Shortly after Chancellor Nancy Cantor began her inaugural year’s ‘Soul of Syracuse’ theme, the Bird Library created a place on its Web site where people could post their ideas of what a soul is.

With her inaugural year drawing to a close, Cantor’s soul site had received some 75,000 hits, with postings of 14 different definitions and 24 reflections, she said in her keynote address Monday afternoon in Hendricks Chapel to a crowd of about 900.

In his introduction, the Rev. Thomas Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel, thanked the members of the community at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet School and the Erie Canal Museum that had helped make the chancellor’s 24-hour ‘whirlwind’ in the community possible.

‘It is important to remember that this is a gathering of campus and community, and because of this fact, it is a blessing,’ Wolfe said in his remarks.

During her 40-minute address, the chancellor both recalled the accomplishments of this year in the response to her exploration of the soul of Syracuse and her plans for the future and the continuance of this theme.

‘I find a strongly enterprising streak in Syracuse that mixes optimism and realism and the will to keep at it, whatever ‘it’ demands,’ Cantor said.

Cantor praised the signs of scholarship in action, including the many symposia and conferences that have addressed various issues of social concern, the creative exchanges between disciplines and colleges.

The university’s continuing efforts to acknowledge the history and struggles of diversity were also noted as successes in the chancellor’s address.

As a university is only as strong as its students, Cantor emphasized investing in ways to financially help attract lower- and middle-class students. It is these students, she said, that might bring the most to the table with life experiences in different and diverse backgrounds and experiences.

‘We are more interested in getting the student who, with the opportunity given here, will change the world-and perhaps make the university famous-than the student who wants to come to a famous university for the lust of its name,’ she said.

Currently, there are proposals for initiatives offering more financial aid for lower- and middle-class students, which will be a focus of the upcoming fundraising campaign, Cantor said.

Additionally, Dean David Rubin of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Vice President of Enrollment Management David Smith will co-chair a committee to find ways to recruit those students, Cantor said.

‘Politically correct or not, there is a vibrancy that comes from engaging difference,’ Cantor said, ‘and we learn from both the differences exposed and the solidarity that sometimes follows.’

In a year hallmarked by a number of plans and ideas for breaking down walls between the city and the university, there have been tangible results of the chancellor’s efforts as well.

The School of Architecture’s new warehouse location-currently under renovation-the securing of donations from Congressman Jim Walsh for the Connective Corridor, funding for interdisciplinary programs, a change in the discount rate for student aid to help students and an increased presence in New York City and Los Angeles were just some of the clear results the chancellor listed in an interview following the speech.

Though much of the address concerned the results of this first year of exploration, the chancellor also outlined her plans for the continuance and expansion of the theme, suggesting investments to better the campus and create partnerships in the community.

‘As we think about where Syracuse University should be five to ten years from now,’ she said, ‘we want the reputation and visibility of the entire university to be as good as its individual parts … ‘

The plan for the future creative campus emphasized the creation of interdisciplinary areas as the core of the university. Cantor emphasized four areas-faculty and professional excellence; creating access for students; engaging the world on a city, national and global level and creating social capital.

‘We share a hope in our ability to keep attracting talent-students faculty, staff and partners with the will to ‘color outside the lines,’ so that the experience of Syracuse can be transformational-changing ours and ourselves for the better,’ she said.

Cantor emphasized the three broad areas in the academic plan-science and technology; human needs, social policy and community and economic development and the public humanities, communication and arts-as the focus of the many investments.

‘We’ve got a rich base in each of the three, a core to build on,’ Cantor said afterward.

These investments would take different forms in different areas; Cantor said. She emphasized the recruitment and aid for graduate students and faculty in areas that cut across colleges and disciplines.

‘In light of our long traditions of excellence in scholarship in action, across our colleges, I believe that Syracuse can and should play a national leadership role in working on expanded guild lines for the evaluation of faculty excellence,’ she said.

As the university makes continued commitments to faculty and students, it will also need to commit to housing its members, a need met by the $258 million renovation and building plans announced March 30, Cantor said.

These renovations, as well as increased work in areas from as close as downtown to as far as the abroad programs in Beijing are all part of the expansion off the Hill and an effort to create and sustain lasting relationships with the community.

The end goal of these efforts, is the creation of ‘social capital,’ Cantor said. The continuing connections will foster innovation and make difference, she said.

‘Citizenship is both about what you do yourself and about making common cause with others,’ Cantor said. ‘Examining ourselves and our own community is critical to education, but it sometimes happens best in the company of others.’

The address also included the unveiling of SU painting professor Gary Trento’s portrait of Cantor in a pose that both fills the space and invites all to join her, said Carole Brzozowski, the dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Wolfe and Brzozowski unveiled the portrait as Cantor nervously watched and blew a kiss at Trento, who was seated in the balcony.

Suzanne Haas-Cunningham, a professor of marriage and family therapy, sang her own song expressing the pain of those trapped the world of those surrounded by gangs and violence.

Cantor has built trust and built lasting groundwork in the community that will continue to benefit students and the community, said Lauren D’Angelo, a freshman policy studies major and student liaison to the traditions commission.

‘It’s extraordinary what she’s done,’ D’Angelo said. ‘The bond she’s building with the community is going to help further down the line … I’m proud to be at the university with her now.’

Published on April 11, 2005 at 12:00 pm