When an institution as venerable as the Maxwell School reaches a signpost as significant as 90 years, it’s obviously worth noting...and worth celebrating. It is a time to take stock of the accomplishments and respect built over nine decades. And it is a time to prepare for the sort of future that the past profoundly suggests.

At Maxwell, the 90th anniversary serves a variety of goals, mixing the past with the future. It is a time to: 

Marvel at the achievements of so many years. Though history lessons have been only one part of the anniversary year, history is at the core. The Passport to Our Past activity, special historical displays mounted through the Maxwell/Eggers complex, and similar displays on hand for the November 20 Washington dinner all allowed the Maxwell community to marvel at the depth and breadth of Maxwell’s history, and how different was the world into which the Maxwell School was born.

Find what is unchanged. And, though the world was different in 1924, certain values championed then remain today — in fact, they help define Maxwell still. They include the school’s emphasis on citizenship education and its interdisciplinary approach to research and education. Recognizing those values in the school’s founding helps reassert those values in the school’s culture today (even though other values now round out the picture).

Celebrate the diversity of today’s Maxwell. Events held throughout the year and sponsored by the academic departments, centers, and institutes—lectures, panels, poster sessions, etc.—served to honor the contributions of those units while also suggesting the great breadth and diversity of Maxwell as a whole. (Unit events are described in Lectures, Panels, Symposia.)

Build toward the future. As the school entered its 90th anniversary year, Dean James Steinberg announced that this would be an occasion also to prepare for Maxwell’s centennial, and to assure that Maxwell approaches 2024 with programs “every bit as meaningful as those that have defined its excellence to this point.”  This exploration of future needs is titled the Tenth Decade Project. It was officially introduced at the anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C., which doubled as a fund-raising event for the campaign that will support Tenth Decade initiatives.

This and many other anniversary events are described in the following pages. To learn about additional events upcoming this spring, visit maxwell90th.syr.edu.        

By Dana Cooke

Principal event photography by Chuck Wainwright

This article appeared in the winter 2015 print edition of Maxwell Perspective; © 2015 Maxwell School of Syracuse University.