Fred Concludes

The next 50 years are hard to plan for, because the unexpected can always happen. But if you look at what was true in 1959, or 57 when the college was founded, and the difference between then and 2007, 50 years later, it's almost unbelievable what the things are that nobody visualized 50 years ago. We tried, we tried hard, but we... some of the things took and some of the things didn't. But what the college can-- uh what the university can do in the next 50 years is going to depend on the society, globalization, instant communication, and the broadening of specialties and new specialties we don't even dream of. I noticed the 10 most important kinds of work visualized between-- in the next 10 years by the Department of Labor, of the 5.1 million new jobs in the major areas, 75% of them are going to be related to computers. Almost all the rest are going to be related to medical care. What that means for the college and university that is ready to act on it, means that they will have great opportunities in particularly in those areas. On the other hand, I think area studies and knowledge of the multiple cultures of our world are going to be of major need still for the students to have as part of a liberal education. And so, people who will be working 50 years from now will have the results of the work that the people are doing right now, just as the people who are at Cal State East Bay now have the results of the work we did 50 years ago.