Thank you very much, Ed. It is a great pleasure to be here and to have this opportunity to welcome this group. I'm very proud of what Ed and Howard Prince and their colleagues have put together in the form of this leadership education conference.

I do want to welcome each of you to the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. We're honored to host not only each of you as participants, but the many distinguished panelists who are participating in the conference on ethical leadership. I do regret to inform you that you're about 48 hours too late. Many of the people around who understood leadership left town this weekend and may not return for a while. We all hope they took enough expertise in ethical leadership with them; otherwise they might wear out their welcome in a hurry.

Seriously, this is a time to reflect on the role of ethical leadership for a changing world. The problem of leadership is more acute, I think, than at any other time in human history, because we're more elaborately organized as a society than at any other time in human history, and because events tend to wear out leaders more rapidly than at any other time in human history. So the problem of renewal, and the problem of gaining sufficient leadership, and placing on top of that a need for ethical leadership in a more open society and in a society that is less certain of where its ethics lies, creates a terrifically difficult set of problems to work on. So you have no shortage of material.

For our out-of-town guests, we do hope that your visit to Austin will be enjoyable and productive. I want to invite each of you to make yourselves at home on this campus while you're here. Please feel free to visit U.T.'s libraries, museums, centers, exhibitions, and other attractions. I know you won't have a lot of time, but maybe you'll have a little bit. We're proud of this university and its offerings, and we gladly open our doors to each one of you.

I would like to add to Ed's comments in congratulating once more Howard Prince and his colleagues for establishing the Center for Ethical Leadership here at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. This activity, this center, has my fullest support. I think it's a terrific direction for Ed and Howard to be taking the school's programs in. The creation of a community of leadership educators examining issues which are, as I mentioned earlier, more complicated and more acute than before, developing a new generation of leaders, those are issues, those are problems, those are challenges that are worthy of the focus of a great institution, and this conference marks an impressive beginning to that activity.

President Jimmy Carter once observed that we must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. It seems to me that this is a large part of the challenge of leadership- ethical leadership-in today's world, to adapt and adjust while at the same time basing our judgments on enduring principles. It requires a skillful balancing act, and of course, it's always good to hear from those who have succeeded, and that's what this conference is about.

I commend Howard, Ed, and colleagues for providing this forum. The list of speakers and panelists is impressive. I thank the speakers and panelists for being here and participating. I'm sure all of you will benefit from this panoply of expertise and inspiration. Thank you all for participating. We hope this will kick off a great tradition of developing leaders who know what they're doing and can work in the best interest of people and society in the LBJ School. Thank you.