Now, to make this conversation have a little more context, we have three amazing panelists who are going to come on stage and join Roy for a conversation. So welcome to the stage, Anna LePay, Program Director of the Pantereya Foundation, Deb Eschemeier, the new Social Entrepreneur and Head of Innovation of Arizona State University's Sweat Center for Sustainable Food Systems, and Manoj Sinha of Husk Power. Welcome to the stage. All right, awesome. Thank you for coming and participating in this. We don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to just jump right in and ask the first question which is around Robin, what do you think is the most important issue for the future of food systems? And I'll start with you, Nounash. So to give you a context, I come from a state called Bihar in India that has a lot of people, 110 million people. And we are a state where we don't have a whole lot of productivity when it comes to agriculture. So even though we have land, we are not producing as much as it could. And with a population of 110 million people, it is going to become even more challenging. So it is at a very basic level, a shortage of food for a lot of people when it comes to nutrition or is, you know, two square meals. Deb. Yeah, this is a really small question, and the thing is that there's obviously a lot of challenges, and you can talk about everything from climate change to the state of our democracy. But I would have to just say that I feel right now that the lack of empathy is one of our biggest challenges in the food system, because until individuals, corporations, and governments actually fully are sensitive to and aware of the impact of their decisions on people on the planet, we're actually going to continue to see the injustice occur. Yeah, well, I totally agree. And I would say, again, small question here, but when I think about what is the biggest problem in our food system, it's one we've had for a long time, which is it's never been a crisis of productivity, it has been a crisis of democracy. So what I mean by that is you can look around the world today, we are globally producing 2,900 calories for every single person on the planet, which if you don't count your calories, that's more than anybody most people need. And yet UNICEF, you might have seen this, UNICEF just released its first significant global assessment of childhood nutrition in 20 years and found that one in three children is malnourished. So it's not a problem of not being enough, but that malnourishment is actually connected to not just not getting enough calories, for the most part it's connected to getting actually too many calories of the wrong thing. So for instance, 62% of teenagers in industrialized countries drink a sugary drink a day, and only 42% of babies under six months old are exclusively breastfed. And so it's really this question of democracy, of who's deciding what products are being marketed to mothers and to children, what regulations are in place in our agricultural system, what kinds of food systems are being incentivized. And to me, the solution then to fixing food has to do with making sure more of us have a seat at the table to ask those questions and to offer up our answers. Great, I think the challenge, as you said, it's not just quantity, it's quality and how the distribution takes place. So whenever you have transformation in the food system, there's some people that win and some people that lose. There's a whole question of equity that you just brought up. As we think about the future of food systems, how do we think we're going to actually manage that or deal with that? How do we ensure that everyone gets access to good food, quality food? Should we go, go ahead, Ma'am. I'll do that again. So I see this from, so we are an energy company, we provide energy that farmers can use to irrigate their land and so forth. So I see this problem from production perspective. And again, I'll take it back to states that we serve in India or Tanzania. They don't have irrigation system to irrigate and therefore they cannot produce enough food to take it to the market. They're completely disconnected from the market system. So even though the land is very fertile, they're not able to produce as much as they can and therefore they are not able to bring food to their own family that they should. Which is kind of sad because the enabling factor to that production is missing to a large extent. Talking about democratization, they don't have a marketplace to sell their food. Half of the food they produce probably gets rotten because there's no refrigeration system, for example. So it's kind of a sad situation that you have a pretty fertile land and you cannot produce, and if you produce, you cannot sell or take it to the market where you should. And this question is something that we considered a lot during the Obama administration and specifically, obviously, economic security for all would be fantastic. But when I had the privilege of serving and being President Obama's judicial policy advisor, I looked at every single federal nutrition policy and considered how it can be improved. Specifically, supplemental nutrition assistance program. How many of you are familiar with food stamps and SNAP, right? So that's impacting 45 million Americans, half of those are children. That program, for example, should be reinforced and strengthened and have more investments put into it instead of right now, where the eligibility requirements are being reconsidered and now there's fewer that are going to be able to receive this program. So that's an action that right now we can work harder to actually protect that program that's one of the most impactful government programs that currently exists to provide food for all. The other thing I do want to mention since this is about investment, is that I'm not sure if you guys are aware, but in the venture capital world, only 3% of the funds go to women-owned firms. That's pitiful. This is a fantastic opportunity to look at women-founded firms. And how are you going to invest in that and put the strength back into the female-founded firms? So picking up on what you were saying, Deb, I think about how do we ensure that whatever the future of food looks like, whether you are looking at these visions you all are talking about or the food systems we're looking to build. How do we ensure that actually they impact everyone equitably? And I think one of the ways we do that is being sure that we have those that could be most impacted that are most closely in touch with our food system at the table. And so it's looking at in terms of impact investing world, do you have farmers and food producers as advisors or on your boards if you're actually developing a technology in food? Do you have women? Do you have indigenous communities represented? Are you bringing those voices into your deliberations? And when I look at what are some of the most innovative technologies that have the greatest benefits to reducing biodiversity loss, diverting the climate crisis, really building healthy food systems. Those technological innovations have come out of having all of those people in the room and inside those conversations. So that to me feels like a really critical piece. Yeah, it also makes me think about what the true cost of the current food system we have is actually, so here's a quick question. I asked this of everybody. One diet related disease everybody knows of is diabetes. What do you think the cost of one year of diabetes care for the entire United States is? What do we spend on diabetes care? Just turn to your neighbor and just take a quick guess. Okay, just a quick guess. What do you think we're spending per year on diabetes care? All right, stop. How many people said around 50 billion? Is that under 50 billion or so? No, actually it's $327 billion. And I asked this of public health officials and they're almost always off by almost in an order of magnitude. Most people guess between 30 and 50 billion. And it tells me that we have just completely lost. And we spend $1 billion in nutrition research. We spend $5 billion in ag and food research. And even of that, 95% of that is going to six crops. And I think we've just got this system that is so out of balance. So the question is how do we get that back into balance? And how do we really create a food system where that doesn't have all of these costs? So when you start thinking about what can change, what are you most excited by? I guess that's the, let me just throw out in terms of transformation, technologies, movements, what's getting you excited? Manush. So I have the privilege, I guess, to see what vertical hydroponics is doing in North America. We don't even know about that in my own home state in India. So there are a lot of technologies that have been, I think, proven and is getting in very advanced stages. So we don't even have to invent those. So in my context, in India, where we have 1.2 billion people to feed, we can actually take the best practices and leave frog. We don't have to do that incremental discovery or invention. Take the best practices, which is available, contextualize it to whatever you are doing, and make it happen at scale. And in our case, since we do energy as a service, we use the waste product of the crops that are grown to produce energy. So we are actually cutting carbon. So the climate problem we are solving by using the feedstock that gets generated as waste. So it is, you have to evolve and move or take a leap to the next stage and not go through incremental steps to make that happen. And we are at disadvantage today because we are very far away from these developments. But we can take that leap and sort of start with a smartphone and not go through those dumb phones. And what you do is just such a great example of creating a circular economy, which anybody who just takes a look at the food system sees the need for. Yeah, you know, what's giving me a lot of hope right now and where we are with the food system and many of the social change movements that we're working on is Gen Z. I have so much faith in these and the young people that are gonna make up 40% of consumers by 2020 who are taking action in their own hands, whether it's climate change or it's gun reform. And it's going to force corporations to be transparent to make it so that the business round table a few months ago just declared that they're going to be responsible towards all stakeholders and not just shareholders. And that's where we're gonna actually see a serious transformation. So I'm seeing a lot of hope in what's to come. And I don't know if you heard this Deb, but or if any of you did, but I saw some young people talking about how they don't wanna be called Gen Z because they're not the end of the line. They wanna be Gen GND or Gen Green New Deal. So can start using that one. But I've also been super encouraged by the young people that we work with. And to me, I think one of the transformations that has been really thrilling to me, I've been kind of working in this world of food systems change for two decades as an author and a funder and an advocate. And there have been so many transformations that have really caused for hope. But actually one that I've been particularly thrilled by is actually a transformation inside of our minds and our heads. And it's a transformation in how we think about food systems change and the connection between the conversation about food and the conversation about climate. And what I mean by that is about 10 years ago when I really started digging into this issue, the fact that the food system is responsible for one third of all greenhouse gas emissions. So that's pretty significant. Was news to me. And I remember at the time an inconvenient truth had just come out Al Gore's documentary and there was a lot of conversation about climate and very little conversation about this linkage between food and the climate crisis. Flash forward to now. And last week Al Gore just convened a high level conversation on his farm in Tennessee with policymakers and leaders and farmers and ranchers