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Lawrence D. Bryan, MacMurray College
September 24, 2004
It is my sincere pleasure and true privilege this day to proclaim the
official opening of the 159th academic year at MacMurray College. I am
also exceedingly pleased to extend a warm welcome to the new students,
faculty and staff who today become part of this very special academic
community.
Let me begin by addressing a few thoughts exclusively to our incoming
new students. Others may listen as you feel so motivated. New students,
you have chosen to share a few critically important years of your lives
with us. We are honored by your choice, and we believe that this choice
will prove to be a wise and most enjoyable one.
However, on this particular day and somewhere among your thoughts about
it (either teetering precariously near the surface or disguised beneath
layers of pretense) somewhere are a few quiet doubts and anxieties. I
recall my first evening of freshmen orientation in the fall of 1963. My
parents had left. My roommate (an as yet unknown sort of whom I was presuming
the worst) had not yet arrived. I walked the campus late into the evening,
thinking to myself, “My god, no one knows me here. I have to prove
myself all over again Will I fit in? Will I like it here? Will all these
new faces like, accept and support me?” New MacMurray students,
I assure you that such quiet, persistent questioning is to be expected
and very natural. You are not alone in your uncertainties. Every . . .
every new generation of college students entertains some anxious moments.
Don’t pretend that you are somehow immune from or untouched by these
moments. Be honest with yourselves, your families, and with us. This college
has 158 years of experience in welcoming new faces into its family. And
our present staff and faculty stand ready to assist and support you in
this new adventure!
Muhammad Ali – former three-time world heavyweight boxing champion
and rather gifted poet – once addressed the incoming class at The
New School for Social Research in New York City. He launched his remarks
that day with this verse:
Stay in college,
Get the knowledge,
Stay there ’til you’re through.
It they can make penicillin out of moldy bread,
They can sure make something out of you.
Students – new and savvy veterans – you see before you a
representative assembly of this college’s outstanding teaching faculty.
These fine scholars are committed first and foremost to your education,
to your growth, and to preparing you to fully achieve your aspirations.
Please take your interaction with them just as seriously as they take
their opportunity to be part of your lives. Someone once defined a good
teacher as one who knew her stuff, knew whom she was stuffing, and proceeded
to stuff them elegantly. Although such a mechanistic transfer of knowledge
from “stuffer” to “stuffee” betrays an outmoded
understanding of the learning process, the spirit of this intended tribute
remains valid. MacMurray College is proudly a teaching institution. And
these fine people – in the classroom, in the lab, on the playing
field, and in moments of conversation and caring throughout the campus
and throughout the year – these people are the “stuff”
upon whom reputations for teaching excellence are built.
You are certainly not to be compared to “moldy bread.” And
you just might be allergic to “penicillin.” But if you open
your minds and yourselves to this faculty’s influence and wisdom,
then I can assure you that “they can sure make something out of
you.”
Today I begin my 14th year as a college president; my eighth year in
service to MacMurray College. The official seal of the institution where
I served my first presidency bore this motto, “Lux Esto.”
There are two quite acceptable translations of these Latin words, and
I used both translations in welcoming new students, faculty and staff
to that academic community. “Lux Esto” can mean “be
light,” as in share freely and openly of your ideas, your questions,
your talents and your strivings for excellence. But “Lux Esto”
can also quite legitimately mean, “let there be light,” as
in make room for and respect the ideas, questions, talents, strivings
and common humanity of others within this community. I remind and challenge
all of us today . . . be light . . . and let there be light.
To any educator, the image of light is a most cherished inspiration.
Since the earliest days of philosophical and religious reflection, this
image of light has served as a central symbol for knowledge. Striving
to free itself from the shadowy caves of incomplete impressions, fear,
half-truths, and half-baked notions, humanity sought enlightenment. We
sought illumination. And in the language of the faith that inspired the
founding of MacMurray College, the very source of light sought also after
us.
Educational enlightenment is at the heart of what we are about here.
We do more than train teachers, train health professionals, train agents
for social service and change, train for careers in business and law,
and prepare graduates for further degree work in this nation’s graduate
and professional schools. We are committed to outstanding training and
career preparation. But our commitment goes farther. We educate minds
and hearts for the enrichment of life, for leadership, and for service.
