Aug. 25, 2019: Convocation Address

Good evening members of our distinguished faculty and staff. And welcome, Bucknell University Transfer Students and Class of 2023!

Tonight marks the 10th Bucknell class I have welcomed at Convocation, but I assure you that this evening, like those before it, still holds a special place in my heart. Why? Because while you are seated in this new place, among a sea of strangers, unsure what the next four years will bring, I look at you and I see the future.

This new place will come to feel like home. Among this sea of strangers are future lifelong friends.

And over the next four years, you will accomplish what you did not think was possible. You will encounter challenges and find ways to overcome them. You will discover new passions, set new goals and be inspired to pursue new dreams. You will be offered the opportunities, experiences and resources to grow into the best and most authentic version of yourself.

In years past, I have used my time at Convocation to elaborate on this vision for the future and describe in more detail what students could expect during their time at Bucknell. Tonight, though, I thought I’d focus on what your time as a student won’t be like. Or, at least, what in my opinion it shouldn’t be like.

My goal tonight is to debunk four common myths about the college experience and the purpose of a liberal education.

The first myth is the idea that your goal at Bucknell is somehow to "find truth."

To begin with, "find" is far too vague and passive a word to describe the often lengthy process needed to discern the truth.

Identifying truth is a labor-intensive — and sometimes a seemingly endless — pursuit. We should be very careful about proclaiming the truth, just as we should only believe to know the truth when we have freely and openly exposed an idea to critique and debate and revision.

Truth must be deliberated, investigated, observed and evaluated with conviction — and with humility.

Each of you recently spent time with our First-Year Common Reading, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. I hope you enjoyed discussing the text with our faculty and staff, as well as each other.

The theory that explains the spread of the virus that we saw in chapter one was popularized more than 100 years ago by chemist Louis Pasteur. We now take for granted that most people believe viruses and other germs to be the cause of contagious diseases. In the late 19th century, though, this idea was only supported by a small subset of the scientific community. It took the dedicated and vigilant work of Pasteur to show the world the truth.

In an address to his colleagues, Pasteur advised his fellow scientists to "Worship the spirit of criticism…Without it," he argued, "everything is fallible."

He went on to say: "It is indeed a hard task, when you believe you have found an important scientific fact…to constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, to fight with yourself, to try and ruin your own experiments and only to proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all contrary hypotheses."

I hope each of you applies a Pasteur level of commitment not only in your pursuit of new truths, but also in re-evaluating what you already believe. I challenge you to call into question even your longest-held observations, interpretations and convictions — everything you have regarded, perhaps, as truth.

But there’s more and it’s harder still than discerning the sometimes- elusive truth. In my discipline of engineering, like many of a more technical character, objective truth does often exist, but even then we are often satisfied — or need to be — with just a part of the truth, or perhaps only a model that helps explain our observations or helps predict the future.

But in many other disciplines, the truth is not what’s sought at all, as it may not exist in any conventional sense. Does a text have an unambiguous meaning? Does it matter what the author, artist, dancer or composer meant? Do we come to understand the various forms of human expression solely through the lens of our own experience, or that of others? What are our obligations as scholars and students in these regards?

Grappling with ambiguities, with conflicting interpretations, with the limits of our own ability to overcome a set of experiences and beliefs unique solely to each of us — all the while trying to see through the eyes of another — this is often the task at hand if we are genuinely committed to our own education and to the fullness of humanity of each and every one of us.

You will not only discover these truths for your own affirmation, but for the benefit of all. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that it is the responsibility of the scholar "to cheer, to raise and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances."

And our beloved Toni Morrison, who stood right on this stage many years ago, reminds us that it is our responsibility to reject, alter and expose oppressive language because "It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language — all are typical of the policing languages of mastery and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas."

Test your truths and only then will they will harden to criticism. Let your truths be incessantly questioned so that you become steeled from doubt.

Closely connected to the first myth of "finding truth," is the second myth — "finding yourself."

Like "finding truth," "finding yourself" is an inadequate phrase for the grinding process of creating the best and most authentic version of you. You cannot find the best version of yourself. You cannot even look for, search or seek your "best you." You must actively build, carve and shape the person you wish to be.