to talk about how for serious about climate we have to talk about food. And that to me is this thrilling, thrilling change that now people really understand that not only is our food system kind of this casualty of the crisis, right? Farmers and ranchers on the front lines. It's also this key culprit but also it's really this key part of the cure that harnessing, we can harness food systems to really help mitigate and adapt to climate change. So I feel like that's a really thrilling change that gives me a lot of hope. Yeah, I'm actually also quite excited by the potential for the food system to address some of the greatest problems in our society. So climate change is one of them. The other is food systems actually bring really diverse people together, right? I mean, you think about the farmer's market, that's when rural and urban people get together. When you, if you're gonna, if we're gonna deal with the polarization in society, food has gotta be part of that, like where you gather people around. The other is I think the other big solution that the food system represents is for our diet and for health. And I didn't realize this, so I started talking to a lot of nutritionists and doctors out there. Do you know how many weeks doctors study nutrition in four years of medical school? Take a guess. It's actually the recommended is four days and the actual is four hours. And what that means is doctors graduate knowing nothing about nutrition, yet nutrition diet is 60 to 70% of non-communicable diseases are diet related. Like in what universe does that make any sense, okay? You're teaching doctors to cure, but you're ignoring the number one reason why people are ill, right? It just does not make sense. And it touches on what you've been talking about is we have to start understanding how everything is linked and the connection between food and health, food and climate, food and equity. And I think that's the conversation that's gonna happen. So we have the time for 30 second final thoughts. Manush, one final thoughts. For full disclosure, my wife is a doctor. And you don't go to her for nutrition advice. I have to say there's a lot of doctors really under, for the doctors out there. I know that there's a real movement out there that just fix that and we need to encourage that to happen. So what is one thing, like how do you get, how do you, how do you want everybody to get involved? What's the, call the action you would ask? As an entrepreneur, I think, you know, we never thought, or at least personally, I did not think of food or production of that and so on and so forth as a thing to do or a problem to solve. I think that narrative has to change. And we as entrepreneurs need to embrace that as another sexy business to get in. That's my thought. Okay. For me, I think it's about taking ownership of your choices that you make every day and it seems sometimes insurmountable about what we're facing with climate change but you're making that choice every day at breakfast and at lunch and dinner and snacks and then in the way we educate our kids and to throw some more statistics at you. You know, the average school lunch, only a dollar 19 is actually spent on the food. Dollar 19, guys, like this is the future. If we're not gonna prioritize our kids' health then what are we prioritizing? And it's, this is where all these decisions are made. It's by us, right? We are the voters that are putting everyone, the elected officials in office. This is, that's our choice. It's our power. And so I just, it's a moment of just remembering that we have the power. We can do it. It's in our daily choices and it's who we put into elected office. Last minute, last minute. Yeah, so again, small question. I think one of the things I'm really interested in, I've been working with philanthropists around this question of how do we harness, I think the impact investing work is so important but also how do we harness philanthropic dollars to help kind of beta test the innovative policies and beta test these technologies and explore kind of that edge of what I really see as this moment of urgency to really develop those nature-based agroecological solutions and the policies that will support them. And I think when you start seeing that policy work on the ground, you see exactly what you were talking about in terms of how food can bring diverse people together and to your point, Deb, about how food is key for empathy. One of my favorite events ever was at the launch of a policy in LA called the Good Food Purchasing Program. And on stage with me was an animal rights activist, the head of the public health, the county public health division, an environmentalist, a teamster from the local labor union, the teamsters, the CEO of a food distribution company. And it was like harmony on stage because they had all seen their shared interest in this new procurement policy in LA. So I really feel that sense of how can we harness philanthropy to invest in those kinds of innovative policies that can really make the kinds of changes we need. Fantastic, I like that they're one of our grantees. Yes. Fantastic, thank you. And we didn't plan that so. No, we didn't. We're done. Thank you very much. And remember, go to www.foodvisionprize.org on October 29th. And if you're interested, put your vision forward. Thank you.


One of the most striking aspects of academic ceremonies is the colorful dress of the participants. An understanding of the traditions, determining style and color of costumes can enrich one's attendance at ceremonial academic events. The distinctive academic address has its origins in the universities of the Middle Ages, where cold buildings and tonsured heads made warm gowns and protective hoods a matter of necessity. Individual institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge adopted special rules governing the kind of dress that was to be permitted, and the custom was repeated throughout Europe. It is for this reason that some of the most eye-catching gowns are those mandated by European schools. In America, the custom of wearing distinctive attire has existed since the time of the colonial colleges, although the present usage seems to date from a conference held at Columbia in 1895. From that meeting came recommendations as to the pattern, material color, and trimmings to be used on academic gowns. The usual American bachelor's and master's gowns are made of black poplin, whereas the doctoral gown is more likely to be rayon or silk-ribbed material. Although these gowns are ordinarily black, in recent years there have been exceptions made in color following Harvard's lead, gowns are often fashioned in the school's color. They're bound by velvet in colors which designate the wearer's area of specialization and are lined with the colors of the institution grounding the degree. At Fairfield, the lining is crimson. The academic procession is now entering the Bellarmine lawn. The university registrar carrying the university mace leads the procession. The university gonfloniers representing the various schools of the university punctuate the academic procession. Following the university registrar is John Michnikowski, Marshal in Chief. First in the academic procession are the invited delegates representing colleges and universities here and abroad, as well as the learned societies. Next in the academic procession are the faculty and librarians of Fairfield University, the members of the general faculty hail from the five schools of the university, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Dolan School of Business, the Egan School of Nursing, the School of Engineering, and the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. The members of the alumni board of directors follow the faculty in the procession. Following our alumni representatives are the staff delegation who represent the various divisions of the university. The student delegation is comprised of student members of our national and disciplinary honors societies. The institutions represented today in the date of their foundation include 1096 Oxford University, 1551, the Pontifical Gregorian University, 1636 Harvard University, 1693, the College of William and Mary, 1701 Yale University, 1740, the University of Pennsylvania, 1746 Princeton University, 1754 Columbia University, 1769 Dartmouth, 1787 Franklin and Marshall, 1789 Georgetown University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1793 Williams College, 1794 Bowdoin College, 1800 Middlebury College, 1817 the University of Michigan, 1821 the George Washington University, 1823 Trinity College, 1831 New York University, 1832 Gettysburg College, 1834 Tulane University, 1836 Emory University, 1841 Fordham University, 1842 the University of Notre Dame, 1843 the College of the Holy Cross, 1846 Bucknell University, and St. Vincent College, 1851 Northwestern University and St. Joseph's University, 1852 Loyola University, Maryland, 1853 Manhattan College, 1855 Bates College, and Elmira College, 1856 Seton Hall University, 1857 St. John's University, 1861 Vassar College and the University of Illinois, 1863 Boston College, represented by Father Casey Beamer, 1865 Dean College, 1870 Loyola University, Chicago, 1872 St. Peter's University, 1875 Wellesley College, 1877 Regis University, 1885 Brynmore College, St. Edward's University, Springfield College, Stanford University and the University of St. Thomas, 1887 Gonzaga University, 1888 the University of Scranton, 1889 SUNY Onyonta, 1890 Post University and the University of Chicago, 1898 Frostburg State University, 1899 the College of St. Elizabeth, 1911 Loyola Marymount University, 1915 Marywood University, 1920 Immaculata College and the University of New Haven, 1925 Albertus Magnus College and Beckman's Colleges, 1927 the University of Bridgeport, 1931 Berkeley College, 1932 the University of St. Joseph, 1937 Sienna College, 1940 Iona College, 1942 Fairfield College Preparatory School, 1944 the University of California, Santa Barbara, 1946 LaMoyne College, 1947 Fairfield University Directors of Campus Ministry, 1951 Fairfield University Alumni Association Board of Directors, 1952 Dominican College, 1961 Norwalk Community College, 1962 Franklin Pierce University, 1963 Sacred Heart University, 1966 Pusatonic Community College. This final segment of the academic procession is the platform party. The group consists of a representative undergraduate and graduate student, secretary of the general faculty, the deans of the five schools of the university, the vice presidents, the members of the board of trustees, honored guests and the past presidents of Fairfield University, the Reverend Jeffrey Von Arks and Dr. Lynn Babington. At the end of the academic procession are Mr. Frank Carroll, chairman of the board of trustees, the most Reverend Frank James Cagiano, Bishop of Bridgeport and Dr. Mark Richard Nemec, the ninth president of Fairfield University. Now, please welcome to the podium Dr. Christine Siegel, interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, who will serve as our guide through the ceremony. Good afternoon. Most Reverend Bishop Cagiano, assistant provincial, members of the board of trustees, Congressman Himes, state Senator Wong, state representative Stratsprum, first selectman Tetrow, members of the faculty, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the celebration for Dr. Mark Richard Nemec, who with this ceremony will be invested as the ninth president of Fairfield University. Please rise for the invocation offered by Bishop Cagiano and continue standing for the National Anthem and Fairfield University Alma Mater performed by the Fairfield University Glee Club under the direction of Carol Ann Maxwell. Let us pray. Lord God, you make all things new and never tire of offering us your mercy. We give you thanks on this day of great joy as we seek your abundant blessings upon Dr. Mark Nemec, who will be installed as the ninth president of Fairfield University. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, this university community shares in the mission of your son to open young minds to the truths of our world. To fully develop the gifts and talents of those entrusted to its care to teach and preach the gospel and to reveal your loving presence in the world. Father, help everyone who forms part of this community to bear witness to our faith with integrity and courage. We especially ask your blessings upon Dr. Nemec as he formally assumes the mantle of leadership. Grant him your heavenly gifts and inspire him to lead with justice, prudence, humility and wisdom. Help him to challenge the young people of this community to treat every person with dignity and respect and to hear the cries of the poor and vulnerable in our midst. As he assumes this office, guide him and all who will collaborate with him to conduct the affairs of this university in the ways of righteousness and faith. But loving God, we also ask that you bless Dr. Nemec's family, especially his wife, Suzanne, his children, Alex, Teddy, Philip and Kit. Keep them in your love and protect them with your grace. Bless also the administrators, faculty and staff in their daily work of education and formation and may the students of this great Jesuit university be blessed with every good gift under heaven. Finally, Lord, by your grace and protection may Dr. Nemec's work be fruitful, his days blessed and his heart joyful. But we ask this with humility and confidence through Christ our Lord, amen. Community together on this wonderful occasion and this shining day. An event as significant as the inauguration of a president occurs infrequently in the life of the university and we have been celebrating its importance the past few days with a variety of academic, artistic and social events and we'll continue our inaugural events throughout Alumni and Parents Weekend which begins this evening. Today, this beautiful location is the setting for the signature event of the inauguration celebration. The formal missioning and investiture of Dr. Mark Richard Nemec as the ninth president of Fairfield University. As a Catholic Jesuit university, an essential aspect of this ceremony will be the missioning of our president to carry out the transformative educational work of Fairfield University within the Jesuit tradition. Because our university is a rich collection of diverse constituencies working toward a common goal, our ceremony includes greetings from representatives of the various groups who make up that community. And because artistic accomplishments have always played a major role in Jesuit education over the centuries, music and poetry have interwoven into the ceremony. This ceremony will most especially feature an address from our new president on this most august and celebrated day of his inaugural. I am already certain that our community will be both enhanced and enlightened by his vision and look forward to how this ceremony will make present to him the support of the deeply committed university community he finds at Fairfield. I now invite to the podium the Reverend James Maracchi of the Society of Jesus, provincial assistant for higher education for the Northeast province. Father Maracchi as the representative of Father Provincial Cicero will mission Mark Richard Nemek as the director of the work that is Fairfield University. Father Maracchi. Bishop Casiano, members of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Nemek, faculty, staff and students of Fairfield University, family and friends. As provincial assistant for higher education of the Northeast province of the Society of Jesus and representative of our provincial, the very Reverend John Cicero. I am pleased to be here with you today and on behalf of all of my Jesuit brothers to offer our warm greetings and support on this momentous occasion. In my official capacity, I am also here to entrust to Dr. Nemek the leadership of a mission that the Society of Jesus has carried on at Fairfield University since 1942 when the school opened its doors to undergraduate men on this beautiful campus. In the official language of the Society of Jesus, we speak of Fairfield as a Jesuit work, one that is inspired by the Ignatian Charism, of seeking God in all things, of promoting a faith that does justice, of inter-religious dialogue and creative engagement with culture. And we speak of the president as the director of the work who has the responsibility of directing the apostolic work according to its proper Ignatian character. But what is the proper Ignatian character of Fairfield? Fairfield University is a modern Catholic Jesuit university rooted in one of the world's oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. In the spirit of rigorous and sympathetic inquiry into all dimensions of human experience, Fairfield welcomes students from diverse backgrounds and faith traditions to share ideas and engage in open conversations. As a community of scholar-servant leaders, Fairfield joins in the broader task of expanding human knowledge, deepening human understanding, exploring human faiths, and serving those in great need. To this end, Fairfield encourages and supports the research and artistic expression of its faculty and students and is committed to excellence in all that it pursues. We are sure that Fairfield University under your stewardship, Dr. Nemek, will carry this vision forward through the accomplishments of its faculty, staff, and students and will continually strive for the modus in all its programs and initiatives. The Society of Jesus entrusts you today with a serious and important mission, one for which you are well-prepared. Of course, you do not bear this responsibility alone. The 35th and 36th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus speak of collaboration among all our colleagues, Jesuit and lay, as being at the heart of our mission. This past year, in a formal memorandum of understanding, the northeast province of the Jesuits, the Fairfield University Jesuit community, and the University Board of Trustees pledged their shared responsibility and commitment to the Catholic and Jesuit mission of this university. In fact, the entire Fairfield University family shares this privilege and responsibility to preserve and enhance this mission. Dr. Nemek, you assume this responsibility at a challenging time in the history of our church, of our country, and of the Jesuits' mission of higher education. Pope Francis has called on Jesuit institutions to enter into true dialogue and discernment and to be engaged at the frontiers of the gospel and culture, of faith and reason, showing special concern for those on the margins of society. In a similar fashion, Father Adolfo Nicolás, the former Superior General of the Society of Jesus, encouraged leaders of Jesuit higher education around the world to guide their institutions to a greater depth of thought and imagination, to a more universal vision of their educational mission and to learned ministry in the service of faith and the promotion of justice. In the name of Father Provincial Cicero, I mission you as president of this Jesuit work, and I am grateful for your willingness to assume this sacred trust. We Jesuits look forward to working with you and seeing you further develop the Catholic Jesuit mission as an essential part of your vision for Fairfield University. May God bless you abundantly in your new mission. Thank you, Father Maraki. I now invite the Reverend Michael Sheeran of the Society of Jesus, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities to welcome Mark Richard Nemek to the company of presidents of the Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States and to present a medal specially blessed by His Holiness Pope Francis, Father Sheeran. Dr. Nemek, on behalf of the students, the faculty and staff of the 27 other American Jesuit Colleges and Universities, I am privileged to offer you welcome and congratulations. Under your guidance, may Fairfield University continue to flourish in its critical mission of shaping its faculty, staff and students into men and women for others, men and women who serve Christ in their neighbor and in the building up of their community. In token of this, your public commitment to Jesuit education I am proud to present this medallion of the founder of the Society of Jesus, Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The medallion was blessed in Rome by our Holy Father, Pope Francis. Thank you, Father Sheeran. Rabbi James Prosnit of the congregation, Bene Israel, will now offer a blessing. Rabbi Prosnit is well known for his rabbinical work in Fairfield County and has been serving Fairfield University for over 25 years as an adjunct professor of religious studies. He's an active presence in our Bennett Center for Judaic Studies. Rabbi Prosnit. In the book of Psalms, we read, Ze hayom asa arnai nagila venis mechavau. This is the day that God has made. Let us exalt and rejoice in it. It is a distinct honor and privilege for me to represent my faith tradition and bring greetings and blessing to this inauguration of Dr. Mark Arnemek as the ninth president of Fairfield University. As a beacon of academic excellence, Fairfield has reached beyond the confines of this beautiful campus to enrich the lives of its neighbors. Many cherish the learning and intellectual curiosity encouraged and modeled in this place. It is in this spirit, I pray that under the leadership of Dr. Arnemek, Fairfield may continue to be a place that according to its mission statement, celebrates the God-given dignity of every person, a place where those of all beliefs and traditions may pursue scholarship, justice and truth, a place that values diversity, expands human knowledge and understanding. Eternal God let your blessing rest upon a gifted and caring faculty, administration and staff, so that they may continue to create a community of vision, honesty and respect and bless this new president and his family with civic courage, a confident and discerning mind and the humility to do your will. In Jewish tradition, a blessing is typically recited at moments of new beginnings and joyous celebrations. Baruch Ata Arnai, Elohimu melecha olam shahekianu v'kiyamanu behigianu lazman hazeh, we praise you sovereign God for keeping us alive, for sustaining us and for allowing us to reach this day. Amen. Thank you, Rabbi Prosnit. I now call to the podium the Reverend Thomas J. Fitzpatrick of the Society of Jesus, Spiritual Director at Fairfield University to recite his prayer poem. Though the poem entitled The Presence was originally written on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Fairfield University, which we celebrated on March 17th of this year, we thought this ceremony to be an appropriate occasion for reprising it. Dr. Fitzpatrick. The presence in our beginning, the black robes fresh from other dreams encountered the land. Grass that shimmies a stuttering stream, a flickering pond, trees in leafy murmurations. The presence came with them. The boys followed. Embryonic encounters sprouted, spread and deepened. The stones, dirt, fields, flung forth, berkman's, Xavier, Gonzaga, Canisius. In classrooms, corridors, residences and dining halls, echoing questions, old and new shaped and reshaped the encounters. Are the five proofs of God certain or enough? Does a straight line equal the curve of a circle of infinite radius? To be or not to be relative or quantum mechanical? Shall we wrap the alleluia chorus? The presence thickened. The girls came. The vision, care and heart of women rebirthed the encounters. The earth sprung out more edifices. Dolan, Barone, Meditz, Rafferty, Egan, Lesson, de Menendicellius, quick. Encounters pulled and pushed out further life and love. Friendships blossomed into marriages. The presence continued piercing through as an arrow. Out of the reverberating form-shifting encounters, a bursting personality stretched the presence out beyond itself. Encounter, embrace, love.  