 Welcome to the Toby Family Auditorium. We're, uh, Tad is a member of the club's board and we are so happy to have this event, which is part of a series, uh, called the Toby American Value Series. We're looking at issues of core American values in different sectors. And tonight we'll be talking about higher education. I serve on the board of trustees of my undergraduate college and I've been on the board for 17 years. This has been a time, recently especially, when many core American values are hotly debated and often roil the campus with debate and discussion among students, faculty, administrators, alumni, and others. I won't get into it too deeply because my good friend Dr. Skinner is going to talk about what some of those issues are, but it's a difficult and divisive time, uh, on higher education campuses. We're going to be talking about the significant role of basic values, uh, questions in, uh, academic, the academic world, uh, and the important role that colleges and universities have in communicating and educating young Americans, uh, on core values in our society that are important, will be important to them as they, they grow and are important to our society to have a functioning, healthy society. The, um, is my very great pleasure to introduce Dr. Kyron Skinner. Kyron and I go back a long way. I think I was in my 30s and she was in her 20s, uh, when we first worked together. She has become a distinguished practitioner in her field. She is the W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and you may detect a theme here, Toby Professor of International Relations and Politics at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. She is an expert on international relations and U.S. foreign policy, and she is former director of the policy planning staff at the United States Department of State. But further ado, my good friend and colleague, Dr. Kyron Skinner. Um, thank you, Gloria. We do, in fact, go back a long way. Um, she, the first time I met her, she had on short shorts, tennis racket, red sports car, top down, and I said, I want to be Gloria when I grow up. So, I, I hope I've, I've, I've done a good job of, of modeling her. Um, and I also want everyone to know that Gloria, um, one of her big achievements, I don't know, she has so many, but was purchasing, brokering the purchase of this building for the Commonwealth Club. I think this is amazing real estate, and, um, it will serve the public for decades to come. So, we're really grateful to you. This discussion could not happen as, um, Dr. Duffy just mentioned without the Tobi's. More than a decade ago, um, Mr. Tad Toby came to me and said, I want to do projects on American principles and values. And we couldn't find the right fit, the right institution until I got to Pepperdine University and we began partnering a year ago with the Commonwealth Club. So I think we finally found a match for that conversation. And then I joined a National Academies panel, um, earlier this year and met, um, the President of University of Vermont, who I'll talk about now, and I thought he would be also someone who is passionate about these issues. Um, Dr. Ceresca Garamella is a, as I said, the President of the University of Vermont. He's a highly cited scholar and researcher and, and a leader in higher education. And he mentors many people, um, in various capacities. One of them is as a member of the National, um, Science Board and he has written in so many fields that if I, um, mention them all, um, some of you may know of them, others may have never heard of them, like electronics, thermal management and energy, um, efficiency at micro and nano scales. How many people have been reading in that area lately? And in sustainable energy systems, technology and policy. So he will provide the perspective from his career and he has roots in the Bay Area as well. Um, President Jim Gash is the leader of Pepperdine University. He's known as President and CEO. He's equally distinguished and he is the first alumnus to be President of the institution. He happens to be my boss, so I'm a little nervous. Um, and he has, he's well regarded for his work, um, in social justice around the world. I think he's visited Uganda where he has a passion for social justice on the African continent more than 30 times and, um, he is, um, a special advisor to the High Court of Uganda. So we have a great, um, group of scholars, leaders to have this discussion and we want to hear from you as well. Um, so with that, I will ask President, um, Shuresh Garamella to come forth and give about five minutes of remarks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Kairan. Um, it's just a great pleasure to be here back in San Francisco, um, and I want to start by thanking, um, the, the Toby philanthropies for, for visioning something like this. I think it's, um, uh, it's time and I'm glad we have the opportunity to discuss this important subject today. Gloria Duffy, um, uh, thank you for inviting us here and certainly Dr. Skinner. Um, thank you for thinking of me as one of the panelists here. So, um, I too have appreciated your service on the National Academy's, uh, uh, committee, study committee on, um, sort of talent programs, uh, that we all worry about. So, um, the University of Vermont, uh, goes by UVM for the University of the Green Mountains. Uh, it's a truly special place and I want to take a couple of minutes to introduce you to that great university. Um, we were founded in 1791 by heroes of the American Revolution. It's one of the oldest universities in the, in New England and, um, um, we, we've always reflected the values of Vermont, um, its distinctiveness, its strengths and its challenges. We were, uh, the first university in the country to have in our charter, um, the, the fact that we would not discriminate against anyone based on religion or, um, or, or the, or the beliefs they held. We were the first to admit, um, um, we were among the first to admit women as students and our, our, uh, Phi Beta Kappa chapter was the first in the country to admit African Americans and women. So, um, we've had many firsts in our long history and, um, uh, we became the state's land grant university in 1865, which, um, the land grant act was signed by Senator Justin Morrill who was senator from the state of Vermont and signed into law by, uh, President Abraham Lincoln. And, um, I am just deeply, uh, uh, I'm a deep fan of what the land grant act has done and how it's democratized education and brought, um, you know, brought education and, and a better life and social mobility to the masses. So, um, we've long maintained a distinctive and independent identity, uh, in, in Vermont and, uh, I hope some of you have visited. If not, I invite you all to do so, um, so much so that we call ourselves the brave little state and we get a lot of students from within the state, but a lot of our students come up from outside the state as well. So that adds to our diversity. Um, we have over 50% of our students come from outside of New England from all parts of, um, of this great country and beyond. So, um, we're very, uh, excited about