On January 2, 1893, the University of Chicago convened its opening convocationconvocation number 1. As you will discover in your program, this is convocation 487, so quite a bit has happened here since that winter day in 1893. If we take ourselves back to the University in its early years, we would find many major differences from what we observe today. We would see remarkably different course offerings, research agendas, institutional organization, educational programs, and social, political, and global environments. We would discover familiar buildings but find them situated within a very different physical landscape, in a barely recognizable city and urban environment. We would not see the vast array of now familiar schools, departments, centers, institutes, intellectual endeavors, student activities, and community connections that is the focus of abundant energy and enthusiasm today.</p>
<p>And yet, many of us connected to this university feel that we might just as easily have been therethat going back to the University in its early days, or in fact at any time since its inception, we would know unmistakably that we were at the University of Chicago.</p>
<p>Why is this? The University of Chicago, from its very inception, has been driven by a singular focus on inquirywith a firm belief in the value of open, rigorous, and intense inquiry and a common understanding that this must be the defining feature of this university. Everything about the University of Chicago that we recognize as distinctive flows from this commitment:</p>
<p>Our belief that argumentation rather than deference is the route to clarity;</p>
<p>Our insistence that arguments stand or fall on their merits, not the background, position, or fame of the proponent;</p>
<p>Our flexible organization that fosters rigorous and imaginative analysis of complex problems from multiple perspectives;</p>
<p>Our education that embeds learning in a culture of intense inquiry and analysis, thereby offering the most empowering education to students irrespective of the path they may ultimately take;</p>
<p>Our commitment to attract the most original agenda-setting faculty and students who can most benefit from and contribute to our environment;</p>
<p>Our recognition that our important contributions to society rest on the power of our ideas and the openness of our environment to developing and testing ideas.</p>
<p>These enduring values and fundamental principles of the University have shaped our culture and have informed generations of faculty, students, and administrators. They are so visible, so deeply embedded, and they so define our environment, in the past as well as the present, that with all the tangible changes in the University between convocations 1 and 487, we believe we would recognize this university at any time in its history. At the University of Chicago, we know who we are as an institution.