To begin with certainty
“that the people here
can make the world
better,” and that “we can
do that together,” is
to tether Humanism
to belief.
You write of a “need
for higher education…”
to reach “outside
our culture,” for we
are misconstrued
as arrogant
when in fact,
to teach
is to act
in the service
of the whole.
You ask,
“Are our goals
more compelling
than our
obstacles?”
“Do we actually
believe
we can make
progress?”
and this,
“Help us remember
where we’ve been,
who we’ve become,
and how we’ve been
shaped on the roads
we’ve traveled” –
In under two hundred
years,
and despite the tears
of growing pains,
we have become. Knowing
this, whatever doubt
remains need only be,
and dutifully, put
aside.
No one denies
the bumps
and lumps
and still
“the promise
of the world
before us” compels,
and so we
wade “deep in the water”
to remind
and to keep-sake
the best
of who we are
and to unwind
the rest.
You said,
“It is a hard
world. We need
soft edges” –
and this,
That to curate,
and “to create
better
human beings
and, therefore,
potentially
a better
world,”
is to shore up,
and to educate
the whole.
You teach
the incremental
and seeming
incidental,
become
“broader contexts
we call Legacy,”
and
to practice
humility,
and
widen
the circle.
You teach
that empathy
is malleable
such that \ we
can grow
our capacity
and with
“intentional
effort.”
Hope binds
a community
and requires
that we all
and sincerely,
believe
it is possible
to achieve
a better world,
today –
“But for this
Legacy to be realized,”
“there has to be
a you…
a real educator”
willing to lean into
the life of the dreamy
young professional,”
trusting that “the
rough patches
will be
less than
the
enormous
and
cumulative
growth…
our future holds.”
‘Yes’ is a complete
sentence.
-Dr. Cheryl R. Hopson
Roanoke College Class of 1995