the clientele we serve. Um, we, uh, embrace a vision that sees students, faculty, and staff as, um, as partners working to make tomorrow better. And, and, and our tagline is essentially for people and planet. And I think it's, it reverberates very well with, uh, the people, uh, there. So this, this talk today, this, uh, conversations about values. And so our values have been forged over time and they're encapsulated with what we call our common ground values. And they are, and you'll see that come through in our conversation today. Respect, integrity, openness, innovation, justice, and responsibility. And really it inflects everything we do. All the students, all the faculty try our best to live by those values. And I think it gives us a great North Star to drive our, um, our efforts. And, um, so we are also in an enviable position in the American higher educational landscape. We are, uh, a strong public research university that, um, that does research on par with the, uh, wealthy privates. Um, but we're also not so large as some of the large big 10 institutions and such, so this sort of intimate and individualized attention paid to the students. That's a great combination of, uh, of both worlds. And, um, we, uh, there's great interest. We get about 30,000 applications for our 3000 slots. Um, and, uh, uh, we, um, uh, we, we've really sort of focused on affordability and access. We've frozen tuition for five years in a row, uh, which has been very well received. Our research has doubled in, um, uh, in a five year period, uh, in a four or four or five year period. And so, um, we, uh, live by our values, our research contributes to our values and, um, and I'm hoping that today's conversation will, uh, will bring out some of the ways we have been addressing the question of today. So thank you very much for being here. Well, good evening. Let me echo my gratitude to the Tobi's dad. You and I bonded over tennis where we were watching Stanford and Pepperdine play a couple of years ago and then really became brothers over our love for this country. And thank you, Diane, for your leadership of the Tobi philanthropies right now and Shayna for your, your, your, uh, steering the ship, so to speak. And thank you, Gloria, for this opportunity to be here. I will tell you that when I first met Kyron, I was not wearing short shorts. Thankfully, uh, for everyone, but thank you Kyron for, for coming to Pepperdine for, for deciding to cash your law with us a place that is a distinctive institution on the shores of Malibu, California. It's an honor to be here to talk about higher education and the current moment, the inflection point we are seeing. I think this was planned a long time ago, but it couldn't have been better time for what we're seeing happening on campuses around the country right now. Our goal, our aspiration at Pepperdine is to be the premier global Christian university in the world. We have no lesser ambition than that. And, and there are plenty of, of schools that we would consider peers and perhaps aspirant peers, but that's who we are. We're unhesitatingly, unequivocally, unapologetically a Christian institution that is welcoming to people from all face. And we love having people on campus who have a different faith perspective than we have because we learn from each other. We were born as an institution in 1937. The product of George Pepperdine, who started Western auto supply, the first person to create a market for replacement parts for automobiles. He was an entrepreneur, but he was also a person of deep faith. He decided when he came to California, he wanted to establish an institution that honored the things that he cares about. Our original campus was in South Central Los Angeles. We moved to Southern California or moved to Malibu in the early 1970s. We have about a thousand acres in Malibu. Just think about how much you real estate developers, how much a thousand acres in Malibu. One of my predecessors, the third president of Pepperdine, said, this is the kind of campus God would have built if only he could afford it. We have five campuses in Southern California, including Malibu. But we're also in West Los Angeles near the airport. We're in Calabasas. We're in Irvine. And we also have a campus in Washington, D.C. domestically. Internationally, 80 percent of our students study abroad while they're there for a semester or longer. We're in Veve, Switzerland, 90 acres on the shore of Lake Geneva. We're in Heidelberg, Germany. We're in Florence, Italy. We're in London, England. What am I missing? We're in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where my youngest studied. We're also going to be opening soon in Kyoto, Japan and likely on the continent of Africa. These are our campuses owned by Pepperdine where our students study, not a study program that is a partner with anybody. We own the campuses and we, all our students go there. For me personally, my parents met and fell in love at Pepperdine. So Pepperdine is a campus that or a university that I wouldn't exist if it didn't exist. My wife, Jolene, who's here with me, the first lady of Pepperdine went to Pepperdine, valedictorian in biology. I wanted to go to Pepperdine, but alas, no football team yet. No, we're not going to have a football team. I know what kind of people go to play football, played football, Abilene Christian University and loved my time there, went to law school at Pepperdine, applied to one law school because it was the kind of place that I wanted to be, a place that valued students, that valued excellence in academia, but also a place for faith at the table in the conversations. All three of my kids went to Pepperdine, graduated in 1820 and 22, and I practiced law in DC for a while, and practiced law in LA for a while, and then in 1999, my dream of coming back to my alma mater came true. I became a professor there and for 20 years served as a professor also as an associate dean in two different stints. When the opening for the president came up in 2019, I threw my head in the ring for two reasons. First, I spent a lot of time praying about it and discerned that this is what God had for me and Jolene, and if that's what he had, we were up for it, but also because I truly believed in everything that it stood for and what it stands for and what it continues to stand for and what will continue to stand for for as long as I'm president is the founding principles of this republic, of freedom, including free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, free markets, limited government. Those were the principles that Pepperdine was founded on, and those are those are the ones that we lean on today. George Pepperdine in his dedicatory address said, what we say here today in the dedication of these buildings is of very little importance, but the work which will be done in the days and years and generations to come will be of great importance if that work is guided by the hand of God. And that's what we believe that Pepperdine is. And I look forward this evening to talking about these founding principles, these founding principles that too often are