Seattle University Graduate School Commencement Ceremony
Key Arena at Seattle Center
I wish to express my deep appreciation for this honor to Fr. Sundborg, the trustees, the faculty, staff and students of this outstanding university.
It is a great honor for me to be here and to have this chance to be with you in this wonderful moment of celebration.
I have lived my life in the context of one institution of higher education. I believe deeply in the very idea of a university. I believe even more deeply in the practice of a university.
There is no other institution in the history of humankind quite like a university. Think for a moment about this institution and what it has enabled you and countless others to do throughout its now nearly 125-year history.
Universities do three things – that together constitute our distinctiveness:
We provide a context for the formation of each of our members…
We provide a place that supports the inquiry of our faculty and through an “intellectual” apprenticeship – the pursuit of knowledge of our students – none more than graduate students…
…And together we contribute as a community to the common good of those to whom we are connected – for all of you at Seattle University, the communities here in the City of Seattle, in the State of Washington, in the Pacific Northwest, in this Nation, throughout the Pacific Rim, and beyond.
Let me now offer a brief reflection about each of these elements: formation, inquiry, and common good.
Formation
Each of us strives to find the conditions that enable us to flourish as human beings –the combination of practices that enable me to be my most authentic self – a self where my decisions and actions are in alignment with my most deeply held values.
Our authenticity is predicated on freedom – an interior freedom – we are able to break through the blocks that prevent such alignment of our values and our actions. Formation: We are able to realize our deepest selves.
Inquiry
No institution has the depth of commitment to deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us like the university.
There are many places where we can engage in the work of formation – the military, an entrepreneurial venture, a religious order – The university is built around knowledge – the discovery and construction of knowledge.
As graduate students you would have the deepest exposure to this dimension of the university.
We believe there is a unique quality to our style of formation, because it is given its shape by the pursuit of knowledge, where our students are guided in this common enterprise of inquiry by some of the most accomplished scholars in the world.
Common Good
Saint Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order, concluded the “mission” statement he called the “Formula for the Institute,” with these words:
“…and we do all of this for the glory of God and the common good.”
There is a good that we can achieve together that we could never hope to achieve alone.
Every university is in a distinctive place at a particular moment in history, and we are expected to engage, with the unique resources of our institutions in contributing to the common good.
These three elements – formation, inquiry, and common good – are shared by each university.
These three elements are inextricably linked and cannot be unbundled without risking great harm to the integrity of the enterprise.
This is the place where each of you has spent an important part of your lives.
We honor this moment with this ancient ceremony. We called it Commencement because it is a beginning.
You have been here before – this isn’t your first commencement. You have a better grasp of why you are here and what this means than those who graduated just a few hours ago.
You know you are now prepared like few others in the world – the depth and breadth of your learning, is shared by a very small percentage of our world’s population.
You also have some sense of the world you are about to enter – the complexity, the uncertainty.
You know that the students who graduated this morning will average five jobs in the first ten years of their work lives, and then one every five years for the rest of their careers.
You know that without that degree their opportunities would be severely limited.
I know many say, “Higher education isn’t for everybody!”
I would not disagree but I would say it is for far more people than who currently receive it.
Only 40 percent of Americans have a two-year degree or higher – the percentage with a bachelor’s degree is just over 32 percent. Less than 8 percent have a Master’s degree or higher.
An important reality of our present moment is this:
Those with postsecondary degrees have now recovered since the Great Recession; but there has been no recovery for those without this education.
And since 1983 our economy has consistently produced more jobs that require post-secondary education than higher education can produce graduates for those jobs.
You are prepared like few others in our world and you have gifts and talents that our world so desperately needs.
The challenges before us are significant: we have to find ways to include more and more people into our economies and political systems.
We need to ensure the work we provide respects the dignity of our sisters and brothers.
We need to ensure that our ways of arranging our lives together respect what Pope Francis calls our “Common Home.”
You have the preparation necessary to make your own contributions, and because of this preparation you have the opportunity to experience the joy that comes with mastery…
The joy of fully realizing your promise – of experiencing the meaning of your life at ever more imaginative and substantive depths…
The joy of becoming the person that you are called to be – the person that you are meant to be.
And you bring with you something of incalculable worth – you take these next steps on your journeys with the gift of the Spirit of this place – the Spirit of Seattle University.
A Spirit grounded in the work of formation, inquiry, and the common good…
A Spirit that has animated this community for nearly 125 years…
A Spirit of light, of hope, of faith, a Spirit of love…
And wherever you go, wherever you may find yourself – when you have the feeling of wholeness, the feeling of alignment, of authenticity, of consolation – if you close your eyes, you can be right back here in this community, where you can remember earlier moments – perhaps even this very moment – when you knew you were in the presence of this Spirit.
This is a very special time in your lives.
This is your time.
It is an honor to share this moment with you.
Thank you.
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