Read this note for the full text of President Leo M. Lambert's remarks on Aug. 24...
ELON UNIVERSITY
New Student Convocation Address
President Leo M. Lambert
August 24, 2002
On behalf of the trustees, faculty, staff, and alumni of Elon University, I welcome the Class of 2006, transfer students, parents, family members, and guests. My name is Leo Lambert, and I am Elon’s eighth president. This ceremony is one of the most meaningful occasions of the academic year. It’s an emotional day. The little bit of mist in mom’s eye and the lump in dad’s throat tell us what they are feeling. How could have this childhood have passed so quickly? And how proud they are, and what a privilege it has been, to help you students reach this day.
Students, most of you are filled with nervous energy and anticipation. Try to set aside your anxiousness to savor this special morning. All that surrounds you — these historic buildings, the faculty and staff who are about to become your mentors and teachers and even friends, your classmates, this grove of oaks — all of this will become a part of you. This school, and your experiences here, will be an important part of your life. You will leave Elon someday, but Elon will never leave you. Welcome. I’m pleased that you are here.
Students, you have every reason to be confident. Your outstanding high school GPAs and SAT scores tell us you are the most academically well-qualified class in Elon’s history. You are entering an incredibly rich academic environment. In just the next six weeks, in addition to or in connection with many of your classes, you’ll have an opportunity to hear and maybe even meet the former Primer Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, the first female prime minister of a predominantly Muslim nation; meet the author of your common reading, James McBride; join in the Elon University poll as we participate in one of the most watched U.S. Senate races in the country; audition for The Music Man; see the Shanghai Ballet; or join in the symposium on globalization organized for the opening of the Isabella Cannon Centre for International Studies. And that just scratches the surface as to what’s happening at Elon. To feed your soul, come to Sundays @ 5 at the Elon Community Church. To relax, you can take a road trip to South Carolina to watch the Phoenix play our rival Furman University, be one of the first to take a lap around Belk Track, or just sit on a bench and talk to someone new. You are going to like it here. You have made a good decision to come to Elon.
This morning, I want to keep my message focused. It is built around this question: “What do you really need to know on your first day at Elon?”
An Elon education is structured in such a way that each student, no matter what his or her major, is grounded in a great liberal arts tradition. The term “liberal arts” translated from Latin means the arts worthy of free men and women. The most important aspect of your undergraduate education at Elon is the foundational knowledge you will acquire, skills you will hone, and dispositions you will cultivate through your exposure to the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences.
When you walk across this stage in four years ready to receive your diploma, I have two principal hopes about your readiness for the world. First, I expect that you will be prepared to be a participating citizen in a 21st century democratic society. Your generation will face hugely complex questions at the intersection of ethics and biotechnology, for example. You will face, as no other generation has before, issues of personal freedom and privacy in the face of invasive technologies and new challenges for national security. An educated person must know something about science, and government, and philosophy to be a good citizen. The liberal arts will teach you to challenge assumptions, question, and critically analyze, which are fundamental to an educated citizenry.
During your time at Elon we want you to reach beyond the boundaries of this campus and learn what it really means to be a citizen of a broader community. We hope your understanding of big issues such as immigration and poverty and literacy will deepen and evolve in the process of building a Habitat for Humanity house, studying in Ghana, or helping with after school tutoring. This is what we mean by connecting knowledge and experience — a phrase you will hear often at Elon. To me, this means connecting the liberal arts with the world around you.
Second, I hope you will leave here having given serious thought to the question, “What does it mean to live a good life?” I want you to grow beyond your desire to be served in order to realize the true sense of fulfillment that comes from serving others. You can start right here at your own University, and ask what you can do to make Elon a better place. And again, the liberal arts will be your guide, for you will learn much about goodness and fulfillment through theatre, literature, religion, psychology, and the arts.
So my most important message to you this morning is to savor your experiences in the liberal arts and sciences. Don’t approach them as requirements to be met or hurdles to be cleared, but rather as the bedrock upon which all your other learning at Elon will be based. And finally, do not underestimate the practicality of the liberal arts. You will become a better writer. You will learn to solve problems as a team member. You will be able to present ideas persuasively. These are skills that have value in the marketplace and will prepare you for graduate and professional degrees in virtually any field.