being ignored right now. And that's what we see. We see the the challenges on campus right now. We see challenges in our public square because we have lost these founding principles that our country was based upon. What we're hoping to do tonight is to bring light. There's a lot of heat that people bring, but tonight our goal is to bring light. And I carry with me everywhere I go this coin that says light on it. This is our theme for the year. Pepperdine, we have a theme every year and our theme for this year is light. And that's what we need in this country. We need a whole lot more light and a whole lot less heat, and hopefully we'll have a lot of light after tonight. Thank you. So I've decided to ask some hard questions. No, no softies, but I'll just jump in. In the past few years, American, the American political system has had shocks that have reverberated through society. I'm thinking about George Floyd, the COVID lockdowns, the 2020 election, January 6th, and now Israel, the Israel Hamas war. In terms of reverberations, I'm referring to the seemingly unstoppable political divisions and sometimes extremism among Americans. One, how do you personally navigate the choppy political waters as a university president? And in your view, what is the role of the university in addressing these shocks and divisions? Who wants to start? I'll happily go first. You went first last time. We'll we'll just pass it back and forth. I guess the first question is how as a university president that I deal with this, and I think the principles are with authenticity, with transparency and with vulnerability, because we don't know all the answers. We don't know. We didn't know what to do in COVID. This was brand new. We don't know all the best ways to handle the George Floyd incident, for example, in terms of what do you do on campus? What do you say or not say? But in terms of kind of what is needed in order to deal with this, it's what universities were built for. It's a relentless pursuit of truth, unapologetic, unashamed pursuit of truth without a bias as to where that's going to lead you. And so in order to do that, you have to have a culture. You have to have a faculty that is willing to have difficult conversations with students and allow and encourage them to have difficult conversations. That this idea of a cancel culture, of being able to say, I don't like what you're saying, or I don't agree with with your perspective, or I don't like the color of your skin or your gender. And so you don't get to talk right now is not the way we get to truth on campus. This is not the way we deal with difficult situations. It's a pursuit of truth that involves multiple voices with a foundation of principles from which you stand. We can disagree on the application of those principles, but we have to have the founding principles in order to have those conversations. And I think the pursuit of truth is the most important one. So it's a great question, Karen. And I think you said personally as a university president, and I think as you all have observed, it's these are these are interesting times to be leading universities. I think as an individual, you need to know yourself and know your own intellectual, your own political, your own emotional reactions to things. And then make sure that when you're speaking for the university, when you're leading the university, that you really lead in a way that reflects the university's values. And so I you know, you have your own beliefs and hopefully they're not at at at odds with the universities. Otherwise, you know, maybe you shouldn't be leading that university, but they I think having a clear set and a clear articulation of the university values is very helpful in these circumstances. As I mentioned, the entire University of Vermont has agreed that our common ground values that I that I shared with you, they're actually etched in stone in front of our Student Union. And you know, in many conversations, it's become sort of it's it's embedded in the conversations is embedded, people sometimes say, hey, respect or or responsibility is is a one of our common ground values and you're not following those and people it helps lead to a more civil discourse, a more a greater dialogue where people are able to all agree to these values and therefore they're able to speak to each other in that way. And in the moments of shock you mentioned, right, I think it's it's important to remind ourselves and for the president and leadership to remind the campus of those very values, you can't abandon them just when things become hot. And so as a public, charitable, nonprofit, you know, state flagship, UVM is prohibited by law from making political commentary or advocacy. Except where the topics affect our very community and their safety and their security. And so we're very cognizant of that. You know, my own preference is for a university not to wait into a public university like ours, not to wait into political matters in terms of a university statement, a position, because the very fact that it's a university means that multiple voices should be heard. You all know about the Calvin Report. It talks about how the critics are the students and the faculty, the university is not the critic. And so we try hard to foster academic freedom, to let people talk and express their voices, but do that with respect and do that while adhering to the common ground values that we all have agreed with. And so how to get students and faculty to speak to each other in a way that they can express their thoughts, but not denigrate somebody else's just because they disagree. That's what we try to do hard. And I know the rest of the conversation will be about how to do that, too. Well, you must be running perfect universities because the images we're seeing on television are quite the opposite of what you're talking about. Respect for different points of view. And, you know, the lid has been taken off American higher education since October 7th. Are you in dialogue with a lot of these other academic leaders? Do you fear that this will happen on your own campuses? And do you think this is an inflection point for higher education because many donors, maybe some in this room are saying, we're out of here. If this is what higher education is actually about. I think it's been a shock for many, many people who have believed that the American Academy was the best that, in fact, this nation had to offer to the world. Yeah, let me let me just say that Rabbi President Rabbi Ari Berman is a good friend. And he was just at Pepperdine for what we call the President Speaker Series. Very similar to this conversation about the challenges and opportunities in faith based higher education. But it was the week after the the horrific attack on the state of Israel by Hamas and the fact that he would come out during that time when his son was on the front line and still is on the front line. God protect him. But to have a conversation about what it means as an institution, a faith based institution to say, what is true? What are the principles that we can agree upon? And so what we