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June 14, 1998 by Edward Reynolds, Professor of History, UCSD
Provost Ann Craig, Vice Chancellor Marsha Chandler, Eleanor Roosevelt College Class of '98: It is a delight and a privilege to be asked to give this address, and I want to begin by saying how very pleased I am to be here. Let me begin my address with a story. During the conflict in Bosnia, a young boy was wounded by gunfire, and a man nearby lifted him up and put him in the car of a journalist to convey him to the hospital. As they made their way to the hospital, the man told the journalist, "Hurry up, my son is still alive. Hurry up." Later, the man spoke again to the journalist and said, "Hurry up, my son's body is still warm. Hurry up." A while later, the man spoke again to the journalist: "My son's body is cold. My child is dead." Then he added, "Now I must inform his father." The journalist then asked, "I thought he was your son." The man responded, "Aren't they all our children? Aren't they all our children?" In many ways you graduates of Eleanor Roosevelt College, irrespective of age, are all our children. We are a family. We are a community. We have shared a common curriculum. There is something that binds us together as a community. But, today you move on to new challenges. As you move on from here, I hope that Eleanor Roosevelt College has prepared you well. That Eleanor Roosevelt College has encouraged, inspired, and nourished by the learning and life that we have shared together here at this University. This is a critical stage in your life. You start a major new phase in your life's journey -- graduate school, law school, medical school, school of business and employment. Eleanor Roosevelt College prides itself as the international college at UCSD, and thus, you graduates have a sense of graduating into a larger world -- a world community, if you like. It is my fervent hope that all of you are leaving here with a vision that will motivate you in the days, weeks, and years ahead; that you are leaving here with a vision that will inspire you to move forward with a sense of purpose and direction in your life's journey. Two years ago when I was serving as the Director of the University of California Study Center in London, I came across a poster which proclaimed:
A person with a task and no vision is a drudge; A person with a vision and a task is a prophet. This poster was saying that there is something lacking in anyone who has a vision when it is not aligned with a task. Such a vision is rootless, and thus, someone is merely dreaming of what has been or might be. With nothing actually to do, they are useless. On the other hand, it also says that someone who does have a task but has no vision to go t\with it, will turn out to be a drudge. In other words, if we are compelled by an activity which is not inspired by a vision, it will end up as a burden. A vision and task give us a clear assignment as we depart from Eleanor Roosevelt College. At this critical time of moving forward, what we need is a vision, a task, that will motivate us, a vision and a task that will inspire us, a vision and a task that will drive us forward with a sense of urgency. Class of '98, what I am really asking of you is a mission statement from you as you graduate. Richard Bewes, the Rector at All Souls Church in London, tells this story in one of his newsletters to his congregation. The Anglican Church (The Church of England) had invited a Nigerian clergyman with no international traveling experience to a conference in London. He arrived at London's Heathrow Airport and collected his luggage, and proceeded to go through customs. He was immediately confronted with the green exit which said, "Nothing to Declare" and the red exit which said, "Something to Declare." The Nigerian visitor started to go through the green exit, but changed his mind because he felt that he had something to declare. When the custom's official asked him what he had to declare, he said that he had come to declare Christ. What have you got to declare as you graduate from Eleanor Roosevelt College today/ You need something to declare. You need a mission. You need a purpose. We all do. What is your mission statement today? Recently I read an article by Professor Thomas Baylor, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University. He wrote that students at Duke's School of Business were asked to write a personal strategic plan for the ten-year period after graduation. What do you want to be when you grow up? With few exceptions, they wanted three things: Money, power, and things (very big things) including automobiles, yachts, and even airplanes. Primarily concerned with their careers and the growth of their financial portfolios, they personal plans contained little room for family, intellectual development, spiritual growth, or social responsibility. The article goes on: Their mandate to the faculty was, "Teach me how to be a money-making machine. Give me only the facts, tools, and techniques required to ensure my instantaneous financial success. All else was irrelevant." As you go forward today, I hope you will reach beyond yourself and give something to others, other people, the community, other communities, the human community. The community you seek to build ... The community we seek to build, is a community of wholeness that incorporates diversity. A community of diversity that has greater opportunity to accept and renew itself in a subtly changing world. A community where we can find wholeness and coherence within our diversity.
Yes, open to the future. Yes, be part of the community. I can tell you, one individual cannot be a person, and you can't be a person in isolation ... Together, as a community, you can build a new world. I urge you not to be misled into thinking that our social challenges are over. I urge you not to become agnostics when it comes to moral issues and matters of justice. When I think of our troubled world, a world of instability, fragmentation, vicious conflict and power struggles, I am reminded of those who have reached beyond themselves to go forward and to forge a true human community. Taking a stand and moving forward, the community agenda is costly. Dag Hammarskjold, a former Secretary-General of the United Nations, died in a plane crash while trying to bring about peace in Zaire. Six months before his tragic death he wrote in Markings: Tired
On the paths of the others
Weep
Despite the cost, don't stand still. You are to go forward, but you will have to persevere in order to reach the end, to reach your goal. But, how do we go forward? What about weariness, boredom, irritation, discouragement, disillusion, failures, rejection, loneliness -- the obstacles to finishing are endless. As you begin your new life after graduation, you begin a race toward the goals that you have set for yourself. What you are doing today is like starting a race, and you will have to bring it to a successful conclusion. Many of your parents will remember the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. As the 8,000 meter race neared its end, the thin air of Mexico City began to claim casualties. Several runners collapsed and were carried off. The race was won by Naftali Tumn of Kenya. When the race was over and the people began to leave the stadium, there came in a runner from Tanzania. He had fallen and hurt himself badly. After he crossed the finish like, reports asked him why he had bothered to finish a race that he had no chance of winning. His response was that his country did not send him 8,000 miles to Mexico City to begin a race, but to finish a race. So, my friends ... my message to you today is ... Finish the race that you begin today! |