President Muhl's Inaugural Address

As prepared for the Presidential Inauguration, Tuesday, April 4, 2023, at MGM Music Hall at Fenway.

So, here’s what I love about Berklee.

I love that on any given day you can walk into a classroom, studio, or performance venue and hear or see learning happening through the music of Mozart, McCartney, or Juan Luis Guerra; the choreography of Martha Graham, José Limón, or Jennifer Archibald; the words of Shakespeare, James Agee, or Langston Hughes; or the vocal artistry of Sarah Vaughn, Alison Krauss, or Billie Eilish. Work that is universal, regardless of genre or era.

I love that we are a completely unique institution in arts education…a true community of global citizens who see the practice, performance, and creation of great art differently, and in so doing provide a home for future thinkers, influencers, artists, and creators who don’t fit anyone else’s mold, and who by being here make Berklee a place unlike any other.

I love that we are world-class in part because we comprehend value in the broadest possible definition of human creativity and individual expression. To paraphrase Boston Conservatory faculty member Rebecca Marchand, we revere our tradition as narratives, not as canon, because we understand that those deep roots are meant not to tie us down or constrain us, but to strengthen and steady us as we grow to inhabit new spaces, and new heights.

I love that our students and faculty have a shared entrepreneurial spirit…that in so many ways we’ve moved away from the hierarchical relationship of teacher to student in favor of mutual, open-hearted learning. I’ve heard so many stories at Berklee about students walking into their lessons, and asking to study something that turns a musical genre on its head, and the response is never “we don’t do that here” but instead, “let’s explore this, and see what we can learn together.” I’ve seen and heard ancient and revered musical traditions and instruments fusing with jazz, pop, and rock, and classically trained players empowered to explore the musical cultures of their homeland here, at Berklee, for the first time.

I love our willingness, even eagerness, to break the molds and conventions about what arts education should be…as the first college-level institution to base its curriculum on jazz and the music of the African diaspora; the first to recognize the electric guitar as a principal instrument; the first to establish an undergraduate degree in film scoring, college majors in music synthesis and songwriting, and courses in turntable technique; the first nonprofit music institution to offer fully accredited online bachelor’s degrees; the first to recognize the importance of electronic digital instruments as a primary performance medium; and so many more bold firsts.

And I love our desire to continue to disrupt, to provide ever greater access for young artists around the world to develop their voice, their career, and to build the tools they seek to inspire others to do the same. That cycle, that ripple effect, means that if we as educators can move the dial for, let’s say, a hundred students, or hundreds of students, or a thousand students, each one of those students can do the same for tens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands. We all seek to be part of great change, but the secret is, that change starts for us, at Berklee, with the conscious effort to recognize each day the love that brought us all here in the first place.

You know, it’s hard to argue with love. It’s hard to argue with a passion that is so intense it drives you to get up every day to head into the studio, the rehearsal room, the lab, the classroom, the office, just to once more give everything you have to perfect what you do so that others can feel enthralled, moved… or supported, more knowledgeable, or more aware. And I’m not just talking about our Berklee faculty and student artists, I’m also talking about our academic leaders, our staff, and administrators who walk the walk of love every day as they step up for others in our community, and through that, for all of us in the world.

We see our job here at Berklee not just as educators, but also protectors of something that is so valuable, so essential to life, but at the same time so vulnerable and fragile that it can disappear in a moment. As children, we are imbued with a natural creativity that manifests itself as imagination and play, and, from that, an ability to generate improbable, even impossible ideas for ourselves and others… and with a boldness that is only possible for most of us until that moment when we experience the first pain of failure. But for a rare few, that creative confidence is indomitable, and continues to drive them, if they’re lucky—if we are lucky—their whole lives.

But it can still be lost along the way, temporarily or even permanently, if it’s not protected. Which is why, in the midst of all the other arts, it is also the art of educating that we seek to perfect at Berklee. The delicate balance of instructing, guiding, mentoring, and protecting so that every one of our students hangs on to their belief in themselves, their belief in their ideas, and that core conviction that they can have a life of great impact. If we carefully nurture that spirit, that fire, their eventual path at Berklee may not be the one they first envisioned, or the one we envisioned for them, but it will be the right one—the one they built, and the one we helped them build.

As the great Miles Davis said, “Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.”

I have seen firsthand in my time here, how the educational experience at Berklee leads to artistic excellence, but also how it leads to the discovery and change that enables our students to find, in themselves, their true potential.  As artists, educators, guides, and facilitators, we, too, must continue to tap into our own boldness, and draw on the imagination, the courage, and passion that is at our core to continually maximize the relevance of what we do—and to extend our proud legacy of firsts. 

We have always thought differently at Berklee. The world that we knew 20 years ago, 10 years ago… oh, let’s face it, three years ago, is so changed. Berklee is poised once again to respond, to reinvent ourselves in ways that will ensure that this very different world that so desperately needs a shared sense of humanity can continue to benefit from creatives who will get out there and drive this planet where it needs to go.

As we work together to lead Berklee into its next chapter, we will build on and drive the momentum that brought us to this point, and tap into an energy that is refueled every day by our community of students, faculty, and staff, and all who believe in Berklee’s mission. With that driving force at our backs we are building an exciting future around five new strategic pillars that are designed to further break down silos that are the remnants of outdated traditions…and build up a new tradition for the 21st century.

First, and always first, among those pillars is DEI: Values, Culture, and Campus Climate. Berklee has long been exceptional in preparing students to lead in an industry or a field, but it’s clear that our capabilities are quite different from other institutions, and so we must also embrace our ability—and our responsibility—to educate our students to reshape industries, and whole domains of creative thought and application.

