As candidates for an advanced degree from Duke, you new students join an academic community whose interests span almost the full spectrum of human endeavor - business, law, government, medicine, sciences, humanities and arts. You've come to Duke to study because you have a talent and a curiosity that drives you to seek specialized learning in one of these fields. And you've come, I trust, with some appreciation of the blood, sweat and tears that must be expended, figuratively or literally, for success in this pursuit.

However, essential as this may be, the mastery of specialized knowledge and technique should not be all that defines your experience at Duke. Such mastery should be viewed as necessary, but not sufficient. It is all too easy to allow the demands of advanced scholarly achievement to make you insular, to isolate you from the remarkable scope and breadth of what goes on within this University.

An English scientist, novelist and essayist named Charles Percy Snow, later Sir Charles, captured the attention of the academic world about 40 years ago when he published a lecture he had delivered at Cambridge University entitled The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. Snow remarked on what he perceived to be a growing and dangerous schism between the sciences and the humanities. His premise was simple and based on the naï stereotypic thinking he saw creeping into the life of the academy. He characterized literary intellectuals as "natural Luddites" and scientists as "ignorant specialists," and concluded that "This polarization is sheer loss to us all, to us as people, to our society." Further, he believed that the breakdown of communication between these two cultures threatens the progress of civilization. Events since the publication of The Two Cultures have not lessened the powerful centrifugal forces that constantly work to divide different components of a University into fragments, often indifferent to each other, and occasionally hostile.

I sometimes observe cultural divisiveness at work from my observation post in the School of Medicine. I hear references to unbecoming stereotypes applied by medical school faculty to those from other schools, by clinicians to basic scientists, or vice versa. Echoing C.P. Snow's description of "ignorant specialists" and "natural Luddites", different groups of faculty may be perceived by others as advanced but narrow technocrats, or conversely as intellectual but impractical snobs. Such invective may sometimes grow more colorful, and one can even have some fun at this: "hyperactive megalomaniacs", "bombastic philistines" and "dithering esthetes" come to mind. For the most part, such talk, though disrespectful, is not malicious, but reflects merely a gross exaggeration of underlying cultural differences, with humorous intent. However, conditioning of expectations, even subliminally, by means of such stereotypes can halt or delay potential collaborations, and opportunities for meaningful achievements may be lost.

It is not only cultural distinctions between the medical school and the rest of the University that should concern us. Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson, in his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, wrote "the same professional atomization afflicts the social sciences and humanities'to be an original scholar is to be a highly specialized world authority in a polyglot Calcutta of similarly focused world authorities." We have, in fact, far more than two dividing lines between different academic cultures at Duke that may separate us into insular fragments. We have many.

Former Duke President Terry Sanford observed and encouraged a propensity for "outrageous ambition" as a distinctive feature of our University. President Keohane has carried that banner grandly into the 21rst century. We would dishonor both of their legacies, however, if we were to allow our very real underlying cultural differences to twist Sanford's famous phrase from "outrageous ambition" into "outrageous arrogance" and "thwarted ambition". We can do better , and we must, if Duke is to gain the competitive advantage against peer institutions that the splendidly beautiful and compact geography of our campus should afford.

My primary message today is that we help ourselves as individuals and as a community if we strive to create countervailing centripetal forces to draw divergent parts of the University community together. Happily, I believe that many within our faculty and administration are working with a will to create forces of unity rather than schism. We should remember that the ultimate purpose of the pursuit of knowledge, in science, humanities, and the arts is the attempt to explain the universe and our place in it. This goal supercedes all others, even those that appear to have more immediate or practical value. To do this we have to make connections; we have to show that knowledge has a context. It is the linking of facts and the threads that run between disciplines that provide that context.

Historian Gerald Holton points to a world view from classical times he termed the Ionian Enchantment - "a belief in the unity of the sciences, a conviction that the world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws." This principle has been extended quite explicitly by some to include human behavior and the functioning of human societies. Albert Einstein said "It is a wonderful feeling to recognize the unity of a complex of phenomena that to direct observation appear to be quite separate things." Some may disagree that we will ever identify natural laws that account for the complexities of human actions, or even that it would be wise to do so if we could. However, that "wonderful feeling" described by Einstein, I believe, will be found increasingly at the intersections of humanities and sciences.

To quote EO Wilson again, "the greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempt to link the sciences and humanities" because "when we have enough unified knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here. ' The strongest appeal ' is the prospect of intellectual adventure and, given even modest success, the value of understanding the human condition with a higher degree of certainty."

There are some interesting, even spectacular, examples of success in activities of this nature at Duke. Increasingly we have scholars bold enough to cross cultural divides to make the connections. Increasingly, the leaders of our University are finding ways to structure the environment for learning and research at Duke to make it easier for faculty and students to make the contacts that drive this kind of thinking. As new graduate and professional students you should make yourselves aware of these initiatives and ask the question whether some form of participation in cross-disciplinary research is right for your own academic path. The opportunities abound. At the very least, visit the art museum, come to the Chapel, get out to plays and concerts, go to some lectures and discussions outside of your field. And, of course, by all means get yourselves into Cameron Indoor Stadium if you can.

I am most familiar, of course, with the new programs that are forging partnerships between the School of Medicine and other schools of our campus. The Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy led by Hunt Willard provides a robust point of conjunction for many fields of study within the University in driving, interpreting, and understanding advances in biology and biomedical technologies that are certain to evoke fundamental changes in society. The new Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) is being built just down the hill from where we are now, and provides one of several literally concrete statements of this University's commitment to seek unity, rather than fragmentation, of our composite parts.

There are many other examples of notable cross-disciplinary work here--in environmental studies, in our understanding of the functioning of the human mind as we make decisions, in combating terrorist threats to the world community, to name only a few. Just this month, investigators from Duke led by our brilliant and gentlemanly Neurobiologist Dale Purves announced their discovery that musical structure--how composers combine chords and scales to make harmonious music--is deeply rooted to fundamental patterns found in human speech across all languages. Biomedical scientists choosing to study a subject so clearly embedded in the arts helps us understand a little more about what makes us human.

You get the idea. There is a movable feast out there. Stay on track within your focused specialty, but be aware of the opportunities that lie at the less trodden boundaries, rather than the well-plowed mainstream furrows, of your separate fields. Remember that you are now part of a greater University community - a new family - that will demand much of you, but will embrace joyously your accomplishments and contributions.

Finally, I offer one additional variation on my admonition that you should seek the convergence of the different domains of life and beware of scholarly myopia. In your zeal to achieve at the highest level in your chosen craft, don't forget to take care of those precious ones around you - lovers, spouses, children, parents and friends who are not sharing directly in the experiences you will be having as advanced students. The demands of intensive scholarship within any of our schools can too easily become all consuming, and separate you from those who most need and deserve your attention. And speaking of your attention, I thank you for what of that you have given to me today. I wish you good fortune in your work and Godspeed in your lives.