Goldin greets parents

Future Boston University President Daniel S. Goldin publicly spoke to the BU community for the first time on Sunday at parents’ convocation, which also featured a traditional address from Chancellor John Silber.

‘Today I start in a similar manner to your children,’ Goldin said. ‘I too am a freshman.’

In July, the BU Board of Trustees chose Goldin, a former National Aeronautics and Space Administration director, to become the school’s ninth president.

He accepted the position on Aug. 17, ending a year-long search to fill the vacancy.

Goldin talked about his own college experience, where he chose engineering over music, although he continued playing the clarinet in a jazz band to earn his way through school.

‘I felt I could be a great scientist and engineer and an average musician,’ he said.

While his mother’s desire for him to become a great jazz musician may never come true, Goldin said his father ‘felt education was the most important thing one could do in life.’

Goldin said he would focus on safety, values and education once he becomes president.

‘As president of this university, my number one priority will be ensuring that your children have the best education that is possible,’ he said. ‘I intend to continue a school that teaches values not just things.’

Before introducing Goldin, Silber spoke to about 1,000 parents, giving advice about parting with their children, reassuring them about choosing BU and congratulating them on raising ‘one of the most outstanding’ classes in BU’s history.

‘Now you leave them as young adolescents and when you pick them up four years from now following graduation, they will meet you as adults,’ Silber said. ‘This is a right of separation that must be of serious importance to all of you.’

Silber also discussed BU’s growth and development, particularly Marsh Chapel’s restoration, construction of the Photonics Center, a new Hillel House, the Student Village and the Hotel Commonwealth which will soon have a cast stone façade.

‘I’m sure that many of you are not impressed by its façade and neither are we,’ he said. ‘Right now the façade looks a little like a set from ‘Blazing Saddles.”

Along with what students have available at BU, Silber cited Boston’s features like the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Museum of Science.

‘In coming to a great city, you also take on certain risks and certain advantages,’ he said. ‘By avoiding a rural campus, you don’t have to worry about your children being bitten by a rabid raccoon, for example. They’re not going to contract Lyme disease while they’re at Boston University.’

However, the largest risk at BU is traffic, Silber said, adding that other factors can also play a part.

‘There’s no city in America that is risk free when it come to drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex,’ he said. ‘The good news is that there is no risk for responsible individuals.’

Silber advised parents to caution their children about these risks, encourage them to meet their professors and not worry about immediately knowing what they want to do.

Citing his own experience, Silber said music, fine arts, law school and philosophy were among the pursuits he sampled in college.

‘Finding out what you can’t do well is just as important as finding out what you do extremely well,’ he said. ‘Along the way my father asked me ‘What are you going to do when you grow up, be a soap box orator?’ I made the mistake of saying, ‘What’s wrong with that?” … All of that misspent youth was highly useful to me when I finally settled into a job like this.’

Silber also suggested that parents write letters to communicate with their children and tell them only to call in case of emergency.

‘I hope you insist that if you’re going to pay the tuition, the student your son or daughter writes you a real letter each week,’ he said. ‘That will take one hour and they can take it out of the 70 hours of studying’ Silber said of his earlier recommendation.

‘Four years from now you will have a stack of correspondence that will be most revealing because your sons and daughters will tell you things in writing that they would not say face to face.’

Ron Halter, whose daughter came to BU from Sacramento, Calif., said he might try Silber’s advice to write letters and liked that he stressed principles such as education and good choices.

‘[Convocation] says what the school is about and it sounds like a lot of the same principles we brought our daughter up with,’ Halter said.

Convocation made Charlotte Bursi feel more comfortable about sending her son to BU, and said the event was ‘wonderful’ and ‘inspiring.’

‘I thought it was excellent advice although all advice needs to be tempered to your own child,’ the Memphis resident said.

Bursi also said she enjoyed hearing from BU’s future president.

‘I think it’s exciting,’ she said. ‘I like the idea that he feels he’ll be learning too.’

In an August interview with The Daily Free Press, Goldin said he would take over on Nov. 1, with a formal induction ceremony to come later in the month.

Goldin said he heard of the available position from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, but was still unsure he would be interested in the position. Goldin said a quick visit to BU changed his mind, where he found that he ‘loved the energy’ of the school.

Goldin also said Chancellor John Silber would step down from his current position, which he has held since 1996, assuming the title of president emeritus.

Chancellor John Silber’s insight into running the nation’s fourth-largest university will be valuable, Goldin said, and he planned to have discussions with Silber so he could ‘help me understand this great university.’

‘He is unique in American education, and he has incredible knowledge and a sense about things,’ Goldin said of Silber. ‘I’m certainly hoping he’d have the time to help me. I could learn by coming and making mistakes or by asking him questions.’

Silber’s future at the university became a source of contention this summer when Boston Globe reporters Patrick Healy and Frank Phillips reported that Goldin requested Silber’s resignation. ‘You have to step aside,’ the article reported Goldin told the chancellor.

Boston University responded with a press release, saying the Boston Globe story contained many factual inaccuracies, including a quote from BU Trustee Melvin B. Miller that the Office of Public Relations referred to a ‘total fabrication.’

The BU press release reiterated that Silber will step down as Chancellor and no longer act with the duties of president when Goldin takes office on Nov. 1. Silber has served the duties since the Trustees ousted former leader Jon Westling last summer.

While Goldin will now step into the top job in just under two months, he said he wanted to listen rather than speak when beginning his first year in office, so he could hear all the different opinions and viewpoints that belong to members of the university community.

‘I want people to feel I have an open mind. I really genuinely want to take time to listen,’ Goldin said. ‘This university has done some fabulous things and there are even more things that could be done, but I don’t want to prejudice any of the discussion.’

Goldin reiterated the point in an email sent to students on Aug. 14. He said he would ‘listen, consult and learn’ in his first year as BU’s president and said his ultimate goal was developing ‘a shared vision for the university that will take all of us to new levels of knowledge and accomplishment through the power of education.’

Staff writer Bill Yelenak contributed to this report.