Speaker of the Faculty's Remarks
Opening Convocation Remarks
Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011
David Richard, Ph.D., Speaker of the Faculty
Good afternoon. My name is David Richard, and I am a professor of biology. It is my honor to have been elected as the speaker of the faculty of Susquehanna University, and it is in this capacity that I take great pleasure in welcoming you to your new academic home. I hope you find it as hospitable a place as my wife and I did when we arrived here 18 years ago. I had lived in cities for most of my life so the move to rural central Pennsylvania was a bit of a culture shock. Some of you may have similar feelings right now, but I suspect all of you are acutely aware of one significant change in your lives: you are not in high school any more.
I would say that whilst many new students adjust quickly to the greater level of personal responsibility required in college, some experience difficulties. The work is harder and there is more of it. Many decisions are now yours to make, and this can be frightening. However, you are not on your own. Members of the faculty are your academic advisers (though I want to stress the word “adviser”) and we will assist you. Underneath these faintly ridiculous robes, many of us are really quite approachable.
The Office of Student Life and the Center for Academic Achievement are here to work with you and your adviser to help when help is needed but ultimately, it is your responsibility to seek out the opportunities that exist to further your education. On this note, stretch yourself. Participate in class and get to know your professors. Be adventurous and find your passion. Do things outside of classes that you haven’t done before (use good judgment here). Have fun and get involved. Remember, while grades are important to your success as a student, they are not everything!
In the words of poet William Henry Davies:
What life is this if full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare
Each year, we select a theme that links many academic and cultural activities on campus. Last year, the theme was “sustainability.” The year before, it was “what does it mean to be educated?” When we first started doing this a few years ago, my daughter, who was eight at the time, suggested that the theme should be “pink.”
Our theme this year is “fear.” You have all received an anthology of short readings, selected by members of the faculty and staff, and written by a wide range of authors from FDR to Steven King and on subjects from risk evaluation to fear of examinations! Many of your professors will use this anthology as context to guide your introduction to college life.
In addition to your selected major, you will study within our Central Curriculum. This provides a foundation for learning in a number of areas, but to my mind, the most exciting aspects of this curriculum involve emphases on diversity, ethics and a cross-cultural experience through SU’s Global Opportunities Program, GO. All of you will in one way or another spend time away from Selinsgrove, perhaps on a traditional study abroad semester or on one of our short-term overseas or domestic trips. In each case, you will reflect and write about your experiences and relate them to your life here in the U.S. Imagine for example spending time with an outback-dwelling aborigine in Australia or working in an orphanage in Nicaragua and relating that to life in say, New Jersey! Anyone here from the Garden State?
As we think about adventures and experiences, I’d like to share with you some words written by the British climber George Mallory shortly before he disappeared along with his companion, Sandy Irvine, high on Mount Everest in 1924. They were last seen a few hours short of the summit at about 27,000 feet, climbing steadily into a cloud bank, and were never seen alive again. Did they reach the summit, almost 20 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? We will probably never know.
Mallory is well known for his response to the question “Why do you climb Everest?” His reply? “Because it is there.”
He is perhaps less well known for his response to the more specific question “What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?”
He said “It is no use. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in (us) which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go.”
“Upward and forever upward.” Was he talking just about the efforts of scaling this mountain, or was he positing this as a way of living? Was he suggesting that tasks with no immediately obvious value can still have intrinsic worth? Can we draw inspiration from these words and have them guide us through our lives?
Mallory again: “What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for."
Now, before I use up all of President Lemons’ time, I want to leave you with a few brief thoughts about your upcoming adventure.
- College is not high school. By its very nature, it is intended to be challenging and to succeed, you must be an active participant. Despite the popular notion, you cannot learn by osmosis.
- Take responsibility for your future: these are turbulent and fearful times. For your own sake, and for the sake of all who share this planet, seek out, understand and act upon the realities of the problems that face us.
- Finally, find your passion.
As Mallory said, “What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy."