The presence was, the presence is, there shall be the presence. Thank you, Father Fitzpatrick. I now invite the Fairfield University Glee Club to perform We Will Sing A Song of a Dream by Kevin Memley. A song commissioned in honor of the Glee Club's 70th anniversary season in 2017. The Glee Club performs under the direction of Dr. Carol Ann Maxwell, accompanied by Beth Palmer. We will sing. The city benefits greatly from its location in the town of Fairfield. We take our responsibility to the town seriously and we appreciate all that the town of Fairfield has to offer our students, faculty, staff, and administrators. We are pleased that first selectman, Michael Tetro, joins us today to welcome President Nemek. First selectman, Tetro. Good afternoon. How does one offer a fitting welcome to a new president of an August University in our midst? Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines welcome as a cordial greeting of a desirable gift. Dr. Nemek, you are certainly a most desirable gift and our greetings are heartfelt and most warm. Welcome to our beautiful, special town of Fairfield. Dr. Nemek, we know you represent the finest qualities found in the Jesuit tradition of higher education. Your contributions to the Fairfield community may be just starting, but your service and dedication to this university and our community will most surely be outstanding. Fairfield University plays a pivotal role in our town as a cultural center, educational institution, and spiritual community. The breadth and influence of Fairfield University extends in every direction. We trust your leadership will continue the traditions of excellence and will strengthen the fabric of our community. Therefore, it is my sincere pleasure on behalf of 59,000 citizens of Fairfield to congratulate you on your installation as the ninth president of Fairfield University and to wish you a most blissful, successful stewardship of this wonderful institution. Welcome to Fairfield, Dr. Mark Nemek. We are here to help you in every way. Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Tetrow. At Fairfield University, we pride ourselves on being part of the vibrant collection of colleges and universities in the state of Connecticut. The oldest and most distinguished of which is Yale University. We are pleased to have with us today Yale University Delegate Secretary Goff Cruz. Ms. Goff Cruz is Secretary and Vice President for Student Life at Yale University. She will be representing institutions of higher learning and will now offer greetings. Ms. Goff Cruz. Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Mark Nemek on behalf of Connecticut's higher education community. Each year, American institutions of higher education, particularly those in Connecticut, graduate thousands of students in multiple disciplines and professions, support faculty who generate impactful ideas and research, and provide necessary services and programs for the benefit of our cities, the nation, and the world. We work in a noble profession, you and I, and often do so in challenging times. We depend on excellent leaders who are willing to serve and who understand the complexity of leading an institution that must focus on the past, the present, and the future.  I believe that Dr. Nemek will be this kind of education leader for Fairfield and for Connecticut. As you may know, Dr. Nemek received his bachelor's degree in English, cum laude from Yale in 1991, and while at Yale, you may not know that he was also an all Ivy League rugby player. We like to think that his early academic success and his athletic prowess set the stage for his successful career in both business and then in academia where he has already approved and experienced leader. He brings with him to Fairfield not only wisdom, good sense, and good humor, but also important leadership experiences that will serve him and Connecticut well. And what better time to lead? Higher education traditionally faces a wide range of challenges, political, financial, social, pedagogical. But today, one of the most significant challenges is being that bridge between the past and present in service of the future. How can institutions of higher education fulfill their mission of helping their students understand the cutting edge of contemporary thought while learning from and respecting the past and looking toward the future? Catholic colleges and universities like Fairfield occupy an important place in the landscape of American higher education. They are rooted in a long unbroken intellectual tradition that embraces both the past and the present with confidence. I trust Dr. Nimick's stewardship of Fairfield University will exhibit that forward-looking confidence while reminding students of their indebtedness to the intellectual and moral accomplishments of past generations. Today, so much of the national discourse is about the role of higher education in society. Many polls show that Americans do not value higher educational institutions in the same way that they once did. I hope that Dr. Nimick will also participate in the public discussion of the goals and purposes of higher education. It is inevitable that those who lead institutions of higher learning find themselves spending significant times discussing budgets, institutional advancement, athletics, and financial aid. But by training, temperament, and scholarly research, Mark Nimick brings to Fairfield, to the state of Connecticut, and to higher education in general, the capacity to connect the necessary practical concerns of institutional life with a larger picture of the moral and civic goals of colleges and universities. It is essential that universities not only prosper and sustain themselves, yes, but it is also important to create an environment in which democratic debate, free expression, self-criticism, and social justice are embraced. I hope that he lives the great end, as the bishop said this morning, and he gets to sing like the choir said just now. But I am delighted that he will now be in that position to do that. So, Dr. Nimick, I'm not only honored to welcome you back to Connecticut, dear friend, but also grateful that you have actually chosen to answer the call to lead. I know that you will inspire Fairfield students, and you will support faculty, staff, and alumni in the Jesuit tradition, to dream more, to learn more, to do more, and become more. Welcome home, Dr. Nimick. We are enormously fortunate, and we are grateful that you are here. Thank you, Secretary Gough Cruise. I am happy to welcome to the podium the director of the Fairfield Jesuit community, the Reverend Michael Tunney of the Society of Jesus. Father Tunney also serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Studio Art and the Department of Religious Studies. Father Tunney. Now formally missioned by the Society of Jesus and the person of the Reverend James Murackie, provincial assistant for higher education Northeast Province Society of Jesus, Dr. Mark Richard Nimick assumes the mantle of dignity and responsibility as Fairfield's president. As rector of the Fairfield Jesuit community, I welcome you warmly to our community and along with my brother Jesuits, look forward to working alongside you to advance the mission of Fairfield University, the modern Catholic Jesuit University. Our Catholic Jesuit ethos and educational philosophy help transform our students into the men and women for others that our world so sorely needs. We as members of the Society of Jesus bring our training, the gifts of the spiritual exercises and our commitment to the intellectual apostolate. Together these animate the spirit and hope that is at the heart of Fairfield University. We Jesuits serve as priests, brothers, scholars, teachers, ministers and colleagues to the Fairfield University community. You, Dr. Nimick, as leader of this community can be assured that we Jesuits will walk with you as our collaborators, companions and guides. Thus, as rector of this community, I pledge the support of my brother Jesuits within our community to you and your family as you shepherd this institution. Today we offer our prayers, our blessing and our heartfelt welcome on this occasion of your investiture as president of Fairfield University. Thank you, Father Tunney. I'm happy to invite the Reverend Thomas Semiski of the Society of Jesus, president of the Fairfield Preparatory School to extend greetings. Fairfield Prep is a vital and lively component of our campus community. Father Semiski. It is my privilege as president of Fairfield College Preparatory School to extend our greeting to you, President Nimick. As a scholar of political science, faculty member and former dean, you now assume the mantle of dignity and responsibility as the ninth president of this great university. Deeply appreciative of the special relationship in interwoven Jesuit mission of Fairfield Prep and Fairfield University, we at Prep wish you every success. As one unified work of the Society of Jesus, together we strive to be leaders in Jesuit education. No other school in the world is a member of both the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and the Jesuit Schools Network. Our ability to connect and share resources positions us well for future opportunities. While Prep and the university serve students of different ages and backgrounds, we are firmly committed to our common tradition focused on academic excellence, caring for the whole person and finding God in all things. Today, Fairfield Prep and Fairfield University join in common prayer, that God may continue to bless Dr. Nimick and his family with wisdom, courage and a sense of humor and that God may guide us along his path and strengthen us for this journey in faith. Thank you. Critical to the continuing success of and also dear to all of us at the university are its alumni. Mr. John Pagano, President of the Fairfield University Alumni Association, will speak on behalf of alumni everywhere who support the university in large and small ways every day. President Nimick, as President of the Fairfield University Alumni Association, it is my honor and privilege to welcome you as our ninth university president. For our over 42,000 graduates, the extraordinary history, growth and accomplishments of Alma Mater and the education we received during our days here make us proud to call ourselves alumni. As ambassadors for Fairfield, we are honored to give back to a university that gave us so much. Our Jesuit education taught us to be men and women who possess sound ethical worldview and who understand the responsibility to concern ourselves with the less fortunate. We know that under your leadership, Fairfield University will continue to graduate students who will carry on this tradition of service to others. We look forward to seeing you at alumni events across the country and working with you to spread stag pride worldwide. Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Pagano. Essential to the life of the university and central to our mission of Jesuit education are the faculty who educate our students in part by practicing with them the habits of mind crucial to creating their world class, creative activity and scholarship. The secretary of the general faculty, Susan Rakowitz, assistant professor of psychology, on behalf of the entire faculty will extend to President Nemeck, his formal membership into the general faculty and the department of politics. Dr. Nemeck, it is my privilege as secretary of the general faculty to welcome you as president and as a professor in the department of politics, both as president and professor of politics, you are a member of the general faculty here at Fairfield University. The faculty of Fairfield University will work with you in a collegial manner to enhance and advance the quality of the educational experience and the intellectual environment for the entire community. Our university mission celebrates our liberal arts core, our strong professional schools and most importantly, our call to provide our students and the wider community an intellectual and social experience grounded in the Jesuit ideals of higher education. We as faculty strive to bring this mission alive in all our endeavors. As faculty, we bring a variety of talents and a deep commitment to the life and mission of the university. As teachers and scholars, we pride ourselves on placing great emphasis on student learning and student engagement with research. Our dedication to teaching, to research and to social outreach projects as well as professional involvement in our various disciplines bodes well for the future of Fairfield University. Thank you, Dr. Rakowitz. I now invite to the podium Mr. Lauren Testani, manager of employment, to offer greetings on behalf of the staff of Fairfield University. Mr. Testani serves this year as president of the Fairfield University Staff Association. Among many other valuable services, the staff association provides opportunities for staff to gather for cross-divisional activities and supports a generous scholarship for an undergraduate student. Mr. Testani. As president of the staff association, it is my privilege on behalf of the university staff to welcome you, Dr. Nemek, as our new president. The staff comprises over 500 dedicated employees across 13 divisions. Our work covers the entire spectrum of the university operations. We serve students, faculty, administrators in the greater university community in so many ways. People are drawn to work at Fairfield because of our mission to provide a transformative experience for everyone engaged with Fairfield. Our individual responsibilities in large and small ways help constitute the spirit that is Fairfield University. We look forward to supporting you as you lead our university. Thank you, Mr. Testani. Fairfield University, a master's comprehensive university, offers graduate degrees in 42 distinct academic programs. Ms. Brianna Tancredi, a graduate student from the Dolan School of Business, will speak on behalf of our 1,080 graduate students. Welcome, Dr. Nemek. It is my privilege on this occasion to represent the graduate students of the various schools and colleges of Fairfield University. We welcome you as our ninth president and support you and your efforts to further the intellectual, spiritual, and social outreach goals of Fairfield University. Graduate education has been a part of the university since its earliest years when the first master's degrees were awarded in 1951 by Fairfield's oldest school of education and allied professions. Other graduate programs followed in the Dolan School of Business, the School of Nursing, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering, with a total of 30 graduate degree programs offered today. The women and men who attend these professional programs come to Fairfield University to participate in an educational experience that has an outstanding reputation for academic rigor and relevance. When I complete my graduate degree, I, like many others, will come away with the necessary insights, expertise, and credentials to develop and advance both intellectually and professionally. We will all come away with a fuller appreciation of the ethical underpinnings of all the educational offerings for which Fairfield University is known. Graduate students, most of us part-time, bring to Fairfield a rich array of our own work and life experiences to the classroom where we are met with an exceptional degree of warmth and respect among faculty and students. This graduate experience will enrich our lives, both personally and professionally, when we leave Fairfield as well-trained and compassionate individuals. We look forward to working with you, Dr. Nemek, and together fulfilling the Fairfield University goal of learning and integrity while developing men and women for others. We welcome you and wish you much success and satisfaction in your presidency at Fairfield University. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Tancredi. The undergraduate students at Fairfield University, number 3,800, and at this ceremony are represented by Ms. Kara Gibbons, President of the Fairfield University Student Association. Ms. Gibbons will now offer a welcome from the undergraduate. Welcome, President Nemek. It is my privilege on this occasion as the President of the Fairfield University Student Association to represent the undergraduate students. We welcome you as our ninth President and support you and your efforts to further the intellectual, spiritual, and social goals of the Fairfield University community. Undergraduate education at Fairfield University has always centered around the ideal of men and women for others and the care of the whole person. Our undergraduate education across all of the schools is seen in a sound liberal arts core curriculum combined with superb education in our chosen profession of field. The vibrancy of the undergraduate experience at Fairfield University rest in our academic achievements as well as our social engagements with each other and with the world around us. We as undergraduates excel in service to the community. Our mission volunteer trips make a difference for us and others around the world. We have consistently been recognized for our efforts in hunger cleanup. As an undergraduate group, we also hold a very strong record intellectually in earning Fulbright awards and other prestigious academic awards. Our life at Fairfield is a balance of intellectual and social activity. We pride ourselves on our strong athletic and intramural activities as well as our extensive student performing art groups. We look forward to working with you to enhance the undergraduate experience for all of our students. As undergraduates, we chose Fairfield University for its Jesuit tradition for its opportunities to interact with faculty and for the opportunity to grow with an extraordinary group of young people. I speak for all the students when I say that the seniors in their last year as well as the freshmen looking forward to four years at Fairfield University are all pleased to welcome you and we pledge to work with you to enhance the educational and social experiences at Fairfield University for all of us. We wish you well and we assure you support. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Gibbons. This afternoon, we are fortunate to have as members of the platform party two prior presidents of Fairfield University. The Reverend Jeffrey P. Von Arks of the Society of Jesus and Dr. Lynn Babington, now president of Chaminade University. Father Von Arks served Fairfield from 2004 to 2016 and President Babington graciously led the university in 2017 until the arrival of Dr. Mark Nemek. Father Von Arks will first present the university MACE to President Nemek. Following the presentation of the MACE, Father Von Arks will be joined by President Babington to bestow on Dr. Nemek the chain of office. Dr. Nemek, the MACE symbolizes the president's authority and responsibility to support and encourage the seeking of knowledge by students and faculty. As is appropriate for Fairfield University, it contains the seals of the Society of Jesus, of the University and of the State of Connecticut. On its sphere is a silver cross indicating the illuminating power of the church and the world. We present this MACE to you this day to emphasize the higher calling as the Jesuit motto inscribed here states, the university exists and the president leads at Majorum Day Glorium for the greater glory of God. The noble symbol of the office of the president is a cast medallion of the university seal. Fairfield seal combines elements of the badge of the Society of Jesus, the coat of arms of the diocese of Hartford and clusters of grapes taken from the town of Fairfield seal denoting the verdant fields of this town and county. Dr. Mark Richard Nemek, we are happy to place on you the chain of office worn by the president of Fairfield University. The leadership and future of this very special university now rests with you. May you enjoy your tenure as president and may God continue to bless you and Fairfield University. Thank you, Father Von Arks and President Babington. I'm now honored to invite Mr. Frank J. Carroll III, Chairman of the Board of Trustees to formally invest Dr. Mark Richard Nemek as the ninth president of Fairfield University. As chairman of the Board of Trustees, it is my happy privilege to invest you with the powers of the president of Fairfield University. I invest you with the power to confer degrees, to grant promotion and tenure, to represent Fairfield University in all matters related to the mission of the university. I and my fellow board members are confident that our university will flourish under your guidance. As a symbol of your office, I entrust you with the charter of Fairfield University. May God bless you in your endeavors and may Fairfield University continue to prosper. Thank you, Mr. Carroll. Assistant Provincial, members of the Board of Trustees, elected officials, honored guests, faculty, students, staff, and administrators. I now present to you Dr. Mark Richard Nemek, the ninth president of Fairfield University to give his inaugural address. Members of the Board of Trustees, presidents Von Arks and Babington, Bishop Cagiano, Assistant Provincial Maracchi and other religious and community leaders, Congressman Himes and other elected officials, fellow presidents and their delegates, members of the Fairfield Jesuit community, faculty and staff of Fairfield University, students of Fairfield University, alumni, friends, and family. It is a great and humbling honor to welcome you all to our campus and our community. As I now have the chance to reciprocate the amazingly warm and supportive reception, Susie, our four children, Alex, Teddy, Philip, and Kit, and I have received from this wonderful place. In addition to welcoming you, I would like to begin by offering a reflection on Fairfield's past as a springboard for a broader conversation about our future. As a university's ninth Ignatian but first lay leader, I am called to serve as steward of this institution with a sense of awesome responsibility. Awesome in the sense of being in awe, but also as someone who grew up in Southern California in the early 80s, awesome in the sense of being utmost excited at the prospect. A tangible sense of awe and excitement might be true for any new president, but to be asked to lead this institution at this time is truly a privilege. 2017 marks the 75th anniversary of Fairfield's founding. While any diamond jubilee is an occasion to celebrate, I would politely suggest ours is particularly unique. For when we pause a moment to reflect on Fairfield's founding date of 1942, we are struck by the audacity of our founders. Think about it. To establish an institution of learning in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor when both college-aged students and building materials would be in short supply speaks to a deep and unceasing faith in the dignifying power of education. This faith was soon rewarded as the passage of the GI Bill greatly expanded access to higher education and allowed the fledgling Fairfield University to grow rapidly in response to many first-generation students from the region. Starting with our first college graduates in the class of 1951, we quickly expanded and developed in keeping with our founding vision as a comprehensive institution serving undergraduate and graduate populations. Recognizing the need to evolve 20 years after that first graduating class, Fairfield accepted our first class of women in 1971. Building upon this legacy and buoyed by a remarkable and dedicated community the last 40 years have seen Fairfield on an exceptional trajectory of continued growth and enhanced impact as we seek to further serve the Northeast United States and beyond. As someone who has been described in one publication as an historically-minded political scientist I offer this context not simply as an exercise in nostalgia but rather as a frame for thinking about our future. I also offer it with a tovillian recognition of the power and significance of civic institutions to the American experiment and to a belief that our universities have been an essential, if not arguably the essential civic institution to the relative success of that experiment. However, currently we are at an inflection point. A point at which the long-term prospects for the American democratic experiment are by no means guaranteed and