This self-development can be challenging and uncomfortable. It requires us to be prepared for and at times even seek confrontation, not just affirmation of our most cherished beliefs. It demands that we listen, thoughtfully, patiently, to contradiction and that we concede the limitations of our own experiences.

But while self-discovery can, at times, be difficult, I also want you to seek joy in it. Allow your sense of curiosity — your sense of wonder and awe — to drive you. Though your lives are still young and narrow, each of you walked into this room tonight with boundless potential.

Few moments have shaped my perspective of life more than my interactions with the natural world.

One of my most moving experiences as a college student was walking among the giant redwoods in California. If you have not had this experience, I urge you now to file the thought away and ensure that someday you will. The first time I was in the redwood forest I was simply in awe, hiking through groves of trees with the potential to grow 35 stories tall. Their tops disappeared into the luminous fog and the forest appeared and sounded, like some temple, filled only with a cloistral hush. Indeed, many of these trees — these living giants — easily predate much of what we would call medieval history.

Seeing, up close, these trees that have slowly reached towards the sky for nearly two millennia instilled in me a new outlook on growth, time and purpose. Any previous notions of finding myself were suddenly overcome and rendered insufficient. I realized I’d have to work harder at exploring, learning and understanding the world around in order to grow into the person I wanted to become. More importantly, I had to grapple with the knowledge that less than 5 percent of the redwood forest remains. I’ve replayed this in my mind again and again, as we watch the Amazon burn.

John Muir, one of history’s most illuminating conservationists, once described the process of evolution and refinement in nature, writing:

"One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made. That this is still the morning of creation. That mountains, long conceived, are now being born, brought to light by the glaciers, channels traced for rivers, basins hollowed for lakes."

He went on, explaining that in nature, things do not grow and change in isolation. Muir wrote, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."

Muir’s wisdom is important to remember.

As you strive to create the best version of yourself, never forget that you are part of an interconnected community that starts here on campus but that can reach far beyond.

Too often, people fall into the trap of forming their ideas and beliefs in a siloed world. Their perspective and thinking gets cut off at the shores of their own upbringing, culture and individual experience.

Growing up in New York City and on Long Island, I spent my youth observing that the night sky was populated by a few dozen bright stars. Of course I knew that there were far more stars than I could see. But for the early part of my life, that was my experience — that was what I accepted as the view from Earth.

Well, a few years after graduating from college I was on a mountain railroad trip, in Colorado and I learned something new. During that trip, I finally saw the night sky as it was meant to be seen. Far from the light pollution of the big cities and even small towns, I marveled at the ink- black night, illuminated by a covering of brilliant white, blue, orange and golden speckles. For the first time, I could see the Milky Way. The ribbon of glowing clouds of stars stretching across the heavens was unmistakable and far beyond what I had seen in books or on TV.

Once again, my perspective of the world and my place within it was forever changed. If something so seemingly universal as the night sky could be so specific to our own experience, what did that mean for how we discuss issues, debate solutions and live and lead in a pluralistic society?

Open yourselves to the world. Open yourselves to the experiences and perspectives of others. This approach to life and learning will not only shape who you are as a person, it will help you identify how you can make a positive difference in your life, which is a critical part of developing your best self.

Bill and Melinda Gates, who launched their careers in computer science, now lead one of the world’s most generous and prolific nonprofit organizations. Just one measure of their contribution is the more than $50 billion they have invested in global health and development projects and domestic educational and economic programs.

Their foundation has become such a global force for good that few realize much of their work was first inspired by Bill reading an article in the Sunday newspaper. The article described how children in the developing world were dying of diseases that the U.S. had eradicated long ago. Bill cut the article out and sent it to his father with the note, "Dad, maybe we can do something about this."

Bill had created one of history’s most influential companies and Melinda was a successful innovator in her own right. If they had simply hoped to "find themselves," they may have remained computer scientists, or retired in comfort. But instead, they allowed themselves to be open to a world far beyond their own. They accepted responsibility for solving problems with little direct impact on their own lives and they challenged themselves to refocus their energies and reinvent their life’s purpose.