can agree upon is the attack on October 7th was a violation of every principle of every group of people for all time in history. And to say that clearly and unequivocally should be a starting point for everyone. Now, a performative statement where where you try to say, you know, well, this and that and the other, that's not helpful in this time. The time is let's let's call evil, evil. And then we can have a conversation about what is the best calibration of the response and whether there's there's too much or too little or and there's too much humanitarian aid not getting through. That's a different question than when you can just tell the truth and say that is unacceptable. That violates all principles, all of our founding principles, all of our current principles, all of our future principles. If we're going to be a republic, then we have to be able to say that isn't OK. Now, to have what's happening on college campuses, fortunately, we don't have that at Pepperdine. It's clear at Pepperdine that there's an opportunity for everyone to have conversations with everyone about these topics. We have quite a few Jewish students on campus, Jewish professors who are welcome and there is no anti-semitism happening on campus. Thank God, because that would cause me to probably exercise more power than I've had to exercise over our student body and over our faculty. So yeah, we have to be clear on the founding principles and on what's actually true. We can have discussions and debates about the application of those principles, but when you have acts of terror like that, then there's no there's no equivocation. So I guess I would just add, Karen, that when George Floyd died or was killed as you started and with this horrific attack, those are two exceptions where we did make university level statements. But we were focused very much on our community coming together. The University of Vermont is proud to have a very large Jewish population among our alumni, among our students. And I would hesitate to say there is no anti-semitism on campus. I don't think we could ever say that, but it's a friendly community. People look out for each other. We had a great vigil by our Jewish students that were supported by Hillel and such, and it was very respectful. And then later on, we had a vigil in sort of commemorating the lives getting lost in Gaza as well, and that was also respectful. And so we've not had the reason, at least on this issue we've not been in the news, is that we have worked closely with the rabbis in the community. Our Interfaith Center has brought the Muslim student groups together and sort of tried our best to foster conversations. We've had a Jewish chair of food systems sort of hold a dinner where she's invited Muslim and Jewish students together to break bread together. And so it's not all idyllic. There's a lot of hurt. There's a lot of fear. But I too am disappointed with some of the news that we've seen at some of the campuses. What are some of the ways that you think the academy, not necessarily your university, but maybe so, has not lived up to American values, to Western values or to human values more broadly? So I think that again, I guess we can only speak about our universities or about others too. So I think college campuses are notorious for sort of a perceived lack of welcome to contrary perspectives and partly it's true. And that they're allowed in uncivil responses to things like this. But at least in my life in academia and multiple universities, these have been exceptions. They get a lot more attention than the people who are trying to build community. So I think there's too much of this, those kids these days are such and so. And I think the kids these days are not that bad. They're not all that different from when we were kids. So I think it all depends on whether we're looking to amplify the differences and sort of underline the problems or are we trying to sort of pull the community together. So all our messaging also, all our efforts have been in fact to pull these efforts together. I don't think this generation is any less capable of deep thought and care. And so they might, they do have difficulty expressing their opinions. They are often quick to express opinions, but then they're also quick to learn. And so I can give you an example very specifically because I care a lot about this issue, about a class I teach. It's called Presidential Leadership Conversations. And we have a dozen students that we operate on Chatham House rules so people feel comfortable talking to each other. And we pick say three topics in a semester and we do some readings. And so I've been heartened at the enthusiasm of the students applying. One student applied and this is relevant here and said, I'm a Republican, I'm Jewish, I belong to Hillel and I have no one to talk to so I wanna be in your class. I said come on in. And he, it was so shy when he first started and now I see him all over campus just bubbly and it truly seems to have transformed his life. So that was a pleasant surprise to me. A less pleasant realization was how little some of the students knew about some of the things they were so passionate about. And they agreed, they admitted by the end of the class that we were so passionate about this, we would talk about it all the time, but boy, we didn't actually understand things all that well. And so reading more about it and discussing it more, listening to each other has been a wonderful opportunity for them. And I think they have now gone out and spread the 12 points of light, if you will, if not a thousand points of light. That's, it's not big enough at scale. I wish and I would hope for and I'm encouraging more people to have those kinds of conversations. But I do think today students are generous, they're curious and it's on us to model the behavior right so that they learn from us and are able to be productive adults that can actually spread that kind of civil discourse. So I think there are quite a few things that higher education can do better while just focus on one and that is having viewpoint diversity in your faculty. If you actually look at particularly the elite schools or so-called elite schools, the percentage of people who would identify as left leaning versus right leaning is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to one. And in many disciplines it's even higher and in some disciplines it's only eight to one. I say only eight to one. But having an opportunity for students to be exposed to the people that they look up to, the professors, those who they're modeling themselves after the ones that they feel like they're the experts and they need to learn from and to be able to learn from people who have different perspectives rather than the same perspective. And so higher education I think has gone a little bit off track there and that's something that we are trying to do at Pepperdine is to try and ensure that you have conservative professors and you have progressive professors and you have moderate professors and you have fellow students who are from the entire spectrum as well and you have