the role of higher education as the formational, intellectual, social and cultural institution for its citizenry is under scrutiny as not only our relevance but the fundamental good of our work is being questioned. Though daunting, our prospects are not bleak. In fact, I would suggest that just as the pains of the Civil War and reconstruction in the upheaval the late 1800s forged the 20th century university a model which has served us for the last 125 years or so our current environment presents us with a chance to define the next 125 years of higher education. What will the next 75, 100, 125 years look like? I won't pretend to offer an answer, let alone hazard a guess. I do however wish to use this occasion as a platform to begin this conversation. The world needs the work we do but we must also, as my predecessor has stated meet the world as it is. We must be committed to remain relevant. For Fairfield, this is a unique opportunity. An opportunity to be a model for 21st century higher education. An opportunity to be the modern Jesuit Catholic university. Thankfully, our legacy, the amazing work and dedication of previous generations of students, faculty, staff and Jesuits means we are poised for this moment. For while I do not know what the next 75 years holds I do know that values based, student centric, outcomes focused education, the kind of education that Fairfield offers is what will define the modern university. Before I share some thoughts on the characteristics and parameters of the modern Jesuit Catholic university let me stress, this is not a call for radical change. But rather a call for deliberate evolution. And like any organic and organizational evolution it is about taking aspects of our being and adapting them to a changing environment. Our mission remains clear. The formation of men and women for others with the desire they pursue social justice and productive citizenship. To ensure we are most effective in this purpose I would ask we be more deliberate about three particular characteristics of our efforts and cognizant of three parameters of our work. Our efforts to be the modern Jesuit Catholic university will be defined by three characteristics. A commitment to lifelong learning. A commitment to holistic formation and a commitment to extensive and expansive partnership. Allow me a few moments to further illuminate each and to begin by emphasizing we will embrace all three with mages, a dedication to excellence in all things. First, we must continue to recognize that we are not simply training men and women for their first job or next stage of education. Rather, we are forming them for a lifetime of learning. The world is at a remarkable moment. Advances in wellness and healthcare mean for the first time in human history the number of people over the age of 65 is greater than the number of people under the age of five. We also know that many of the bodies of knowledge and disciplines, let alone careers, which will shape the next century, have yet to be developed. Practically, for Fairfield, these phenomenon mean we need to ensure all our students are not simply taught skills but rather are instilled with a capacity that serves them for their lifetime. Additionally, it means we need to be continually growing and developing graduate and professional programs which serve students over the course of their lives. Fairfield's founding purpose as a comprehensive institution means we have always recognized this characteristic. We must now deliberately bring it to the forefront. Second, the modern Jesuit Catholic University must be committed to forming well-rounded men and women, educating them through a commitment to core personalities, caring for the mind, caring for the body, and caring for the spirit. Some might rightfully ask how modern such a concept really is, as it stems from an almost 500-year tradition of Ignatian spirituality. However, core personalities has a uniquely modern resonance as scholars of neuroscience have begun to appreciate how the body knows its mind. In other words, learning is enhanced, education is more impactful when we recognize the connection between physicality and cognition. In recent years, we have affirmed Fairfield's commitment not just to the mind, but also the body and the spirit of our students and must continue to do so in the years ahead. Third, to be a model for 21st century higher education, we must be expansive in efforts and extensive in outreach. Looking beyond our disciplines and our schools, we must continue to foster a multidisciplinary which is more than simple collaborations across faculty, but rather a mindset which encourages faculty and students to pursue knowledge through a systematic inquiry which perfectly reaches for frameworks of analysis outside of one's home, discipline, and field. Again, I share these characteristics not as a suggestion to pivot from our past, but rather as a call to be deliberate about our future. In being deliberate, I ask we focus not just on the characteristics of our work, but on its parameters. For if we are to be modern, if we are to be the modern Jesuit Catholic University, we must also be national in scope, global in outlook, and unbounded in approach. Fairfield's location as a gateway to both New England and the tri-state region and our origins as an institution serving local students are two attributes of which we're justifiably proud. At the same time, however, shifting demographics that declined in the Northeast College age population suggest we will not be able to maintain the quality of student or scale of enrollment we desire by simply focusing where we always have. I've been asked if I'm worried that being national in scope will mean we lose something unique about Fairfield. I would propose the opposite. I fear that if we stay regionally focused, we will have to compromise on our values and on our quality. Being national in approach is essential if we are to maintain and enhance inclusive excellence. Regardless of from where our students, faculty, and staff join, to be a modern Jesuit Catholic University, we must ensure we are forming men and women with the broadest possible outlook. For while we recognize that we are an institution molded by the great advance of American higher education over these last 125 years, we are also part of a Jesuit tradition that from its very outset, look beyond home nation and are part of the 21st century where excellence demands a global habit of mind. Having sat almost exactly two years ago to this day interviewing prospective graduate students in the beautiful Indo-Gothic courtyard of the Jesuit St. Xavier's College Autonomous of the University of Mumbai, I can attest to how a setting might be foreign, but our values can be so shared and so familiar. It is owing to these same values that we must also be unbounded in approach. As a Jesuit Catholic University, we are called to educate ever broader populations in ever more innovative ways. As a modern institution, we recognize that formation is not limited to the classroom. Co and extracurricular experiences are as fundamental to our overall work as seminars and lectures. Additionally, as a 21st century educational enterprise, we are blessed with tools of the digital age which offer unfathomable opportunities for impact and inclusion, but which simultaneously can literally be weapons of societal decay. However, the dark side of the internet should never turn us away from its potential. Our mission demands we are continually seeking to expand our impact. We must use every resource at our disposal. Or to put it simply, I have hypothesized that none of the Jesuit community here at Fairfield have disagreed. If the internet were available in St. Ignatius Loyola's day, you know he would have used it. You may have noticed the three characteristics and three parameters I described are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe they are inextricably linked. Dare I say unified. And it is with this thought that I wanna close by reflecting on what it means for Fairfield to be a modern university, in opposition to the postmodern multiversity. To be a university, we must always celebrate and embrace the truth. Fundamental to this pursuit of truth is civil discourse and disagreement. As Robert George and Cornell West have jointly written, quote, the pursuit of knowledge and the maintenance of a free and democratic society require the cultivation and practice of the virtues of intellectual humility, openness of mind, and above all, love of truth. These virtues will manifest themselves and be strengthened by one's willingness to listen attentively and respectively to intelligent people who challenge one's belief and who represent causes one disagrees with and points of view one does not share. None of us is infallible. All of us should be willing, even eager, to engage with anyone who is prepared to do business in the currency of truth-seeking discourse by offering reasons, marshalling evidence, and making arguments. The more important the subject under discussion, the more willing we should be to listen and engage, especially if the person with whom we are in conversation will challenge or deeply held, even our most cherished and identity-forming beliefs, end quote. While a statement for the modern context, George and West are also reflecting two fundamental Ignatian values, contemplation and discernment, and an ability to pause, an ability to listen, and ability to think. As steward of this great university, this is my one ask, my one prayer for us all, that we as an institution, we as a community, we as a family continue to uphold our core values and commitments while embracing the challenge of being a model for the 21st century. So we may make the most of our blessings, so we may continue our rise, and so we may do so all for the greater glory of God. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Memeck. To bring the investor to a close, the Reverend Mark Scalise of the Society of Jesus, Director of Campus Ministry, will offer the benediction, Reverend Scalise. Let us pray. Good and gracious God. Source of life and wisdom. We conclude this happy occasion by giving you thanks and asking your blessings. We thank you for the gifts you have conferred upon Fairfield University. Our students whose idealism and open spirits fill us with hope. Our staff whose care and dedication to our students inspire us. Our faculty whose scholarship helps us to understand our world and enlarges our intellectual horizons. Our administrators whose management of the university and vision for its future lead us forward. We thank you for the trustees who make certain that Fairfield continues to thrive and remains financially secure. And for the many benefactors and friends whose generosity make it all possible. Loving God, at this unique moment in Fairfield's history, we ask you to bless Dr. Mark Nemek now as he formally assumes his duties as its ninth president. Be with him, guide him and sustain him. May the ideals with which he begins his service remain with him always and may his leadership both inspire and draw upon the collective talents that surround him. Bless to Dr. Nemek's wife and children whose own lives are impacted by his new role. May they grow and thrive here and may Fairfield become for them a place of real community, deep friendship and true home. Finally, Lord, on this special occasion, continue to bless Fairfield University. May this school always educate women and men who uphold the highest ideals of the Jesuit and Catholic education that they have received and in doing so, give ever greater glory to you. We ask this knowing that you are our loving God for ever and ever, amen. On behalf of all present, may I say congratulations, President Nemek, ninth president of Fairfield University. On that happy note, the Investiture Ceremony for the ninth president of Fairfield University is now at a close. I invite you to join us at a reception at the Barone Campus Center Oak Room. Please remain in your seats until the platform party and academic procession has recessed. Thank you and good afternoon.


