Commitment
Please think back to President
Johnson's statement about the LBJ School on the preceding page.
No President did more than Lyndon Johnson to help this country live up to its promise of justice, equality and opportunity. However, we still have a very long way to go. We are constantly discovering new challenges and finding new solutions to old problems. Our task at the LBJ School is to prepare our students to cope with new as well as with continuing challenges.
When the LBJ School was founded 30 years ago, for example, many of us believed that government alone could cure this nation's social and economic ills. Today, we understand that the private sector is the primary generator of economic opportunity, and that the nonprofit sector is an important provider of health, education and welfare services. So, we now offer joint degrees with UT's McCombs School of Business and with the School of Law, and we offer a concentration in nonprofit management through our new RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service.
Thirty years ago, our goal was to produce experts--"policy wonks." Our graduates were taught the most sophisticated analytic methods and they quickly established themselves as ideal staffers--knowledgeable, energetic, resourceful. However, expertise takes one only so far. After one has figured out what to do, one still must figure out how to do it--how to "sell" the solution, organize resources, motivate colleagues and marshall public support. We recently created a Center for Ethical Leadership to help prepare our graduates for those situations in which leadership is more important than expertise.
Thirty years ago, we viewed issues of justice, equality and opportunity primarily in racial terms. As our society grows more diverse, we must learn to look at these issues across a spectrum of color, not just in black and white. Several years ago, LBJ School students initiated the annual Barbara Jordan Memorial Forum on Diversity in Public Policy as a venue for discussing the complex interplay of race, ethnicity, nationality and gender; and our Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources follows issues related to diversity in the workplace.
Thirty years ago, our focus was primarily domestic. Today, our interests span the globe. Our faculty offers courses on international trade, environmental policy and national security. We have developed a research institute focusing on technology policy, and we offer joint degrees with UT's regional studies programs. This does not mean that we are giving less attention to domestic policy issues, however. Indeed, we are in the process of establishing a Health and Social Policy Program.
These changes are intended to prepare our graduates for the world that they will encounter. However, two things about the LBJ School have not changed. One is a high quality faculty whose primary focus is on students: the LBJ School has always been extraordinary in terms of teaching and mentoring. Second is the commitment to justice, equality and opportunity. That is what links our graduates, past and future, to the legacy of Lyndon Johnson.
Photo by Marsha Miller, UT Austin Office of Public Affairs
