When a holiday falls on Monday, I’ll send my message on Tuesday morning. Since Monday was Labor Day, this message is about the new world of labor and work.
When our son, Jason, graduated from college, we asked him the question many parents ask their children, “what do you want to do with your life?” Jason said something I never would have thought to say to my parents. He said “Mom, Dad – what I want to do hasn’t been invented yet.”
We are educating and training students for jobs and careers that don’t yet exist, using technologies that have not yet been invented, to address challenges and opportunities that we don’t yet recognize. Think artificial intelligence, virtual reality, machine learning, 3-D printed buildings, and driverless cars. In a world that is coming at us at lightning speed, we must do what made the great Wayne Gretsky a hall of fame hockey player. Gretsky noted, “I just learned to skate where the puck was going, not where it was.”
Globalization, urbanization, and digital transformation have made all of us knowledge workers. Auto mechanics no longer start by popping the hood; they download diagnostic data from a port near the steering column. The same people who shape steel to make cars now also shape steel to make wind turbines and program machines to build solar panels. According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, every 2 days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.
I have a lot to learn from our faculty, students, staff, and alumni, but one thing I know for sure is that the secret of success in a changing world is constant adaptation and innovation. Standing still is falling behind. Think Kodak, Blockbuster, My Space, and BlackBerry. We must continue to position C|M| Law to serve the rapidly changing needs of the workforce. All of us must have an entrepreneurial mindset and our graduates must be fluent in 21st century multi-dimensional skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity.
To thrive as a great law school, we must skate where the puck is going and invent our own future.
Lee
Lee Fisher
Interim Dean and Visiting Professor of Law