speakers on campus that represent both spectrums and it's not just one side that's represented either side. And the idea of I don't like what that person's saying and so they shouldn't be allowed on my campus. Not, I don't like what they're saying. Let me go learn and see why I can disagree with them or let me just say my friends are gonna go and I'm not gonna go, but to instead try to shout down and effectively do so. We see video after video after video where they're successful in shutting down civil discourse on campuses across the country and I think higher education. I think there is a pushback. I think it's already started and I think it's coming but I think that's something that we can do better as a sector. So President Gash, let me press you a little bit more. You said there's not anti-Semitism on campus at Pepperdine. There's not outward signs of it. I don't know what's in anybody's heart but there's not outward signs of it. So let's talk about anti-Semitism in universities now. What do you think is actually the role? Some are saying free speech, anti-Semitism falls into that category. Others say that it's really not protected speech. Do you wanna kind of drill down and tell us what you think as an academic leader is going on or should be going on around combating anti-Semitism which is not just a huge problem in the United States but globally, especially in Europe, in the broader Western world in addition to the Middle East. I'd like to hear you talk about that. So as I mentioned, I'm legally trained. My background is in the law and when you learn constitutional law and you see the value, the reason behind the First Amendment, the first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. Like, well, okay, that's a good thing because it leads to civil discourse but is that completely, justice black used to say no law means no law. Well, what others would say, well, but no law unless, you know, the fire in a crowded theater type situation. Another, I think it was Justice Brandeis who said, the best remedy for bad speech, anti-Semitic speech is more speech, to combat that speech. Not to say you can't say what you wanna say. Now this is government, Congress shall make no law. It's been applied to the States as well. To have private institutions telling people you can't say things is how you get to totalitarianism. Is you can't say this and then we say you have to say this and so we have now speech codes in Canada about you have to call somebody by their preferred gender pronoun. That is the first step in the wrong direction. Now, do we, does a private institution, do private individuals have the right to have consequences attached to speech that is unproductive or harmful in the psychological sense? Well, yes, we saw that the law firms that said, okay, thank you, Mr. So-and-So at NYU. You have just engaged in this anti-Semitic speech. You no longer have a job at our firm. That is not a violation of free speech because that's not Congress making a law. That is consequences attaching to your behavior. And when consequences attach to your behavior, your behavior can change. So I am not a free speech absolutist in that I don't believe there should be any restrictions at all. But I believe that what we should do is focus on the founding principles we're dealing with and say if we're gonna talk about the principles of all men are created equal and women are created equal. Every individual is of infinite dignity in the eyes of God and say those are our foundational principles upon which we can agree. And if we can't agree, then we can't have a conversation. But if we can agree on those things, then we'll talk about application of those. Okay, so you think that x-race or x-group of people is less deserving of the law's protection? Tell me more. And because when someone has to explain what they believe, then the best disinfectant as they say to bad speeches is light, put it in the light and require them to or invite them to have an opportunity to defend their position as opposed to saying you can't talk. Time, place, a man of restrictions, if you're gonna protest, you're gonna do that over there. You're not gonna do it in the middle of the conversation. So if we had somebody here who stood up right now and started yelling for whatever they wanna yell, that's not free speech. That is power exertion. If you want speech, you can go outside and you can wave whatever flag you wanna wave. So again, the best remedy for bad speech is more speech as opposed to squelching it. It hasn't worked over time to say you can't talk about things. For us, did you wanna weigh in on that point or we can? I mean, we can certainly move on. I would say that being a public institution, the rules that apply to us, the law that applies to us are different. And so the way we focus on addressing something like this is to do the best we can to educate our students and to cultivate in them a tolerance to the extent we can and to bring them together around these common ground values that I've spoken of so that we are more prepared in times of shock and in times of stress. And so I think, I mean, I'm very proud of our students at the University of Vermont and how they've behaved in these instances. We will not hesitate to take action if the safety, security, and of our students in our community is at risk. And we've done that. We've done that multiple times when we needed to. But we do want the students to learn how to handle complicated situations like this. And again, my own class has been a small model, but we're trying to sort of expand that across the whole university. I think we're gonna have a number of questions. So I'm not sure exactly who controls the mic here. I have more questions, but I wanna mix it up a bit and start by responding to some of the questions that you have. And the challenge is for me to be able to read them. So here's one. It seems today, values seem to be expressed as the justification for bad behavior by public leaders. How does this, I think I can't read it very well, but bad behavior by public leaders is a huge problem. And our leaders in Washington and some of our leaders in universities. What do you think about that? I'm against bad behavior by leaders. Me too. I think if people try to say, well, I have a different set of principles that I live by and as a result of which I can engage in this behavior. I think it's time for that person to have a different job. And we've seen that in some higher education institutions just recently, people who have been engaged in certain inappropriate sexual conduct with underlings or with students, inappropriate research conduct that have ended up costing them their job. And I think accountability is important. I ask my board that I report to to hold me accountable. That's an important part of their job. And the principles and the values that Pepperdine lives by are those that I expect to be held accountable to. And if I fall short of those, I expect consequences. We have no bad behavior in Vermont. Yeah, so much ice cream. So you don't need bad behavior. So here's an interesting one. Recently, the new speaker of the house has said his values can be found in the Bible. And it seems our government, good and bad, is found in the U.S. Constitution. What constitutional values can be found in the Bible? Love your neighbor as yourself. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Dasha, I love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. Those are some of the things that immediately come to mind. I think fairness and justice and not immediately going to litigation but trying to work it out, some mediation. Those are some initial reactions. No, all I would say, these are very weighty questions that are probably hard to handle in short answers. But I would say that every religion has great principles. It's how some groups apply some of those things that sometimes get complicated. But I think just love thy neighbor, if you will. And it's not just a Christian principle. I think it's true of all religions. And I think we can certainly, faith can, in my mind, in my personal experience, be a source of great core strength. And I think if it allows people to grow and to learn tolerance of other points of view, all the better. Here's one. So recently, the presidents of Yeshiva University and Baylor sent out letters, condemning the acts of October 7th. And some university presidents signed, only maybe about a hundred. Did you, if not, why? I'll start, I did not. And here's why. I had a conversation with Rabbi Berman about this as he was writing the letter. And he sent the letter to me in advance. And the question was, is this going to be to my community and to the larger community perceived as, okay, I need to be on this list. And so people can see it's some sort of performative statement. Or do I need to say what I think to my community and to the greater community? And I knew there was a conversation the following week with Rabbi Berman where we would have that conversation. So it wouldn't be, I've agreed to sign on to this principle, but what I told him during that conversation on stage is if I was going to write a statement for publication, it would have been very similar to the one you wrote. But like Suresh, we don't put out statements as a matter of course. Because then it's a, then everybody, and if you're like me, then you get an email every day or three from someone who says, I want your statement on climate change. I want your statement on their Armenian genocide. I want a statement on this or that or the other. And if that's all we would do is write statements to fulfill somebody else's desire for something to be said. Whereas we wanna make our principles clear. We wanna live out our principles. And when the opportunity presents itself, then we state what we think and what we stand for. And that's why I didn't sign that statement, but not because I didn't agree with what he said. And just so you know, what he said was, he stands with the people of Israel and the Palestinians who are suffering under the cruel rule of Hamas. It was not an Israel versus the Palestinian people. It was a Hamas is an evil organization that was engaged in evil things. And that needed to be said and I will say that again and again and again if people need me to say that. But our principles, our values are clear enough to where I don't think anybody wonders whether Pepperdine is against terrorist attacks. So we, as I said, I'm very, very cautious about putting out statements. So I don't consider what we did really a statement to the world at large. We did speak to our community that my provost and I wrote to our students and we certainly condemn terrorism. We talked about Israel, we talked about Gaza. But then we talked about how to be respectful, the resources available to our students. And I'm truly proud of our students. We did individual outreach to our students in Hillel and Abad and across the synagogues in Burlington, etc. And we talked to our Muslim students as well. And I think that was the more appropriate thing as a public-hired institution. I too am very leery of starting down the path that seems to become more and more common these days of commenting on any and all national events. I mean, I was asked about why am I not putting out a statement on the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Seemed, you know, just, if you start down that path, you would put out five statements a day. And I think that's not the role of a public-hired president. So we did not sign that to this, sir. So this is an interesting one. What question would you have for each other? My job gets easier. Okay, so what's your best athletic program? How are you gonna do this year? Yes, I have so many children, I love them all. We do really well in basketball, men and women's. We do really well in hockey, lacrosse and soccer. And I'm so thankful we don't have a football program. So I was at Purdue University for 20 years and we had a great football program. But my question to you is really, I guess what I'm noticing and I knew about her and you did a great job putting this panel together, whether or not the individuals, it's not about the individuals, but we come from such different ends of the higher ed spectrum, a faith-based private school versus a public higher ed, very old, one of the oldest schools in the country that comes from a state that really cares about social justice and the environment and sustainability and so on. So I'm curious about how perhaps you think about where we could all learn from each other and find common ground. Yeah. I think it really revolves around the idea of civil discourse. We're all familiar with, as you mentioned, Vermont's social justice and sustainability. California has a fair bit of that as well. I typically don't use the term social justice. I just use the term justice. I think if justice needs a modifier, it's not justice. But I think we have a conversation, we need to have a conversation about how to have those who are completely convinced that the world is changing as we know it in our lifetime through climate versus those who say, I'm not actually sure that the evidence is there and you're scaring, you know what, out of our kids who are already having a major challenge with mental health. And just like, let's have a conversation about things we disagree with and get to the bottom where we can agree, we love the planet, we wanna take care of it. What's the next step up? We can all agree that scientific discovery is a positive thing and resource preservation is a positive thing. Okay, from there. And then fear, where is it that we actually disagree? So like on abortion, for example, like if you started with, what is a fundamental principle that's most important is that the preservation of life or the potential of life or is it individual autonomy in reproductive health? And if you can agree on the foundational principles or say, here's where we disagree, then we can have a conversation. But if we're just gonna shout at each other with slogans and say, I'm pro-life, you're pro-death, I'm pro-choice, you're anti-choice, we're not getting anywhere. And so I think figuring out how to have conversations and something that