Okay, I'm on a lamp slide, that's Mount Lady Washington, and kind of panning down, that's where Kasem Lake is, and that's the base of Broadway, and that's where I just came up. Snow is in really good condition, no slipping, it's pretty firm, used my ice axe and crampons but no worries, and this is the exit over to Broadway, this is the route that takes you to Keener's, the Nachkular, and multiple other routes, and that is the diamond right there, and there are people climbing on it, but I'm not sure we can see them from this angle, climb on.


Yoga comes from India and it is a very old tradition, but like all ancient Indian traditions, it is also living and dynamic. Yoga is free from copyright, free from patents and free from royalty payment. Yoga is adaptable to your age, gender and fitness level. Yoga is portable. You can do it at home or at work or in transit. Yoga is flexible. You can practice it alone or in a group, learn from a teacher or be self-taught. Yoga is unifying. It is for everyone, for all ethnicities, for all faiths and for all cultures. Yoga is truly universal.


Live from Boston, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE, covering Spark Summit East 2017, brought to you by Databricks. Now, here are your hosts, Dave Vellante and George Gilbert. Boston everybody, Nick Pentreth is here, he's a principal engineer at the IBM Spark Technology Center in South Africa, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. Great to see you, so let's see, it's a little different time of year here that you're used to, but... I've flown from, I don't know the Fahrenheit equivalent, but 30 degrees Celsius, heat and sunshine, snow and sleet. It's a lot chilly there, we'll wait until tomorrow, but so as I was joking, you probably get the t-shirt for the longest flight here, so welcome. I actually need the parka or like a beanie. A little better, the long sleeve. So Nick, tell us about the Spark Technology Center, STC, is it sort of acronym and your role there? Sure, yeah, thank you. So Spark Technology Center was formed by IBM a little over a year ago, and its mission is to focus on the open source world, particularly Apache Spark and the ecosystem around that, and to really drive forward the community and make contributions to both the core project and the ecosystem. The overarching goal is to help drive adoption, and particularly in enterprise customers, the kind of customers that IBM typically serves, and to harden Spark and to make it really enterprise-ready. So why Spark? I mean, we've watched IBM do this now for several years. The famous example that I like to use is Linux. When IBM put a billion dollars into Linux, and it really went all in on open source, and it drove a lot of IBM value, both internally and externally, for customers. So what was it about Spark?  You sort of waited to see the market evolve. What was the catalyst for having you guys go all in on Spark? Yeah, good question. I mean, I don't know all the details, certainly, of what was the internal drivers, because I joined STC a little under a year ago, so I'm fairly new. Translate the hallway talk, maybe. Essentially, I think you raise very good parallels to Linux and also Java. So IBM made these investments in open source technologies that it sees to be transformational and kind of game changing. And I think most people will probably admit within IBM that they maybe missed the boat, actually, on Hadoop, and saw Spark as the successor, and actually saw a chance to really dive into that and kind of almost leapfrog, and say, we're going to back this as the next generation analytics platform and operating system for analytics and big data in the enterprise. Well, I don't know if you happen to watch the Super Bowl, but there's a saying that it's sometimes better to be lucky than good, and that sort of applies. And so, in some respects, maybe missing the window on Hadoop was not a bad thing for IBM, because not a lot of people made a ton of dough on Hadoop, and they're still sort of struggling to figure it out. And now along comes Spark, and you've got this more real-time nature. IBM talks a lot about bringing analytics and transactions together. They've made some announcements about that and affecting business outcomes in near real-time. I mean, that's really what it's all about, and you're one of your areas of expertise is machine learning, and so talk about that relationship and what it means for organizations, your mission. Yeah, machine learning is a key part of the mission. And you've seen the kind of big dead-in-enterprise story starting with the kind of Hadoop and data lakes, and that's evolved into, now we've, before we just dumped all of this data into these data lakes and these silos, and maybe we had some Hadoop jobs and so on, but now we've got all this data that we can store. What are we actually going to do with it? So part of that is the traditional data warehousing and business intelligence and analytics, but more and more we're seeing there's a rich value in this data, and to unlock it, you really need intelligent systems. You need machine learning, you need AI, you need real-time decision-making that starts transcending the boundaries of old rule-based systems and human-based systems. So we see machine learning as one of the key tools and one of the key kind of unlockers of value in these enterprise data stores. So Nick, perhaps paint us a picture of someone who's advanced enough to be working with machine learning with IBM and we know that the tool chain's kind of immature, although IBM with DataWorks or DataFirst has a fairly broad end-to-end sort of suite of tools, but what are the early use cases and then what needs to mature to go into sort of higher volume production apps or higher value production apps? I think the early use cases for machine learning in general and certainly at scale are numerous and they're growing, but classic examples are, let's say, recommendation engines. That's an area that's close to my heart. In my previous life before IBM, I built a startup that had a recommendation engine service targeting online stores and e-commerce players and social networks and so on. So this is a great kind of example use case. We've got all this data about, let's say, customer behavior in your retail store or your video sharing sites and in order to serve those customers better and make more money, if you can make good recommendations to them about what they should buy, what they should watch or what they should listen to, that's a classic use case for machine learning and unlocking the data that is there. So that is one of the drivers of some of these systems, players like Amazon, they're sort of good examples of the recommendation use case. Another is fraud detection and that is a classic example in financial services, enterprise, which is a kind of staple of IBM's customer base. So these are a couple of examples of the use cases, but the tool sets traditionally have been kind of cumbersome. So Amazon built everything from scratch themselves using customized systems and they've got teams and teams of people. Nowadays, you've got this built into Apache Spark, you've got it in Spark Machine Learning Library, you've got good models to do that kind of thing. So I think from an algorithmic perspective, there's been a lot of advancement and there's a lot of standardization and almost commoditization of the model side. So what is missing? Yeah, what else? And what are the shortfalls currently? So there's a big difference between the current view and I guess the hype of machine learning as you've got data, you apply some machine learning and then you get profit, right? But really there's a huge complex workflow that involves this end-to-end story. You've got data coming from various data sources, you have to feed it into one centralized system, transform and process it, extract your features and do your kind of hardcore data science which is the core piece that everyone sort of thinks about as the only piece. But that's kind of in the middle and it makes up a relatively small proportion of the overall chain. And once you've got that, you do model training and selection, testing and you now have to take that model, that machine learning algorithm and you need to deploy it into a real system to make real decisions. And that's not even the end of it because once you've got that, you need to close the loop, what we call the feedback loop and you need to monitor the performance of that model in the real world. You need to make sure that it's not deteriorating, that it's adding business value, all of these kind of things. So I think that is the real, the piece of the puzzle that's missing at the moment is this end-to-end, delivering this end-to-end story and doing it at scale, securely, enterprise grade. In the business impact of that, presumably will be a better quality experience. I mean, recommendation engines and fraud detection have been around for a while, they're just not that good. Retargeting systems are too little, too late and cumbersome fraud detection, still a lot of false positives. Getting much better, certainly compressing the time. It used to be six months to detect fraud. Now it's minutes or seconds, but a lot of false positives still. So are you suggesting that by closing that gap that we'll start to see from a consumer standpoint much better experiences? Well, I think that's imperative because if you don't see that from a consumer standpoint, then the mission is failing because ultimately it's not magic that you just simply throw machine learning at something and you unlock business value and everyone's happy. You have to, there's a human in the loop here that you have to fulfill the customer's needs, you have to fulfill consumer needs and the better you do that, the more successful your business is. So you mentioned the time scale and I think that's a key piece here. What makes better decisions? What makes a machine learning system better? Well, it's better data and more data and faster decisions. So I think all of those three are coming into play with Apache Spark, N2N's story streaming systems and the models are getting better and better because they're getting more data and better data. So I think the industry has pretty much attacked the time problem, certainly for fraud detection and recommendations. This is the quality issue. Are we close? I mean, we're talking about six to 12 months before we'll really sort of start to see a major impact to the consumer and ultimately to the company who's providing those services or is it further away from than that? You know, it's always difficult to make predictions about time frames but I think there's a long way to go to go from, as you mentioned where we are, the algorithms and the models are kind of quite quantitized. The time gap to make predictions is kind of down to this real time nature. So what is missing? I think it's actually, it's less about the traditional machine learning algorithms and more about making the systems better and getting better feedback, better monitoring, so improving the end user experience of these systems and that's actually, I don't think it's, I think it's a lot of work to be done. I don't think it's a six to 12 month thing necessarily. I don't think that in 12 months, suddenly everything's going to be perfectly recommended. I think there's areas of active research in the kind of academic fields about how to improve these things but I think it's a big engineering challenge to bring in more disparate data sources, to better improve data quality, to improve