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For a future student, I would say that like myself, I began with art illuminating my life, and
showing me a road from which to partake and to benefit from. And that road has shown me
that it has so many riches, and so many directions, so many facets, that it truly made my life
happy and successful. And I would recommend every student to approach art as a beginning
or as an inspiration for their future and for their education.
I believe that education of art is so important, because when the students leave after graduation,
they will spread to the world, to the entire world, the lessons that they have learned
here, and how art has given them another facet in life. And how art has shown them new possibilities.
And they will spread that word to others who will also learn to appreciate the greatness
of UC Davis.
Jan and I believe that art and education should be accessible to everyone. And I think this
museum will accomplish.
I was in a group with faculty from, and other administrators, from across various universities.
across academe. And we were talking about the importance of the arts in a research university.
And there was a colleague who asked me, he said, "You know with sciences, we discovered
nature. With engineering, we discovered technology. What is the role of the arts?" And I thought,
well with the arts we discover ourselves. And that was, in my mind, why the arts were
important, a big part of a public research university. So that's what I hope the arts
will help us do on this campus.
My aspirations would be that the students take advantage of it. That they are inspired
by something that otherwise they could not find! And through that, that it adds to their
life. But in a good way. Maybe in a way that they then become more creative, that they
appreciate what they see, that they'll bring their children to museums. That it continues
and you know, there's so much beauty in the world if we look for it. So much. And that
would be my aspiration, that this is a place where you find this beauty. That you're inspired,
that you go home and you start sketching the cherry tree in front of your window. You know,
something like that.
I really feel that we have three stage in life. The first one-third is to learn. The
second third is to work very hard. And the third is to give back to enrich other people's
life. And philanthropy is one expression that everybody should think and do it in the third
phase of life.
There's something incredibly special about the arts at UC Davis. And I don't know whether
it's the air in the central valley, or this campus that is free of preconceived notions
in so many ways. This is a campus about discovery, about finding new ways of doing things, of
making. And somehow, in the spirit of this campus, the arts have really flourished.
We are the most intellectually diverse campus or university in the UC system. And that is
very important because today we are training our students, we educate our students to solve
the big challenges that we face as a society. It's not about learning a profession, it's
not about learning a discipline, it's about creating the skills to be able to solve important
problems. And the fact that we have a very vibrant arts program, we have strong humanities,
we have strong sciences and engineering, and agriculture, and medicine. It really helps
us as a university community to be able to come together and solve big problems. And
that's why I truly believe that what we have is very unique. And it's also the reason we
are becoming and will be one of the top five public research universities, and we are very
well on our way there.