Induction Speech
November 4, 2001
Rev. Dr. Stuart C. Lord
I would consider it a blessing even to be among such a distinguished society of scholars - The fact that I am addressing you, as an inductee no less, is nothing short of an honor. My deepest appreciation for your invitation - thank you all.
On campuses across the country, the words of past college presidents and time-honored scholars find there way into most all formal publications and external promotions. Sometimes, in fact, these words are found etched on statues and the most beloved of campus buildings. And inevitably, these historic words are woven into the language and the logic of traditional ceremonies and campus-wide ritualized events.
Yes, it seems that Princetonians cannot gather in the smallest of groups without conjuring up the historic words of Woodrow Wilson or the mystical riddles of Albert Einstein.
For Harvard, the sweet sounds of Emerson and Eliot, and the penetrating prose of W.E.B. Dubois seem to be among the most favorite.
And for us here at Dartmouth, I often hear the words of Daniel Webster, William Jewett Tucker and Robert Frost.
Though inspired, and inspiring these historic words may be, they often lose their pragmatic punch when excavated from the page and placed into the context of our daily actions on campus.
Why Is This So?
Well, for some individuals, these well-known words from years past are believed to be bankrupt of meaning because they are encoded with culturally-based, gender-specific, racially-motivated and economically-conditioned notions of self and of society - notions that some individuals insist deny the very essence of their personal identities, or de-legitimize the value of their collective efforts for change.
For others, however, the language a college's fourth president used to describe a well-rounded student, or an ideal scholar at the turn of the 19th Century, may not make much sense in the context of our contemporary intellectual theories, societal expectations or world events.
For example, what does a "defender of truth" or a "doer of God's will" mean to us today?
WHAT IS TRUTH?
- Is it self-evident or socially negotiated?
- Is it fixed and final - perhaps foreordained by a supreme being?
- Or is truth fluid and flexible - able to be shaped and reshaped by the most unsuspecting of beings?
AND WHOSE GOD ARE WE SPEAKING OF ANYWAY?
- A maternal or paternal image?
- A personal or communal presence?
- A transcendent or completely temporal reality?
We may subscribe to a precise definition of truth, or we may believe in a particular notion of God; However, it seems entirely possible that in today's political, cultural and religious climate, we may not be so strongly committed to identifying ourselves as a "defender" or even a "doer."
Such labels have come to carry a surplus of MIXED meaning in modern times - even before the tragedies of September 11th.
These two camps of contextual criticism are both well-founded and well-grounded. Indeed, historic words from past presidents and time-honored scholars are loaded with contextually-based and culturally-specific ideas and images - ideas and images that can prove to have serious shortcomings in contemporary society.
Furthermore, the language, the syntax, the style, the references and the reasoning that underlie these historic words are in many ways alien to the experiences of our students, and to the expertise of our scholars.
However, I have come to believe that when we travel beyond the trappings or the triviality of these historic words, we find a past that CAN in fact speak to the present - and profoundly so, I might add.
Nowhere is this experiential connection between past and present more evident than in the field of service.
Dartmouth's past presidents and time-honored scholars knew the value of character development and community involvement. At the turn of the 20th Century, for example, William Jewett Tucker, Dartmouth's ninth president, issued these words:
"Be not content with the commonplace in character anymore
than with the commonplace in ambition or intellectual attainment.
Do not expect that you will make any lasting or very strong impression
On the world through intellectual power without the use of an equal
amount of conscience and heart."
Fifty years later, President John Sloan Dickey declared,
"conscience as the necessary companion of competence."
These Dartmouth men might well have had a vision of community or an understanding of character that is significantly different than that of my own. However, the necessary point to be made here is not that we differ in our definitions and our descriptions of community or character (though noteworthy that may be). The point is that we are all advocating and advancing the same fundamental realities - the realities of character development and community involvement.
CONSIDER the principles on which this institution was founded,
MINE the ideas and images buried in the words of
our long-forgotten leaders and our extraordinary learners,
or, Track the evolution of our curriculum and our discourse,
and you will find an institution that has been historically committed to
fostering character development and community involvement.
Establishing this connection between past and present is certainly not a major advancement on the intellectual front. However, let me be forthright in saying that establishing this connection is typically half of the battle in higher education. On countless campuses nationwide, too many advocates of community service are spending too much of their time lobbying for the recognition of service as an integral part of the higher education experience.
This is NOT only illogical, considering the fact that the value of character development and community involvement has stood the test of time in higher education, but it is also ineffective, in that valuable resources, time and talents are being diverted away from the many programmatic tasks at hand.
Service to others - and the character development and community involvement which necessarily follow - IS an integral part of the higher education experience.
NSCS no doubt knows the value of service in higher education. I was extremely excited when I learned of the many wonderful service opportunities that this society offers each year. From the "Planning for College Success Program" to the numerous "Spring Break Service Trips," NSCS has designed and developed so many innovative ways to make a difference in the lives of others.
In addition, this society's decision to collaborate with a host of national service organizations - organizations such as...
America's Promise,
Youth Service America
and the Campus Opportunity Outreach League -
shows a strong commitment to sustained programming and an inclusive understanding of service.
Now, as it stands,
You know that service is an integral part of the higher education experience -
And I know that service is an integral part of the higher education experience -
So, the quintessential question here is this:
"Why doesn't everyone else know it too?"
It is my theory that service, GENERALLY SPEAKING, has something of a second-class status in higher education. Instead of being recognized as an integral part of the higher education experience, service is all too often relegated to an "extra-curricular activity." This positioning sets service clearly beyond the scope of the curriculum and, consequently, apart from the learning process.
So, for example, rather than service providing a practical perspective to a theoretical discussion on urban economic policy, it instead shares rank with intramurals, road trips and late night revelry - thus, representing an experience that is completely isolated from, and for that reason, irrelevant to academic discourse.
As long as service is made to stand outside of the classroom, looking in on the constitution and transmission of knowledge, it will continue to have difficulty gaining its due recognition as an integral part of the higher education experience.
The task before us, as I see it, is to convince others of the fact, which we already know. Namely, service HAS an important place in the learning process.
For when we serve others, we not only change the quality of their lives - and the condition of their communities - but we, ourselves, are also changed. Through service we obtain a new contextual frame of reference and a fundamentally distinct mode of interpersonal exchange.
These changes to our intellectual makeup and our emotional identity - be they minor or major in degree - consciously and unconsciously affect our epistemological findings and our methodological approaches in the classroom.
For example, I am convinced that you cannot spend four terms of your collegiate career coordinating a prison visitation program, and not have some practical findings or personal insights to contribute to a theoretical debate on the integrity of our nation's penal system or the purpose of capital punishment.
In short, the service experience profoundly impacts who we are and how we think. Therefore, service cannot help, but influence the questions we ask and the issues we find important. Since WE know that the service experience impacts the classroom experience, then it seems only fitting that we help others around us to recognize this connection, rather than repress it.
If service is to receive its due recognition as an integral part of the higher education experience, then we - as students, as scholars, as agents of change - must find profound and practical ways to integrate our character development and community involvement into the learning process.
Take your service to the streets, but bring your passions back to the learning process.
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