And while I can’t condone Bill Gates dropping out of college in his junior year, I will give him extra credit and an "A+" for hiring a Bucknellian as his foundation’s chief financial officer — Carolyn Ainslie, Class of 1980.

Use your time at Bucknell to discover and create the version of yourself that you aspire to be.

Forge your character by challenging yourself. When you see a problem, when you read about a crisis, don’t run away from it. Run toward it. Believe, like Bill and Melinda Gates, that you have the power and responsibility to do something.

And should you think that bringing change is just the realm of the rich and well-known, let me remind you of Oseola McCarty, a woman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who worked all her life as a laundress. Despite this and near the end of her life, she donated 150,000 dollars to the University of Southern Mississippi so that black students with financial need could have the education she could not have. She had never set foot on a college campus before her donation. To a journalist who asked her why she was not spending that money on herself, she answered, "But I am."

You already possess the ability to make a meaningful impact on this world and you have the power within you to see it through.

Our University’s mission statement makes this pledge. In part, it says that Bucknell strives to create an "environment in which students develop intellectual maturity, personal conviction and strength of character, informed by a deep understanding of different cultures and diverse perspectives. Bucknell seeks to educate our students to serve the common good and to promote justice in ways sensitive to the moral and ethical dimensions of life."

It is worth noting that nowhere in our mission statement will you find that our goal is to prepare you for a job, although we most certainly will. In fact, the perception that college is all about securing a job is the third myth I’d like to debunk.

Bucknell follows a core tenet of a liberal arts education: We do not prepare you merely to succeed in a career field — our goal is to prepare you to succeed in life. And while success comes in many forms, I’m certain that it always involves giving as much as getting.

This approach to learning has perhaps never been more valuable and necessary than it is today, at a time when the very notion of it is under attack.

Politics, culture, technology and economics are dramatically reshaping the workforce. The experience of doctors, educators, scientists, journalists, community organizers, writers, government workers — the experience of nearly every profession — is and will certainly continue to change, in ways you may or may not find appealing.

Should you pursue your passions? Yes.

Should you explore as deep as you do wide? Absolutely.

But in a world that is in flux — a world that will be different on your graduation day than it is tonight. I encourage you to build an academic foundation that is not only strong, but flexible and adaptive.

By doing so, you will not only be more resilient to changes in external forces, you will also be better able to respond to internal ones — new passions, new goals, new dreams.

Bucknell also embraces a liberal arts education because it is good and necessary for the world to have well-rounded thinkers. Depth of experience will not ensure your ability to navigate ethical crossroads or moral dilemmas. Subject-matter expertise will not give you the holistic worldview necessary to understand how what you do over here affects others over there. Those skills — that compassion — is formed through the liberal arts.

In a tribute to the poet Robert Frost, President Kennedy observed, "When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

In the same address, President Kennedy said, "Our national strength matters, but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much."

The fourth and final myth I wish to correct tonight is the idea that these next four years will be "the best years of your life." We do want your time at Bucknell to be immensely enjoyable. However, if you commit yourselves to taking advantage of what we offer, I fully expect you will find that the best years are always ahead of you.

Some may try to make their college days their best by using their time as students to ignore the realities of the world. Students call this "the Bucknell bubble." But that attitude shouldn’t flourish here. At Bucknell, we are making a renewed commitment to engage the realities of the world. And while we are fortunate to live and learn in an idyllic campus setting, we must challenge ourselves to be active members of our communities, with all their complexities.

I know that society presents no shortage of problems to address. Some of our troubles are new and unfamiliar. Many are systemic and have no easy solutions. Still, we — assembled at one of the world’s greatest institutions of higher learning, guided by educators who are leaders in their fields—we here, more than most, have a responsibility to help solve them.

When that responsibility seems overwhelming, take inspiration and find perspective from the history that surrounds us, right here at Bucknell.

A plaque mounted on a stone in the Memorial Garden east of Rooke Chapel bears the names of the four Bucknell alumni who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and it reminds us of the enduring impact of that horrific morning.

During the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights era, Jackie Robinson spoke at a Bucknell student church service, less than two years after playing his first game as a Brooklyn Dodger. In 1958, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a campus congregation. A student who witnessed the historic moment later wrote, "The intensity of his rhetoric increased gradually and before he finished, he was truly oratorical, with a booming voice that seemed to rattle the chapel rafters. I was awestruck."

