Santa Clara University

Convocation 2005-06

University Convocation
Paul Locatelli, S.J.
September 19, 2005

Welcome 

I want to add my welcome to this University Convocation and to the campus as we begin the academic year.

Welcome to the new members of our community. You enrich our lives. This year, we have 72 new faculty 13 of whom are on tenure track, a Freshman Class of 1210, and 240 new transfer students. We also welcome some 45 students from New Orleans universities displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

I would like to reflect on the importance of engaged citizenship in three different arenas -- in this community of scholars we call Santa Clara University; in the democracy we enjoy at the city, state, and national levels; and in the globalizing world.

Ignatius of Loyola saw that integrating a love for learning with living a life of virtue and faith would benefit the common good of all citizens. The aim of the university, then, was and still is to educate ethical, socially responsible citizens who would leaven society with knowledge, wisdom and virtue.

Santa Clara Community

First, our Santa Clara Community. We come together today as a community of scholars with different gifts, different ideas and points of view about the world. When we use our gifts, exchanging ideas in the search for knowledge and truth, we contribute to the intellectual and social life of the community for the good of all. When we engage and accompany our partners in Arrupe Center courses, we expand even further our source of truth and learn some important lessons about reality. We should appreciate the different roles and responsibilities within our community, and learn with and from each other.

When faculty, students and, staff gather together to celebrate, we easily see the best of Santa Clara. It gives me a sense of pride and gratitude for this community. Its vibrancy and passion of searching for truth is most visible.

To the faculty I say, you are outstanding teaching scholars who have dedicated your lives to scholarship and the well-being of Santa Clara students. You genuinely care about each one and their academic success.

To the staff, who serve in a wide variety of areas – admissions, athletics, the Center for Student

“To the students I say, you are young men and women of enormous talent and potential.”

—Paul Locatelli, S.J.

Leadership, Library, grounds and facilities, Campus Ministry, and all the other – I say thank you for your dedicated and committed excellence in serving students, parents, benefactors, friends, and all who make up our community.

To the students I say, you are young men and women of enormous talent and potential. I encourage you, even urge you, to get involved in the life of this community, take advantage of the educational opportunities offered, and then, you will become leaders and citizens of competence, conscience, and compassion.

The measure of how good Santa Clara is, is found in "who we become" and "how well we learn to use our knowledge and gifts to fashion a more humane and just society" – and better the lives of our families and friends as well as local, regional, national and global communities.

If we become women and men of virtue with a passion for truth, then we will live in solidarity with all persons, rather than shrivel up in selfishness and isolation.

Hence, we celebrate our community and your part in making it better. We honor all of you for your hard work, your dedication, and your commitment to Santa Clara and we pay special recognition to those who have excelled as faculty, staff, and students.

Engaged Citizenship - Constitution Day 

Secondly, we also remind ourselves that engaged citizenship is crucial for the well-being of democracy and a free society. Last year, Congress passed legislation that every school in the country, including universities, must recognize the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.

This is a commendable idea, but Congress should also be reminded, particularly in the current environment of excessive government intrusion, that the Constitution guarantees that university communities have institutional autonomy free from government interference in the search for truth.

At the same time, the Constitution is most important to all of us. It preserves the principle that government is for the people, and not the people for the government. The Constitutions confirms the sacredness of its citizens in its first three words – "We the People." We the people form this instrument of governance for our personal and common good.

As Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg of our founding...we are "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men [and women] are created equal..." and he ended the address with the idea that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Had we lived by the laws of the Constitution and the vision of Lincoln, we would be much better as a nation.

Let us remember the unjust internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as one example, and in our own time, what we are doing in Guantanamo in response to 9/11 is highly suspect.

Nonetheless, the Constitution is a living document that has served us well for over 200 years in protecting our individual liberties and advancing the common good of citizens of our nation.

For the Constitution to remain relevant, we have a responsibility to continually breathe life into it. Only by our civic engagement will we ensure that it continues, as the Preamble says, "to promote the General Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

In the 1960s, it was ordinary citizens who led the civil rights movement where we began to recognize human rights of all, particularly African Americans. All of us have heard the cry of Martin Luther King Jr. – not to be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. I am disquieted by the revelation of the depth of poverty in New Orleans, with 85% of the poor being African American.

Now we must ask our government: Will we have the courage and vision to rebuild that city and treat those poor families justly? Will we insist that all of us – especially those in our government – bind our freedom to those families as Lincoln did in 1863?

Taking responsibility for both our democracy and our Constitution is one of the key aims of Jesuit education. Engage in larger purposes than self-interest by joining civic organizations, by voting, by writing or speaking to public servants from President Bush’s office to our local city council members.

Especially, by voting. Vote for the person you judge will best preserve individual freedom and promote justice, civil rights and the common good of all in society.

Global Citizenship

Third, is our global citizenship. All universities, especially Catholic Jesuit ones, are best positioned to educate for civic engagement globally as well as locally or nationally.

As the single superpower in the world, the United States has a disproportionate impact on the world’s politics, economy, environment, and peace. In an increasingly interdependent world, U.S. citizens must consider universal human and civic rights and some level of responsibility for the care of all humanity and creation.

Priorities for 2005-2006

A word about priorities for this academic year: Last year we began a series of conversations called Future Directions. All seven themes attend to educating for ethical, socially responsible citizenship. Three are very specific ones: Educating for a Globalizing World, for Democracy, and Multi-Cultural Understanding. The other four also aim to improve the well-being of society. Let me merely note here: the Environment and Ecology Sustainable, Technology as benefitting humanity, Theology and Culture, and Ethics and Social Justice.

As I noted in the Faculty Convocation address last Tuesday, a Santa Clara education must always demand exacting academic and intellectual inquiry and debate to analyze root causes, to develop conceptual theories by following evidence to its logical conclusion, and to implement policies and practices that will improve society for all, but particularly the quality of life of the poor.

This is the context for continuing the discernment and debate over the next few months on these themes. These discussions are about achieving our vision of educating leaders and citizens of competence, conscience and compassion.

If we do that well, Santa Clara will achieve greater national recognition for its excellence. This aspiration is not an end in itself nor does it mean copying characteristics of any other university. Rather, it is the logical outcome of doing what we have already chosen to do and doing it exceptionally well.

In addition to the discussion about Future Directions we will begin planning for a major, year-long

“A Santa Clara education must always demand exacting academic and intellectual inquiry and debate to analyze root causes...and to implement policies and practices that will improve society for all, but particularly the quality of life of the poor.”

—Paul Locatelli, S.J.

institute on the relationship of politics and religion. It will include programs, for example, Boo Riley is working on a religious dialogue, but planning on a larger scale is only in the idea stage now.

Another priority is the successful completion of our Campaign for Santa Clara, which will end in December 2006. Among our goal of $350M are resources for scholarships, professorships, a new Library, Business School, and Jesuit Residence so that Nobili can be freed for other purposes.

I am happy to report that as of the end of August we have gifts and pledges to the Campaign of roughly $320M. That is the good news. The not so good news is that not all of that money has been donated for our campaign priorities and the area where we have serious gaps to close is for the new buildings I mentioned.

Over the next six to nine months, with the help of the Trustees and Regents, we will be accelerating our campaign efforts, especially the fund-raising for the Library and other Campaign goals. We want to have the funds to begin construction of these buildings as soon as possible given that construction costs continue to escalate at a very high pace.

Closing

This is an exciting and important time in the history of Santa Clara. Once again, thank you to our faculty and staff for your hard work and dedication. And thank you students, for choosing Santa Clara and helping to make it the vibrant and engaged community that it is.

Thank you