Office of the President

New Student Convocation — September 6, 2009

Truth, Strength, Service — Together

Carthage College President F. Gregory Campbell gave the following address at the New Student Convocation on Sept. 6, 2009.

So, what are you doing here?

Your most honest answer might be: "I don't know. I'd rather be setting up my room, meeting people, saying good-bye to family — anything rather than this."

New Student ConvocationPresident Campbell addresses the Class of 2013 at the New Student Convocation Sept. 6, 2009.

In turn, my most honest response would be: "Well, give me a break. This speech is part of my job description, and my boss is sitting here listening."

But neither response would provide a clue as to why we are here. And, unless we can figure that out, we should just skip this whole event and go straight to the picnic. That idea might sound almost too inviting to some of us.

So, we have work to do. We face a challenge of understanding. This New Student Convocation is a time-honored Carthage tradition. A lot of people must think it important. We would be wise to understand their thoughts before we reach our own assessments of this kind of ritual.

Most succinctly expressed, this convocation is an exercise in community building — a community that now includes you. Today, we celebrate your arrival at Carthage. We welcome you into your lifelong identity with this college.

People on campus have been anticipating your presence, and we rejoice to see you. We respect the persons you are right now. The human beings you can become inspire our enthusiasm.

The fact is this is a momentous day in your lives. It is likely that, today, you are launching a successful college career. You will never be the same again.

No going back? That thought is a little scary. Embarking on a whole new quest? That adventure just might be irresistible.

You have chosen a college that expresses its mission succinctly and directly: "Seeking truth, building strength, inspiring service — together." Seeking, building, inspiring — those are words of aspiration; they embrace growth and change.

• • •

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." — Galileo Galilei

In the 2009-2010 Carthage calendar, the photograph for this month shows two Carthage students using a scanning electron microscope up in the Straz Center. Alongside their work is a statement by Galileo: "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."

Seeking truth can require courage and strength. Galileo would know. Exactly 400 years ago this year, Galileo became the first person to use a telescope to study the skies. A mathematician and physicist, as well as an astronomer, Galileo is respected as the founder of modern mechanics and experimental physics. Breaking with Aristotle's logical-verbal approach, Galileo proclaimed that the "Book of Nature is ... written in mathematical characters."

Galileo's observations convinced him that Copernicus was right: the earth revolves around the sun. That was a revolutionary challenge to the prevailing view of many centuries. Galileo quickly found himself in trouble with the authorities of his time, particularly the church. Nevertheless, although under house arrest for the last eight years of his life, he continued his discoveries and his writings right up to his death.

I take great pride in telling you there is a particular Carthage connection to Galileo during this International Year of Astronomy. Carthage physics professor Douglas Arion is leading the "Galileoscope" project sponsored by the International Astronomical Union. The goal is to design and to produce low-cost, high-quality telescopes that can enable people of all ages and circumstances to repeat Galileo’s observations and go beyond them. More than 100,000 telescopes already are in distribution, many in third-world countries.

Each of you, regardless of your major, will undertake your own experiments in the science laboratories here at Carthage. Like Galileo, you should realize truth is simple once you discover it. That experience should reinforce your respect for all that is outside yourself and independent of you. The very act of seeking truth may encourage a faith that, indeed, life does have meaning and purpose. One God, of many names.

• • •

"He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." — Edmund Burke

Paging onward through that Carthage calendar to next April, we encounter a collage of women and men student athletes. Of the College's twenty-four NCAA sports, we see soccer, basketball, swimming, golf, tennis, volleyball, baseball, and lacrosse. Accompanying those photographs is a statement by Edmund Burke: "He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."

You know, when you respect your opponents, you become much harder to beat. Building physical and mental strength is the goal of Carthage intercollegiate athletics, just as it is for the intramural and personal training programs.

Edmund Burke would approve. A British statesman of the late 18th century, he understood the rough and tumble of the political fray. He, also, was the most insightful contemporary critic of the French Revolution. The Revolution's slogan of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" reverberates to this day. What is freedom? What is equality? What is community? Our politics still are filled with those debates.