The century prior, the Class of 1865 gifted Bucknell a tree. It is a seemingly more modest gift, though perhaps more symbolic, as these Bucknellians graduated just weeks after the end of the Civil War. They were young people not all that different from you. And they were forced to find their purpose in life, in a country recently rejoined in a bloody crucible that took more than 620,000 lives.

Every generation encounters hardened, seemingly insurmountable challenges. You cannot face them by passively finding truth or finding yourselves, or simply treating these next four years as the best of your lives before settling into jobs.

Society’s most ingrained challenges have only ever been resolved by enlightened and courageous minds willing to face them undaunted, even in the face of fear or doubt.

One such wise and fearless mind is Dr. Jane Goodall, who we had the pleasure of welcoming to our campus in 2014. Most people are familiar with her legacy as a prolific scientist and conservationist, though few know her journey to becoming a preeminent leader in her field began when she was a child in London, growing up in a nurturing but penniless home.

Her family didn’t have much. The larger world around her was filled with turmoil and fear. England was embroiled in World War II and her father was called up to fight. The norms of the time were not encouraging to girls. In her words, she was the "wrong sex" to do anything but be a nurse or secretary. And the thought of traveling to Africa — still considered a perilous journey — was foolhardy for men and preposterous for a young woman.

Yet, young Jane was inspired to dream thanks to a mother who did her best to collect all the books she could on Jane’s favorite topic: animals. Jane cherished reading, particularly the stories of Tarzan and Dr. Doolittle. They enabled her to see a future for herself that surpassed society’s expectations of women, the harsh realities of the day and what people thought possible for a girl of such modest means.

As Dr. Goodall emerged from childhood, she saw herself pursuing a career in language, or as a naturalist. But, when life offered her the opportunity to work as a scientist, she discovered she did not have to separate her commitment to methodical observation and her love of the humanities. In fact, her success in science was only emboldened by her immense compassion, global perspective and poet’s heart.

Dr. Goodall once said, "Being out there in the forest, all those months alone, there was a growing sense of this spiritual power all around, something greater than me…you could lie and look up at the stars and feel yourself tiny."

A love of reading; a sense of wonder; a curiosity of other lands; a commitment to test assumptions; a broad mind; and a willingness to follow a passion, unbeholden to a rigid career path — these are the forces that Dr. Goodall used to shape her life. I encourage each of you to adopt them to mold your own lives and I urge you to start doing so right now.

Because if Dr. Goodall can emerge from poverty in war-torn London to become the greatest conservationist of our time, what’s keeping you from pursuing your dreams?

If Louis Pasteur could dare to question and interrogate the accepted truths of his time and go on to make one of history’s greatest scientific discoveries, why would you hesitate to question what you always believed to be true?

If Bill and Melinda Gates could abandon their historic success in computer science to build a new legacy around humanitarian work, why would you ever bind your potential by pursuing a single career path?

If Oseola McCarty, an 87-year-old washerwoman from Mississippi, could donate her incredibly hard-earned money to a university where she would not have been able to study in the segregated South, why would you doubt your potential to transform this world?

Most important at this moment: If generations of Bucknell students, the same age as you, who walked this same campus as you, could lead a nationwide boycott to support a cause they believed in; could mobilize behind a movement to guarantee all citizens equal rights; could persevere in a world consumed by global conflict; and could help our nation heal after a devastating civil war; then what’s stopping you from using your time at Bucknell to change the world?

Class of 2023, do not wait to challenge yourself. Do not hesitate to drive yourself, your community, our society to evolve, grow and improve…remembering with both humility and conviction that your prescription for making the world better may differ powerfully from those around you. That’s called democracy. You are not here to get a job. You are not here to passively enjoy the best years of your lives. Your time at Bucknell is your opportunity to create the best version of yourselves and to find within what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." And as you do, you will spark a remarkable change in yourselves and in our world.

The opportunities here abound; the possibilities are endless! I look forward to watching your journeys unfold, because I believe passionately and fervently, in the transformative power of education. And I because I believe passionately and fervently, in you.