Barnard
College Annual Awards Dinner Sumner M. Redstone
Chairman and CEO, Viacom Inc. March 30, 2000
Thank
you, Judith.
I'd
like to take a moment to congratulate Karen Katen
on winning the Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger award.
And
I want to thank Carol Herring, the dinner chairs,
and everyone else who put so much effort into organizing
tonight's event. And thanks also to Anna for emceeing
with such grace and wit. I have always been a fan,
and my admiration of her many talents has grown
tonight.
While
I certainly do not take myself too seriously as
an honoree, nonetheless, I am honored to receive
the Frederick A. P. Barnard award. For Frederick
Barnard devoted much of his remarkable life to the
cause of women's education-which a century ago was
a radical idea indeed. Frederick Barnard was a courageous
and tireless crusader and to be associated with
him in even the slightest manner is a true honor.
Education
has always been an important part of my life. In
fact, I still lecture whenever I can at several
universities in my hometown of Boston. That is one
reason why it is such a pleasure to be recognized
by an institution of higher learning, especially
one that for over a century has given young women
an incomparable educational experience. Barnard
has created a learning environment that is not only
unique but nurturing as well ... nurturing in the
sense that it offers its students abundant opportunities
to achieve their full potential … nurturing in the
sense that it exposes young women to the idea that
thinking, educated, and disciplined men and women
have the power within them to create a new and better
world.
My
own school experience had an all-encompassing, pervasive
and enduring impact, not simply on my personality
and character-such as they may be-but upon my goals,
my dreams, indeed upon the entire philosophy of
my life. It inspired in me the ability to achieve
success and the character to withstand disappointment.
School
taught me the value of individual achievement, to
be prepared to ignore what and how others did it
... or did not do it; that to be merely a follower
was a roadblock to progress and individual achievement.
At school I learned that to live creatively and
to fulfill oneself, one must be ready to live dangerously;
that one must take the risk of failure if one wants
the possibility of success. Above all, I learned
what has indeed become a focal point of my business
life and the life of Viacom: that nothing counted
except ability and competence and commitment and
caring; not race, not color, not sex, not family,
not religion but excellence ... achievement and
a commitment to excellence.
Although
Barnard makes it look easy, it takes a tremendous
effort to create an optimum environment for a diverse
group of young people to learn. You can create the
setting-build the classrooms, hire the faculty,
design the curriculum-for those who can afford to
foot the bill. But to create a diverse, nurturing,
and realistic educational setting, you need to reach
out to the best and the brightest … and not only
the wealthiest.
A
Barnard education would be unattainable for many
young women without its remarkable financial aid
program, which assists more than half the Barnard
student body. Everyone here should be proud of their
role in furthering this important effort.I have
always believed that education is not a privilege,
it is a necessity; and not just for individuals,
but for the world at large. It is at institutions
like Barnard that students are taught that our civilization
is shaped by the emphasis it places on enlightenment
and education. And it is at institutions like Barnard
where young people have the chance to become informed
and active inhabitants of our planet, people with
the potential to change the world. Indeed, it is
at institutions like Barnard that young people are
made to understand that what happens to our values
and, therefore, to the quality of our civilization
in the future will be shaped by the behavior and
conceptions of driven individuals. And, indeed,
the forces of good and evil in the world are propelled
by the thoughts, by the attitudes, and, in the final
analysis, by the actions of individual human beings.
It's quite appropriate that this gathering is taking
place in March-Women's History Month. It's a time
when we as a society reflect on the remarkable-and
too often overlooked-contributions that women have
made to the world we share ... a time when we celebrate
the women who challenged perceptions-who lived dangerously,
risked failure, and ultimately succeeded. For these
women learned the necessity that we perpetuate always
an atmosphere of free inquiry, the exercise of creative
judgment, and the need to be a social critic. They
were taught to construct and not to destroy, to
adhere to convictions and ideals while tolerating
a diversity of opinion and a readiness for experimentation.
They learned to search and listen and expect that
something better may be in the making, to be hopeful
despite tension and conflict, and to always be prepared
to challenge pervasive injustice with force and
take sharp issue with the wide disparity between,
on the one hand, the quality of society which we
know is reasonable and possible, and on the other
hand, the actual performance of the whole range
of institutions that exist to serve society. They
were taught to be critical but understood that criticism,
as a total preoccupation, is sterile; and that it
is insufficient to take a vocal stand against injustice
and hypocrisy without becoming an affirmative builder
of a better society.
Speaking of changing the world, Barnard has educated
some of the very women we celebrate during Women's
History Month, women such as Margaret Mead, Zora
Neale Hurston, and Jeane Kirkpatrick. These women
made significant contributions to all of us. These
are women who understood the power that they had
within them to create a new and better world. Women
who understood, indeed, that the quality of our
civilization would be saved by the behavior and
conception, by the thoughts and by the attitudes
and by the actions of individual human beings. And
these women were determined to narrow that wide
disparity between the quality of the society which
they knew was reasonable and possible and the actual
performance, which was simply not enough. There
are many other examples … some right in this room,
such as Anna Quindlen.
With
its proven record of excellence, I have no doubt
that Barnard will continue to produce exceptional
women. And thus I am proud-as I'm sure are all of
you-to be even a small part of its history.
Thank
you.
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