CONVOCATION 2006
Paul Locatelli, S.J.
Sept. 18, 2006
I add my welcome to all of you, and a special welcome to new students and faculty and staff.
This Convocation is a time for the entire University community to celebrate our legacy of Jesuit education and our hopes for a new year of learning, growing in friendship, and understanding among people of all walks of life.
Contributing to education, to the growth of learning, friendship, and understanding is the topic that I want to focus my comments on today: the importance of engaging in our community and as citizens of each of our countries and of our world.
I see learning as going hand-in-hand with engaged citizenship. As St. Ignatius of Loyola envisioned, the well-being of the whole world depends on the education of young men and women. He saw civic virtue as a key purpose of education.
Let me share a recent story, which helps us see the importance of engagement for the public good. I was in Europe for a meeting when President Bush was re-elected to a second term. A citizen of another country turned to me and said, “I should have had a chance to vote in your presidential election.”
Puzzled, I responded by asking whether I should be able to vote in the presidential election of his country. He said no. Even more puzzled, I said, “Why not?” His response was that the president of the United States is the only position in the world that affects global relationships and politics—and can create order or havoc in the every part of the world.
That, I suggest, is a sobering thought and responsibility not only for the president of the United States, but for every person in this country. The president and legislators of the United States have, for good or bad, a global impact on such areas as global warming, the AIDS pandemic, debt relief of poor countries, international relations, and global stabilization, especially in the Middle East.
They also have a national impact on U.S. citizens by the attending or not attending to the growing national debt, to health care and education for Americans (a record 45.6 million Americans had no health insurance in 2005—almost 16 percent of the population), to the growing dependence on oil and high gas prices—and particularly to problems of hunger, poverty, homelessness, and disease, not only in the U.S. but in the world.
According to one national poll, 64 percent of the American people now feel our country is headed in the wrong direction. If the European citizen that said our country is now the key player for world politics is right, is not our world also headed in the wrong direction?
From another recent national survey released by the Panetta Institute, here is what college student think about a number of key issues regarding the public (political) good. In response to the question of whether our country is on the right track, 33 percent said yes, and 53 percent no—a significant change from a year ago when only 38 percent felt the country was on the wrong track.
Fifty-four percent indicated dissatisfaction with the quality of the country’s leadership, and President Bush’s approval rating dropped to 29 percent among the students surveyed.
In general, students perceived our nation as not living up to stated American ideals well. For example, 77 percent of students said the country is doing a poor job of assisting those in poverty; 72 percent believed the U.S. does a poor job in providing health care. Only 43 percent felt we are doing a good to excellent job as a symbol of democracy to the rest of the world. And only 33 percent believed the government was doing a good to excellent job in representing the best interests of its citizens.
On a positive note, students’ commitment to help others is on the increase: 74 percent report having been involved in activities to help their communities. So, you want to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, the surveyed students reported little interest (only 38 percent) in trying to “fix it” by being politically engaged or running for office.
I'd like to urge you not to succumb to the temptation of blaming or praising those in public office—from the president to local politicians—but to accept the responsibility for our democracy and for making the public life of our community, country, and world better.
Making democracy work in this country can become an example for it to work around the world; making the world more humane and just for poor and rich alike will happen only with our responsible involvement.
Yesterday, Sept. 17, was the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. Our Constitution encompasses the fundamental principles by which the United States is governed, including the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances between three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The Bill of Rights—the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, passed in 1791—outlines the protection for individual rights, and because we are free from government invasion of personal privacy, we also have responsibilities for our democracy.
Our Constitution guarantees our freedom to worship God as we wish, to speak as we wish, and to participate in the political process and to vote as we wish. Too often we take for granted these freedoms, especially to vote our conscience. But these freedoms demand responsible involvement by all of us.
I encourage you to study and debate the issues, to pay attention to current events, to take the time to inform yourselves so that you can vote wisely. I urge you to be intelligent, engaged citizens who understand the principles of democracy and democratic decision-making, of constitutional and civil rights.
I encourage all of us to be registered to vote—and then to cast informed ballots.
I hope all of you students will practice on campus now what you should and will do for our country and the world in the future. I encourage you to participate in student government and student publications; in intramurals and the arts, like drama or music; in campus ministry programs; the Arrupe academic program; and your Residential Learning Center projects—I encourage you to vote for your student representatives.
When we say that your Santa Clara, Jesuit education prepares you to become persons of competence, conscience, and compassion, it also means you must learn to become engaged citizens of this community, of the country of your birth, and of the world—and then you will make the world a better place for people of all walks of life.
Thank you all for being a part of this community and for your commitment to fashioning more humane and just communities and the global village we call the world.
