At Leadership Dialogue, Merten Touts Incremental Change

At a presidential leadership conference held in Mason Hall on Wednesday, George Mason University President Alan Merten touted the benefits of incremental change and spoke of the ways in which the university has adapted and modified since his arrival in 1996.

The conference was attended by approximately thirty student leaders who discussed the concept of personal and institutional change with the university president.

Merten spoke of the alterations George Mason has made during his 13 years at its helm and how gradual change was critical to handling the explosive growth the school has undergone in the last decade.

“The president who was here before me, Dr. George W. Johnson, held the position for 18 years,” Merten said. “When I told the president of Cornell that I was going to George Mason, he said to me, ‘You’re replacing a cowboy.’”

Merten called Dr. Johnson a man who “made things happen by creating chaos” and said he brought widespread attention to the university for the first time.

“He put the school on the map by doing things in a flashy way,” Merten recalled. “He hired faculty who were Nobel Peace Prize winners, among other things. By the time I came here, I had to create order out of chaos without killing the entrepreneurial spirit of the university. I had to keep the train running at the same speed, but slide a new engine under it while it was moving.”

Merten noted that between 1996 and 2009 enrollment soared from 23,000 to 33,000 students; the Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William campuses all underwent significant expansion; and GMU became a nationally recognized institution.

“It’s not enough to have the best ideas,” Merten said. “What’s important is implementing them. Much change happens incrementally, and is not very dramatic. Much of life, in fact, is more incremental, small change. Trying to make something happen is not some magical big deal; it’s about getting with it. Sometimes change is not what people and organizations do but how they do it.”

The assembled students – who came from places as diverse as Iran, China, India, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, and Virginia – discoursed on the importance of change in their personal lives. Many were new to the United States and talked about adjusting to American culture, while others gave examples as simple as learning to live away from home for the first time.

Merten concluded with praise for the attendees.

“When people ask me what I am most pleased with about this university, my answer is always the same,” he said. “It’s the intellectual curiosity of our students.”