Here at Carthage, as you sort out your own answers to such questions, you will be strengthening your nerves and sharpening your skills, as Burke suggested. We shall not be giving you answers to complex and controversial issues, but we shall be trying to help you hone your own thinking and analytical capacities.

• • •

Candlelight vigil

In the past two or three days, new banners have gone up along the streets in order to welcome you here today. One of them — emblazoned "Building Strength" — rekindles my memories of one of the most poignant moments here at Carthage.

Standing in the dark, each with a candle, are six Carthage students, three women, three men. Actually, one young woman has a red, a white, and a blue candle. Those students had assembled, spontaneously, near Kissing Rock a day or two after 9-11.

They are a few years older now and are Carthage alumni. I have great confidence in their spiritual strength. Carthage may have helped them along their way.

"Building Strength" is mental; it is physical; it is spiritual.

• • •

"Sow good services; sweet remembrances will grow them." — Madame de Staël

Turning back to January in the Carthage calendar, we find a young woman working in an African village with several young women her age. Two of them have small children. During the J-term, Carthage students travel in all directions around the world on faculty-led study trips. Some of those trips focus specifically on service projects.

The advice of Madame de Stael accompanies that photograph: "Sow good services; sweet remembrances will grow them." That sentiment reflects her literary work as a romantic novelist at the turn of the 19th century. She also penned the famous words: "To know all is to forgive all." Well, maybe so, maybe not. You will have to decide for yourself.

Madame de Stael was an aristocratic liberal reformer in a revolutionary age, and an early advocate of women's rights. Napoleon was her nemesis. The conflict of their similar personalities kept a running battle going for years. Napoleon once stormed out about her: "She teaches people to think who never thought before, or who had forgotten how to think." Sometimes, our enemies provide our best epitaphs.

In those words of hers on the Carthage calendar, Madame de Stael stressed the ripple effects of our actions. Our deeds help provoke the deeds of others. When we "sow good services," we point toward a better future for all.

Seeking truth and building strength are challenging endeavors, but their ultimate purpose is to inspire service. So what if we become smart and strong if we do nothing useful as a result. But when truth, strength, and service do come together, they produce beautiful lives.

Together.

• • •

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." — Vincent van Gogh

If we turn the pages of that Carthage calendar one final time to June of next year, we find a young man with easel and art supplies in an idyllic scene along the lakeshore. It is a place where Vincent van Gogh might have drawn inspiration, and his words provide insight for us: "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."

Aside from the short, brisk brushstrokes of his mature art, van Gogh himself was unable to live by that philosophy of measured self-control. Highly emotional, lacking in self-confidence, he knocked about in various jobs as a young man before settling on the study of art. He then set out to give happiness by creating beauty. Such was his vision.

Night-long discussions and all-day painting bouts undermined his health and made him a difficult companion even for his fellow artists. But his passion and intensity found expression on canvas. In his art, van Gogh memorialized the togetherness that he never achieved in his daily life.

In a wild flurry of activity, he created much of his best work in a short, three-year period. The van Gogh Gallery website concludes: "the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature."

For a century, van Gogh’s paintings have been the treasured possessions of museums around the world, but during his whole lifetime, he sold just one painting.

We do have a broader legacy from him. About his wisdom that is now on this year’s calendar, there can be no doubt. Our achievements will come not by quick and easy impulse, but by sustained work in which we harmonize all our talents and abilities. We have to keep ourselves together.

The images of Carthage students have remained on the screens while I have talked about Galileo, Edmund Burke, Madame de Stael, and Vincent van Gogh. Implicitly, we were suggesting you and they are all together.

This week, Carthage will begin introducing you to your great conversation with hundreds of people like them. You will be interacting with men and women who have lived at various times across the past three thousand years. Some you may like more than others. Some you may agree with more than others. Once you do think things through, that will be your perfect right.

Eventually, you and the members of your generation will be making your own important contributions to that conversation, and you will be passing it along to your children and ensuing generations.

Seeking truth, building strength, inspiring service — together. You will be engaged in that great human quest.

Thank you for coming here. I am most grateful we are together.

Welcome to Carthage.