we did, I'm sorry I'm talking so long on this, is to get somebody like Robbie George. You're a lawyer, we expect that. I'll live up to that challenge. We have somebody like Robbie George who is an outspoken conservative and Cornel West who's an outspoken progressive and have them on stage together. Let's have a conversation and figure out where the common ground is and where we differ and really do a whole lot more of that. And so Robbie George now is a visiting professor at Pepperdine and we're enjoying the light that he brings to our campus and Cornel West is a regular visitor to campus as well. And we enjoy the light that he brings and the entertainment value he brings as well. So we have something called the Janus Forum which we bring Janus for obvious reasons, opposing viewpoints. You know, one thing that I think can help is this experiential learning, right? And I'm a big fan of students getting off of campus. Classroom education is one thing but the more they can be exposed to studying abroad or to working in companies, working in service learning courses and just being in the community, the more they can open up and have more real life experiences. And I think the more uncomfortable places they can be in, the more they can grow. So go to a country where you don't speak the language and such. So I think at least as far as students go, I'm a big fan of that and I think maybe exposing our students to each other's very different. Coming to Malibu is helpful. Happy to do that any day. And I'll come to Vermont in the three months and it's not snowing. President Garmella, let me ask you about international partnerships. You know, after World War II for a couple of decades in the 20th century, the US controlled the lion's share of the top 50 research universities in the world. That's been sliding a bit. A lot of that happened due to the fact that we had partnerships abroad with other universities bringing talent pool in from other parts of the world. That's been slipping as well. That's probably a bigger issue for your institution than Pepperdine, but it's a huge one for the future of the American Academy. Can you speak to that? So I'm really a big fan as I sort of indicated of international partnerships. Even internal, I mean, domestic partnerships too. I served a term as a science fellow at the State Department and I was at the intersection of clean energy and climate change and so on and sort of talked to the oil and gas people and the renewable energy people, et cetera. And throughout that time, it was obvious to me that the one thing the world agreed on about the US was on our science, at least on that front, doesn't matter which country you went to, they thought very highly of the United States, science and technology and things like that and our higher education system. We had so many universities from across the world come to Purdue University at that time where I was to learn about extension system. I mean, the Land-Grant Act that I talked about sort of also spawned this extension system which is so unique to us so the world looks to the US as a beacon for a lot of this and precisely for our values because they're shared and held widely in terms of open inquiry and research integrity and things like this and so I think that it's a missed opportunity to turn away from the world. There are countries that you and I work on, this committee on that take advantage of our openness but otherwise I think for us to make deep connections with, you know, I was deeply engaged with the country of Columbia and they looked to us to come and help them with a science and systems-driven approach to developing the Orinoquia region which is about 40% of the country and for them to have the faith in us to come and help them with something like that and it was the opportunity of lifetime for me and for our students, for our faculty to learn about something so different so I really think that the science diplomacy is something that the more we can capitalize on, it directly speaks to our national security and our competitiveness too. We do need to be the leader in the world and I think there are a lot of like-minded countries that we should enhance our partnerships with and not shy away from. I'm looking at a number of these and I'm gonna try to pull some of the threads together. You know, you've talked about Hamas as being an example of terrorism, what it did on October 7th but I think we are sometimes missing the fact that this has been a geopolitical earthquake. This is not an act of mere terrorism. For many, this is genocide. That's how Hamas has described it itself. That's how World War II in the European Theater happened we're at something like that before now and whatever this war, if it expands, it is a different world that we're coming into and it's in fact, it's maybe one that we aren't prepared for. Some have said, well, it's like the 1970s but this is like the 1930s. How are you preparing your institutions for this new world that we're facing? One that could lead to a war for a very long time. Wars tend to go long. If they don't end quickly, they take a long time to end like the Afghan war and then they don't end well. And when you see anti-Semitism, there's a larger sickness in society. Racism isn't far behind and other things as well. How are you preparing for one, the new world and for the sickness that's in our society? It's both at home and abroad. I think what we're seeing in universities around the country is the revelation of just the deep sickness in our society. That this isn't really about civil discourse. It's a more fundamental set of problems. I'm a lawyer so I'm a little bit out of my lane talking about geopolitical situations. But what I would say is what we're doing is we're hiring people who know what they're talking about there and giving them a microphone in leadership position like you, Tyron, like Pete Peterson, our school public policy dean who's there. We had Richard Haas at Pepperdine last night. He had dinner with us and spoke to 500 of our students about the geopolitical situation happening right now. Richard Haas, former head of the Council on Foreign Relations, trying to ensure that our students are exposed to those who have done some serious thinking about this and have been involved in this, but also trying to help them decide who they are and what matters to them. And part of that is just this mentorship, this life on life mentorship of a faculty member or a staff member who can walk this journey who's on the same path they're on but a few steps ahead and saying, follow me, this is where faith and higher education will lead someone in terms of the global justice work we do around the world. The reason I've been to Uganda 29 times and the reason we have people embedded in these countries right now is to try to help those countries as they mature, have mature legal systems to deal with the challenges that if they're not dealt with, result in the things that we're seeing. And so trying to be in the, not just the beautiful rich places around the world, but in the developing world as well and having our students