If that is true, then nothing can be more important to our future than to ensure that we are committed to, and continually guided and informed by the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And also that these principles impel us to action. I’m extremely proud of the concrete steps we have already taken, and the new steps we are taking every day as we instill these values into every part of our culture. But as we learn how to do things better, we are also learning just how deeply rooted these issues are, and how much work is yet to come.

In addition to these critical efforts at home, we will seek to continually inform our perspectives through meaningful exchanges with other cultures, other places and communities, and other arts practices. The strategic plan that will govern our Global Strategy, Partners, and Presence is rapidly forming, with new initiatives already well under way, including those that you heard about earlier today.

We exist in an increasingly interconnected world, and Berklee must continue to define and develop a global strategy that provides programs and experiences that materially enhance the work and the personal and professional growth of our students, faculty, and staff. But it must also be one founded on the imperative that we engage with others with openness and humility, learning and evolving as individuals and as an institution as we collaborate with our partners to unlock new insights toward the realization of shared goals.

If we are going to make all of these opportunities inclusive we must implement the work at the core of another strategic pillar: Affordability, Access, and the Lifelong Value of a Berklee Degree. Significantly growing our transfer agreements with secondary schools, and two-year, and four-year higher education institutions in the U.S. and internationally can vastly increase the number and types of entry points for students to come to Berklee, and thereby greatly reduce the overall cost of a degree.

Focused programs and offerings on the ground in key regions globally can further increase access to a Berklee education, including in ways that can provide programming in specializations where no such college or professional development pipelines currently exist. Research and design of new hybrid offerings through our online capabilities is also ongoing, including a presidential initiative that has established a new partnership between Berklee City Music and the Division of Pre-College, Online, and Professional Programs. The results of this partnership will greatly increase our ability to provide educational tools and platforms to public and charter school systems around the world.

In addition to providing greater access and affordability for our enrolling students, our responsibility to our alumni is something we take very seriously. And our alumni include all those who engage as students with Berklee in all its forms, and not just through our degree programs in Boston, Valencia, New York, and at Berklee Online. We choose to be not just a point in their lives but a point of connection throughout their lives, to extend the value and the longevity of a Berklee degree by being a home our graduates can continually come back to. We are working now to realize the promise of a creative network that can nurture and inspire them throughout their life, and a place that will continue to provide the ongoing growth and development they had as students—and that they will always have as lifelong members of Berklee’s global community.

As may already be clear from the direction of these first three strategic pillars, Berklee’s future will also continue to build on its formidable past as an innovator in arts curricula. The ideal of a truly 21st-century college experience will guide us as we undertake the paradigm-shifting work of Curricular and Programmatic Innovation, our fourth pillar. As we have done in the past, we will be bold in the ways we evaluate and modernize not just our educational offerings, but also when, where, and how we deliver those offerings.

Our students were born into, and have developed the skills to contend with a world that is dramatically different from the one students faced even a generation ago. We need—check that—we must prepare our students not only to meet life as creatives, but to meet life itself. We have always instilled strength in our students, but there are whole new levels of determination that are required by the sheer complexity of today’s arts and entertainment environments. Not to mention the aptitude in other fields, including business, entrepreneurship, technology, verbal and visual communications, PR, narrative and storytelling; content development, content creation, content marketing, management, and distribution, including new platform development… just to name a few.

When I look at what today’s students need to know compared to what I needed to know at their age, it’s overwhelming. To properly equip them, while also giving them the agency to choose among these myriad potential pathways and career opportunities, will require nothing short of innovation to solve. But innovation is in Berklee’s DNA, and we’ve got this.

All of the above adds up to our fifth and final strategic pillar, which will ask us to define the Higher Education Infrastructure of the Future. As the community was developing the key tenets of our strategic plan, we could have easily stopped at the first four. But we realized pretty early on that those four were all pointing to an overarching idea: the need for wholesale changes to higher education models, and higher education institutions. In planning for the next 5–10 years, we had to include the possibility that at some point in that time the very infrastructures that higher education was built on, that had made it run for more than a century, might no longer work for the students or the industries that higher education was built to serve.

Why? Because those students, and many of those industries, are permanently changed, no doubt due in large part to technological advancements, and the resulting shifts in how people live, learn, and work.

So, in addition to these other aspirational buckets, Berklee will be taking on what it meant to be an institution of “higher learning” 10, 20, 30 years ago; what it means to be that institution today; and what new structures will we need to develop to ensure that, as the world and our students continue to change, we can quickly and effectively adapt to stay not just relevant, but at the front of the curve.

Our work ahead will not be easy, but disrupting the status quo never is. I am excited about the future we will build from this interconnected strategy, and the institution that will emerge. There is a certain chaos to the world’s momentum, and we can do our best to avoid it, and the inherent risk. But this is a community of defiant groundbreakers who are no strangers to opposition, and together we will grab that momentum, and harness its power. If you love Berklee, then hop on, because it’s going to be a great ride.

I am fortunate to be able to lead Berklee through this period of profound change, and to have the support and trust of so many people who are with me on this journey. To the trustees and all of Berklee’s advisors and supporters; Berklee’s leadership team; our faculty, staff, and amazing students; and countless others who have welcomed and supported me; to my mentors over the years who have guided me; to the city of Boston that is our home; and especially to my family who have supported me every step of the way, including my sister April and my son Ryan who are here today, I am forever grateful.

Let me close by speaking directly to our students with these simple, yet profound words of wisdom from Berklee faculty member Rhonda Rider:

Practice.
Answer your emails.
Listen to your instincts.
And dream.