the feedback loops, to try and get systems that are serving customer needs better, so improving recommendations, improving the quality of fraud detection systems, everything from that to medical imaging and cancer detection. I think we've got a long way to go. Would it be fair to say that we've done a pretty good job with traditional application lifecycle in terms of dev apps, but we now need the dev apps for the data scientists and their collaborators? Yeah, I think that's... And where is IBM along that? Yeah, that's a good question and I think you kind of hit the nail on the head that the enterprise applied machine learning problem has moved from the kind of academic to the software engineering and actually dev apps, internally someone mentioned the word train apps, so it's almost like the machine learning workflow and actually productionizing and operationalizing that. So, recently IBM for one has announced Watson data platform and now Watson machine learning and that really tries to address that problem. So really the aim is to simplify and productionize these end-to-end machine learning workflows. So that is the product push that IBM has at the moment. Okay, that's helpful. Yeah, I was at the Watson data platform announcement. You call the data works, I think they changed the branding, but it looked like there were numerous components that IBM had in its portfolio that it's now strung together and to create that end-to-end system that you're describing. Is that a fair characterization or is it sort of underplaying? I'm sure it is. The work that went into it, but maybe help us understand that better. Yeah, I mean, I should carry it by saying I'm fairly focused, very focused at STC on the open source side of things. So my work is predominantly within the Apache Spark project and I'm less involved in the day-to-day. So you didn't contribute specifically to Watson data platform? Not to the product line. So I wouldn't want to talk about it. Simply because I haven't been involved. Yeah, I don't want to push you on that because it's not your wheelhouse. But then help me understand how you will commercialize the activities that you do, or is that not necessarily the intent? So the intent with STC in particular is that we focus on open source. And a core part of that is that we, being within IBM, we have the opportunity to interface with other product groups and customer groups. So while we're not directly focused on, let's say, the commercial aspect, we want to effectively leverage the ability to talk to real-world customers and find that these cases talk to all the product groups that are building this Watson data platform and all the product lines and the features data science experience it's all built on top of Apache Spark and platform. So your role is really to innovate? Exactly, yeah. Leverage's open source and innovate. Both innovate and kind of improve. So improve performance, improve efficiency. When you're operating at the scale of a company such as IBM and other large players, your customers and you as a product teams and builders of products will come into contact with you will come into contact with all the kind of little issues and bugs and performance problems. Make it better. Yeah, and that is the feedback that we take on board and we try and make it better, not just for IBM and their customers, but for, because it's an Apache project, everyone benefits. So that's really the idea. Take all the feedback and learnings from enterprise customers and product groups and centralize that in the open source contributions that we make. Great. Would it be, so would it be fair to say you're focusing on making the core Spark, Spark ML and Spark ML lib capabilities, sort of machine learning libraries and then the pipeline more robust? And if that's the case, like we know there needs to be improvements in its ability to serve predictions in real time, like high speed. We know there's a need to take the pipeline and sort of share it with other tools perhaps or collaborate with other tool chains. What are some of the things that the enterprise customers are looking for along those lines? Yeah, that's a great question and very topical at the moment. So both from an open source community perspective and from enterprise customer perspective, this is one of the, if not the key, I think kind of missing pieces that within this Spark machine learning kind of community at the moment. And it's one of the things that comes up most often. So it is a missing piece and we as a community need to work together and decide is this something where we build it within Spark and provide that functionality? Is it something where we try and adopt open standards that will benefit everybody and that provides one standardized format or way of serving models? Or is it something where there's a few open source projects out there that might serve for this purpose and do we get behind those? So I don't have the answer because this is ongoing work but it's definitely one of the most critical kind of blockers or let's say areas that need to work at the moment. One quick question then along those lines. IBM, the first thing IBM contributed to the Spark community was Spark ML which as I understand it was this, it was an ability to I think create an ensemble sort of set of models to do a better job or more accurate create a more accurate. Are you referring to system ML? System ML, what are they? Yeah, so yeah, what does that fit? System ML started out as a IBM research project and perhaps the simplest way to describe it is as a kind of SQL optimizer is to take SQL queries and then decide how to execute them in the most efficient way, system ML takes a kind of high level mathematical language and compiles it down to an execution plan that runs in a distributed system. So in much the same way as your SQL operators allow this kind of very flexible and high level language where you don't have to worry about how things are done, you just tell the system what you want done. System ML aims to do that for mathematical and machine learning problems. So it's now an Apache project, it's been donated to open source and it's an incubating project under very active development. And that is really, there's a couple of different aspects to it but that's the high level goal. The underlying execution engine is Spark. It can run on Hadoop and it can run locally but really the main focus is to execute on Spark and then expose these kind of higher level APIs for that are familiar to users of languages like R and Python, for example, to be able to write their algorithms and not necessarily worry about how do I do large scale matrix operations on a cluster, system ML will compile that down and execute it for them. So really quickly follow up, what that means is it's a higher level way for people who aren't sort of cluster aware to write machine learning algorithms that are cluster aware. Precisely, yeah. That's very, very valuable when it works. When it works. So again with the caveat that I'm mostly focused on Spark and not so much the system ML side of things. So I'm definitely not an expert, I don't claim to be an expert in it. But it works at the moment. It works for a large class of machine learning problems. It's very powerful. But again, it's a young project and there's always work to be done. So exactly the areas that I know that they're focusing on are these areas of usability, hardening up the APIs and making them kind of easier to use and easier to access for users coming from the R and Python communities who again are, as you said, are not necessarily experts on distributed systems in cluster awareness, but they know how to write a very complex machine learning, cluster machine learning model in R, for example. And it's really trying to enable them with a set of API tools. So in terms of the underlying engine, it's, I don't know how many, hundreds of thousands, millions of lines of code and years and years of research has gone into that. So it's an extremely powerful set of tools. But yes, a lot of work is still to be done there and ongoing to make it, in a way to make it use already and enterprise already in the sense of making it easier for people to use it and adopt it and to put it into their systems and production. So I wonder if we could close, Nick, just a few questions on STC. So the Spark Technology Center in Cape Town, is that a global expertise center? Is STC a virtual sort of IBM community? I'm the only member who's in Cape Town, so I'm kind of fairly lucky from that perspective to be able to kind of live at home. The rest of the team is mostly in San Francisco. So there's an office there, it's co-located with the Watson West office, so the Watson teams that are based there and Howard Street, I think it is. How often do you get there? I'll be there next week. Typically, sort of two or three times a year is, you know, I try and get across there and, you know, interface with the team. But we are a fairly, I mean, IBM is obviously a global company and I've been surprised, actually pleasantly surprised that, you know, there are team members pretty much everywhere. Our team has a few scattered around, including me, but in general, when you interface with various teams, they pop up in all kinds of geographic locations and I think it's great, you know, a huge diversity of people and locations. Anything, I mean, it's early days here, early day one, but anything you saw in the morning keynotes or things you hope to learn here, anything that's excited you so far? I caught a couple of the morning keynotes, but had to dash out to kind of prepare for, yeah, I'm doing a talk later actually on feature hashing for scalable machine learning. So that's a 12-20, please come and see everybody. A breakout session, what, 12-20? 20 past 12, yeah, so in room 302, I think. So I'll be talking about that and so I needed to prepare. But yeah, I think some of the key exciting things that I've seen that I would like to go and take a look at are kind of related to the deep learning on Spark. You know, I think that's been a hot topic recently and one of the areas where, again, Spark is, perhaps hasn't been the strongest contender, let's say, but there's some really interesting work coming out of Intel that it looks like. They're going to be talking here on theCUBE in a couple hours. Yeah, I'd really like to see their work and that sounds very exciting. So yeah, I mean, I think every time I come to a Spark summit, they are, they're all these new projects from the community, various companies, some of them big, some of them startups that are pushing the envelope, whether it's research projects in machine learning, whether it's adding deep learning libraries, whether it's improving performance for kind of commodity clusters or for single, very powerful single nodes. There's always people pushing the envelope and that's what's great about being involved in an open source community project and being part of this community. So yeah, that's one of the talks that I'd like to go and see and I think I unfortunately had to miss some of the Netflix talks on their recommendation pipeline that's always interesting to see. So I'll have to catch them on the video. Well, there's always another project in open source land. Nick, thanks very much for coming on theCUBE and good luck. Cool, thanks very much. Have a good trip, have a good trip. Stay warm, all right, man. All right, keep right there, everybody. George and I will be back with our next guest. We're live, this is theCUBE from Spark Summit East. Hashtag Spark Summit, right back.