Students, an education in the liberal arts and sciences can (if you take
seriously your exposure to its influence) build in you the habits of mind
and competence to think independently and critically, to communicate clearly,
correctly, and compellingly, to solve problems creatively, and to confront
change with confidence . . . thereby accepting both the ambiguities of
life and the challenge to contribute something of worth to the world around
us. Liberal education can create in you an intellectual perspective, a
curiosity, and an immense sense of anticipation for learning throughout
life. Liberal education exposes you to very different points of view,
prepares you for a level of maturity to tolerate such differences in peace,
and (we expect and hope) challenges you to take an informed stand among
the values which compete for your allegiance.
An angry Orange County, California, parent once protested the introduction
of a new English literature curriculum into her child’s school.
She spoke before a special session of the school’s Board of Education.
Her words were most interesting. “We pay taxes to educate our children;
quit messing with their minds!” While I might prefer to phrase our
task somewhat differently, a central part of MacMurray’s responsibility
to you as students is indeed to mess with your minds. I do not mean by
this some “fiendish plot” to strip conscience and character
of conviction or set young minds aimlessly adrift on the fiery brook of
relativism. Nor do I refer to any conspiracy of indoctrination so simplistically
popularized in politics and the press today. I mean simply this: if minds
don’t mature in understanding, expand in insight, change to accommodate
new perspectives, and grow in confidence to face the future, then your
investment here is both unwise and wasteful. Just as an education in the
liberal arts is by nature conservative – preserving and transmitting
the cumulative memory of humankind to each new generation; so, too, is
liberal education by nature subversive – at odds with untested customs,
conventional wisdom, self-assuring prejudice, and the unexamined life.
MacMurray College is about transforming individuals. We do not prescribe
all changes in advance. We simply commit ourselves, in theologian Dietrich
Bonhoeffer’s words, to “being there for others” . .
. for you . . . during this eventful process of transformation. We seek
to educate our students to make a living, yes. But even more significantly,
we seek to educate for the more abundant and satisfying living of life.
I’m not certain how many of you are familiar with the rural village
of Boswell, Indiana. To help you place Boswell, it is located south of
Earl Park, just north of Judyville, and about ten miles from the Illinois
state line. According to the latest census, Boswell is home to about 800
residents. On the outside chance that you are familiar with Boswell, then
you know that emblazoned for several generations in bold lettering atop
the village water tower were these words, “Boswell . . . Hub of
the Universe.” Motorists on U.S. 41 no doubt chuckled at the audacity
of Boswell’s claim. But like all such proclamations, there is a
particular history that lies behind it. In this case, a high school principal
in the 1930s concluded his remarks during each year’s opening assembly
with a challenge. “Boswell is the hub of the universe,” he
would shout, “because you can start from Boswell and go anyplace
in the world.”
Students, you can start from MacMurray College and go on to succeed anyplace
in the world. Those who have traversed and been transformed on this campus
have done so magnificently.
- from the leading neurosurgeon in Chicago to a Tony Award winning
actress on Broadway . . .
- from the associate dean of Yale University to the place-kicker for
the Miami Dolphins . . .
- from the woman who literally defined the modern role of female officers
in the U.S. Air Force to the entrepreneur who now heads a world respected
arts camp in Italy . . .
- from the calligrapher for three U.S. presidential inaugurations to
a lead sports reporter for the Chicago Tribune . . .
- from an international reporter for the New York Times in Indonesia
to a federal judge in Indianapolis . . .
- from a city attorney in Seattle to a full professor at the Harvard
Medical School . . .
- from the retired managing director of investment products and services
at the former Bank of Boston to the chief executive of Division I athletics
in the N.C.A.A. . . .
- from faculty mentor for the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad team
to the director of the Illinois Historical Society . . .
- from a renowned plastic and reconstructive surgeon in Asheville, North
Carolina to the president of Springfield College in Massachusetts, to
leaders in business throughout the nation, to literally thousands of
gifted and dedicated teachers, nurses, social workers and criminal justice
professionals who are committed to caring for and transforming the minds,
health, quality of life and safety of people in communities across this
country and beyond our shores
All these alumni of MacMurray College have gone on to success –
in what they do and in who they are – throughout the world. I trust
that you will go on to do and to be no less.
Alfred North Whitehead once observed, “Education is impossible
without the habitual vision of greatness.” May the God who inspired
the ever emerging vision that is now MacMurray College continue to inspire
our visions of greatness, for our own futures and for the future of this
distinctive and very special place.
Thank you.
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