UMASS: A Community where Collegiate Scholars Thrive

National Society of Collegiate Scholars Induction Ceremony
October 28, 2001

Colleagues, initiates, families, friends of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, it is my distinct pleasure to participate today in so special an event. Today the University of Massachusetts and members of NSCS honor those students who have accomplished the stringent admission requirements that accompany invitation into this chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars: I congratulate you. I congratulate you especially because the transition to the first year of baccalaureate studies from secondary education can often pose difficult challenges. You have responded to those challenges with excellence and have sustained that excellence into your sophomore year. You have learned well and demonstrated the quality of that learning. I congratulate you.

In the life of a University, there are events--ceremonies, rituals--such as this one. These events are significant at many levels. Certainly, it is appropriate and necessary for us to pause to recognize those who have achieved superior scholarship and to encourage your ongoing striving toward continued excellence. The National Society of Collegiate Scholars was founded on the principles of Scholarship, Leadership and Service. Members are urged to pursue each of these ideals with a sense of passion and dedication. Events such as this one also provide opportunities for reflection, reassessment, and reaffirmation.

At the beginning of the school year, we traditionally invite for a breakfast some of the leaders of the several surrounding communities. At that breakfast I stressed the theme of UMass as a community–the UMass family, and talked about the roles and responsibilities of the various members of the family. I also offered a definition of community that I want to share here today because it is pertinent to how I will be talking about the accomplishments of those being inducted today.

I described community as a place where together people agree to live in a vital and constructive interdependency; where people matter; where there is a tacit agreement to create opportunities and seek solutions to challenges together; where growth in one part of the community enhances vitality in another; where together people commit and recommit to identifying and living shared values; where people care.

Well, I believe that those being inducted today are able to meet the criteria for membership because they have benefitted from families who care, from teachers who care, and from the learned habit of caring about and being responsible for the choices they make. I also believe they are committed to becoming better human beings by accessing in themselves their best at each moment so that they can better ensure the achievements they desire.

The members and new inductees of NSCS must also recommit daily to the choices they have made and renew their resolve to become better human beings and achieve through education. Their endeavors have paid handsome dividends, and we believe their dedicated efforts will continue to ensure their highest scholarship.

Now, let me speak to another of your principles: Leadership. The events of the past few months in particular have made it clear that change is the only constant. Although change may now be common in its occurrence, we must have uncommon leaders for these extraordinary times--leaders who can transcend the constraints of tradition, all the while understanding the potential of that legacy to empower new futures. Uncommon leadership.

Change is often marked by upheaval, unrest, excitement, agitation. It can be unsettling and shifting--difficult to stabilize. On the other hand, it can afford opportunities for renewal, innovative approaches to familiar concepts, and new ideas to shape and vitalize futures unimagined just a short time ago. Leaders must see with keener vision, with different angles of refraction.

I am reminded of the story of how Alexander III (Alexander the Great) acquired his famous horse, Bucephalus. A Thessalian citizen offered to sell the animal to Philip of Macedonia. Before agreeing to the sale, Philip was eager to see the animal put through its paces. However, none of the royal grooms was successful in mounting the high spirited animal, or were quickly thrown when they did. Philip's son, Alexander, having watched the unsuccessful attempts, asked his father if he could ride the animal. Doubting that his son would have any more success than the grooms had experienced, Philip agreed to have Alexander try, on the condition that Alexander pay him the asking price for the horse if he failed to ride it successfully. He, in turn, agreed to give the animal to Alexander, however, if he succeeded in riding it. Alexander approached the horse's head and turned it into the sun, for he had noticed that the horse had been frightened by its own shadow. Having re-directed the horse, Alexander calmed it, mounted it, and proceeded to put it through its impressively new paces. Upon realizing what Alexander had done, Philip is reported to have told his son to seek lands more vast than Macedonia, which was clearly too small for his visions and insights.

You must not be afraid of your own shadow as you pursue with passion and dedication those ideals and values that you know to be constructive and right.

The third principle or ideal of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars is Service. We must come to understand service as an essential element in one's life’s learning: we believe that service is not just giving back to society--though it is that, too; rather it is an essential element of the ideals and principles of the National Society for Collegiate Scholars. It is our challenge in universities to represent the belief of service as the integration of theory and practice in pursuit of a greater good in daily routines through programs (curricular and co-curricular) and practices with all our constituents--not as a way of being accountable and responsive to public opinion, but because it is fitting...and right...and because the lived through experience of service bestows to our persons the full currency of the human phenomenon.

We are here today in recognition of your demonstrated propensity to achieve and accomplish significantly through education: your GPAs attest to that. It represents a significant academic distinction--a distinction that acknowledges a certain intellectual ability as well as the ability to articulate what you have first comprehended, then analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated.

Your accomplishment of a high GPAs is significant. It is essential for the recognition you receive today. It is insufficient, however, for the full awarenesses we must bring to the intellectual consequences of our lives. The mission of the Society addresses the other dimensions quite well–Leadership and Service.

I challenge you to continue pursuing your ideals with the full passion and dedication they deserve. I urge you to continue to care about your choices and about the people from whom you have learned such valued and valuable habits. Make it a daily habit, too, to affirm your choices and recommit to your resolve to accomplish through education and endeavor.

Again, my congratulations to you and to your families. You have and are continuing to fulfill your role as a member of the UMass family: your accomplishments bring honor to the UMass family name. For that we thank you.