and have a distinct character. For instance, I was a trustee of Yale University, which celebrated its three hundredth anniversary at the time I joined the board. CEU, on the other hand, is a young institution that offers its trustees the chance to share responsibility for the creation of something new and different. When I became a member of the CEU board, it seemed as if almost all days were “first days”.
RAB (TCW): And in a couple of words, could you tell us what you consider to be the most beautiful aspect of CEU?
Gerhard Casper : Its truly international character. I do not know of any other institution where the student body is as diverse in terms of nationalities as at CEU.
RAB (TCW):Also, on your last visit to Budapest, during a lecture in your honor under the title of “Revisited Constitutionalism”, our distinguished President and Rector John Shattuck mentioned how your person and experience at Stanford provided knowledge and guidance on the challenges of leadership. Could you tell us what was the biggest challenge you faced while serving as Stanford’s president between 1992-2000, how did you face it, and if there is something you would do differently?
Gerhard Casper: For specific challenges, anybody can go to my website and read the speeches I gave while president. Instead of singling out issues, I should like to stress that the biggest task a university president faces is to make sure that the university never tires of asking, on a daily basis, what can be done better. Also, the university and its leadership must always worry about not losing the distinct ways of a university. The university is not politics or the marketplace. It has to march to a different drummer. The search for knowledge must be carried out by critical analysis according to standards that themselves are subject to examination and reexamination. This all calls for a lot of “gardening” every day. “Getting out the weeds when they are still small” and thinking very hard about what new trees to plant. Gardening is the real challenge.
RAB (TCW): Very interesting, thank you for sharing that with us. And, professor, could you expand on the “organic” dimension of the Board of Trustees? Members of the CEU community hear about the Board of Trustees, everybody knows it is an important senior, but maybe many of us do not really understand what its role is and how it works. What kind of conclave is it? How does the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees look from the inside?
Gerhard Casper: The trustees are fiduciaries and their most important fiduciary obligation is to be concerned about the institutional future, not just the present. Trustees need to be extremely well informed about their university and they also have responsibility to worry about its reputation. Incidentally, the CEU board meets three times a year. Since it is a small board, every trustee has a chance to provide real input on policy issues.
RAB (TCW):And somehow related to the previous question, could we ask you what your vision for CEU is? If you close your eyes and try to imagine CEU within 20 or 50 years, what do you see?
Gerhard Casper: I like to look to the future with open eyes. And the university will do well if it has its eyes open. I hope that CEU can maintain its character as a graduate university in the humanities, social sciences, law, public policy, and business. What exactly that will mean in the future I do not know, but what I do know is that CEU will strive, and must continue to strive, to have the best possible faculty and student body. If quality of faculty and students are outstanding, almost anything great can happen.
RAB (TCW):On a more general topic, we would like to ask you about your ideas on how education should be conceptualized and implemented. Among many models, we can distinguish two different poles: on one hand the US model where education (including the public one) is seen as a commodity and has to be paid by students and, on the other, the German model where education is seen as a right of every citizen and it is basically free. Which model do you like better, and why?
Gerhard Casper: I do not accept the contrast. German universities are not for free: the taxpayer is asked to fund them, including for the well-off who could afford to pay tuition. In American universities education is hardly a “commodity”. American universities are financed by a mix of sources, including government, philanthropy, and tuition. We believe that those who can afford to should invest in their education. The tragedy of American higher education is that the public universities are seeing dramatic cut-backs in state support and therefore increasingly and indiscriminately expect everybody to pay tuition.
RAB (TCW): Thank you so much for that reflection. And a final question: what do you like or enjoy the most in Budapest?
Gerhard Casper: The view of Buda from the Pest side of the Danube.
RAB (TCW): Professor Casper, thank you so much for accepting this interview. It was really enlightening to listen to you. Any final word or message for the CEU community?
Gerhard Casper: John D. Rockefeller, who a hundred years before CEU provided the resources for the founding of the University of Chicago, once said that the University of Chicago was the best investment he ever made. I hope George Soros will and can say the same about CEU. His vision more than twenty years ago and the generosity of his support since then brought about something that is truly out of the ordinary.
RAB (TCW): Thank you again!
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