there on a regular basis is an important part of, I think, what higher education can do. And my answer would be quite similar to Jim's on this one. So we have, you all know Senator Leahy who's served 48 years in the Senate and has been really one of the adults, one of the more sane politicians and a leader and a statesman. And he's now a President's Distinguished Fellow at the University of Vermont. He stepped down and he's inspiring. And there are a lot of opportunities for our students to talk to him and have him come and speak at events. And of course we've got other leaders who we invite all the time. So I really think that the dire situation you paint is very troubling. There's a lot of things in the world that are deeply concerning. And yet as an institution of higher education we're uniquely positioned to train our students to expand their horizons, to arm them with tools to address this. And I really think as I said earlier on that today's student and this generation is anxious to make a difference. They're generous, they're caring. And so we need to not, our goal is not to indoctrinate them but to open their minds and the more we can expose them to great experiences, international experiences, the better. And so I think the way we can do this is inoculate our students by giving them the tools to address this kind of thing, come what may. And I am very optimistic about today's generation because they really want to make a difference and they care. And I think caring is where it starts. If I could just follow up. I completely agree with you on this generation and their potential. But they're coming to us, sociologists tell us, they're coming to us with the resilience and independence of last generation's 14 year olds. And so when I was 14, when you were 14, starting college would not have been a good idea. And yet what we're doing, it's not their fault. It's our fault. We as parents, we as a technology sector have given them the entire world in their pocket, in their hand at all times to compare themselves to somebody's best day, best moment of best day exaggerated and for them to say, I'm not measuring up. And so for us to say, buck up, this generation is struggling. It's not their struggling. We have done something to them that we have to help them figure out how to get out of. And part of that, we believe at Pepperdine is resilience training. Every single freshman for eight weeks of semester goes through a weekly training in resilience. You can do hard things. When you fail, you can try again and ensuring that they don't feel coddled. This idea of a safe space, I understand the reason behind it and I embrace the idea of people feeling like they're physically safe. But to go to a university and say, I want to be safe from ideas that I disagree with is harmful to them. And what it does is it reinforces the lack of the ability to do hard things that we have put them in a position of. And so I think they're gonna be a phenomenal generation because they care so much. But we have to help them get from caring so much to be able to do hard things. And right now, unless we actively help them, then we've got a generation that is struggling with mental health in ways that no generation in history of the world ever has. Don't take my word for it, go read about that. That's not in dispute. This is an interesting question. What are your thoughts about the suggestion by many that the return or the study of, return to or study of American values will probably be best in a more conservative leaning institution like Hillsdale College or the new college in Florida that other institutions like the ones you represent just can't really do it? I think we'll end on that question. Yeah, I don't know how much time we have, but I really think that one of the values, we've talked about freedom, we've talked about Jim started his comments with that. I think one value that I as an immigrant to this country and proud immigrant to this country believe so much in is in this concept of America as a lot of opportunity. Jefferson way back, my favorite quote of Jefferson's is he said, let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity. So you want an aristocracy but of achievement, but the opportunity has to be democratic. Karen said I serve on the National Science Board I'm very proud to do that. And we care so much about the geography of innovation that it's not like somehow there's innovators in the Bay Area and innovators in Boston and innovators in the research triangle park. Innovators are everywhere in the country. What's missing in opportunity is opportunity. And I think it's that democracy of opportunity which the Land Grant Act brought about, the GI Bill brought about, the Civil Rights Act brought about. And that to me is a value which a public higher education institution is uniquely positioned to bring about, we do that well. And I think it leads to social mobility. And I think it's a solution to a lot of root causes today. Yeah. I'm going on an optimistic note here. I respect the schools that you talked about. I'm a fan of them. I'm a fan of a lot of schools. I don't think it's only those schools that can do this. If you have a balance of people who can look at the history, look at the culture and do so from multiple perspectives, then that's when the students are gonna be best. It's not gonna be best when you're only in a monoculture. And I'm not suggesting those schools that you said are a monoculture, but we don't wanna have only conservatives or only progressives. You wanna have a mix and let people come to the conclusions that they come to based upon the evidence that's presented. Truth, one of our affirmations, truth has nothing to fear from investigation. It should be relentlessly pursued in all disciplines. That's what it is. And the final thing I'll say is what James Monroe said is what we're trying to do. What James Monroe said, so the question to be asked at the end of the educational enterprise is not what has the student learned, but instead who has the student become. And so our job as presidents of private and public institutions of higher education is to help the students become. And we believe that there is a lot of room for that still in American society built upon the foundational principles that we started talking about. So thank you, Kyron. Well, we have lots of additional questions, but I think we have to, we're over time. And I believe you can mingle with our guests and continue this conversation. I wanna, again, thank you. And people say San Francisco's so progressive you can't have these conversations here. The Commonwealth Club shows. Do they know we're here? The Commonwealth Club shows that it is open for diverse dialogue. And we really thank Dr. Gloria Duffy for the culture that she's helped foster. I wanna again thank Diane and Tad Toby for their leadership on discussing American values. We have more to come in this series. Dean Pete Peterson and Shayna Penn for supporting this effort as well. And thank all of you for your time. Let's thank our panelists. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.