I now want to spend a few minutes talking with you about a subject that could save your academic career at Elon, or maybe even your life. Exactly one year ago today, in fact the evening following this convocation, a new student consumed a great quantity of liquor very quickly. Without the watchful attention of our director of security, Chuck Gantos, she would have died. She spent the night in the hospital with a brain hemorrhage, the result of a .37 blood alcohol level. This student had been a varsity athlete in high school, a talented scholar, a leader. Last spring, a student who was heavily intoxicated broke into a public building in the Town of Elon, triggered an alarm, and in the intervening few minutes before the Town police arrived vandalized the building beyond belief. When he woke up the next day in jail he was changed with felony crimes that he had not a single recollection of committing.
The reason I am telling you these stories is that these two students were asked to leave Elon. This was painful for them, painful for their parents, and painful for those of us who had to make such a decision. This is a caring community, one in which we generally help each other learn from mistakes that we inevitably all make. But if you act with such reckless disregard for your own life, or jeopardize the safety and welfare of others because you put yourself in a state where your actions are beyond your control, then Elon is not the place for you.
Let me be clear about this: the large majority of Elon students make wise choices. Most students at Elon seize positive opportunities and they blossom. I do not want to lose a single one of you to poor choices. Think about this as you take a great deal more responsibility for your own decisions and choices — beginning today.
Today you become a citizen of the Elon University community. Let me try to explain what that means. First of all, you’re going to find it’s very difficult to be anonymous at Elon; we’re going to get to know you. This is a friendly place. Elon students are renowned for their ability to spot a stranger and offer directions or assistance. We appreciate the beauty of the campus and the hard work and dignity of the people who keep it beautiful. This is a place where we all pitch in to help, as you experienced during move-in. This is a place where you will encounter many people who are different from you and people with whom you can have honest and civil disagreements. This is as it should be. As I’ve said, Elon is above all a caring place, and without a doubt the most wonderful academic community of which I have ever been a part.
Healthy communities require a common set of shared values. Because we are an academic community, we believe in the idea of academic citizenship: that an Elon student’s highest purpose is giving first attention to learning and reflection, developing intellectually, connecting knowledge and experience, and upholding Elon’s honor codes. Make these your priorities. The honors codes, which Dr. Lyday-Lee will say more about in a minute, speak volumes about our common commitments in this academic community, and you are accountable to them, effective immediately.
Healthy communities require active citizen participation. If you don’t like something, talk to Christian or his SGA colleagues and work positively through Student Government to make it better. Participate in the life of the campus. Come to College Coffee and chapel. Find your spot in Rhodes Stadium. Participate in Elon traditions new and old. Welcome to our community.
Finally, students, I have a gift for you: Most of you know by now that Elon is the Hebrew word for oak and that the University was named for the beautiful oak trees under which we are gathered. To celebrate that heritage, we have a wonderful tradition: we give each Elon graduate an oak tree seedling at commencement. We ask them to plant the seedlings, water them, and watch them grow throughout their lives. Those seedlings are planted across the country, providing inspiration for future generations.
And today, on this day of new beginnings, we have Elon’s traditional gift of an acorn for each of you, a symbol of the promise of an Elon education. Today, we plant the seed — symbolically — that will germinate and grow into that small tree you’ll receive at commencement. Keep your acorn as a reminder that you have within you everything you need to grow and become strong.
When you leave this convocation, you will pass by the assembled Elon faculty. You will enter the world of college and become academic citizens of Elon. On your commencement day, you will again pass through the assembled faculty line, having accomplished so much. You will have completed your time at Elon and you will be changed in ways you cannot now imagine. On that day — a day that will come much more quickly than you expect — you will exchange your acorn for an oak seedling and go out into the world with the assurance that your Elon education has prepared you for life’s journey. So, we have a date, all of us, to meet under the oaks again in four years at commencement.
Good luck! Long live Elon!