St. Lawrence University: President

Colleagues and distinguished guests, faculty, trustees, parents, friends and family of graduating seniors and masters candidates, members of the wider St. Lawrence family, and—most of all—graduating seniors and masters candidates, whether you are summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude, or “thank you Lordy,” a very warm welcome in the year of our sesquicentennial to this, the commencement ceremony of the Class of 2006.

A member of this class of 2006 is Kaia Klockeman of Dundas, Minnesota, whose wonderfully musical laugh I will miss greatly. From the very first day I met her at the President’s Picnic during first-year orientation in our backyard and learned she was from Minnesota, near where Ann I lived for 15 years, Kaia has had the good taste, judgment, and patience to endure my Ole and Lena stories and even laugh at them! Kaia this last one is for you (and maybe it even recalls feelings some of you parents had as you dropped your son or daughter off here):
Ole and Sven were talking at the Chatterbox Cafe one morning. Sven said to Ole: “Ole, I hear Ole Junior is off to college this year. What is he going to be when he graduates?” “About 35 to 40, I tink,” said Ole!

This is, of course, our sesquicentennial year. Chartered by the State of New York on April 3, 1856, founded as “a candle in the wilderness that will never be extinguished,” 150 years later we are a powerful beacon—the strong and confident university you see today—dedicated to liberal education of the very highest quality. You graduating seniors know from your experience that a liberal education is about “breadth, depth and integration in learning,” . . . . . . . “the cultivation of those habits of intellectual and moral self-discipline that distinguish a mature individual,” . . . . . . . fostering “in students an open, inquiring and disciplined mind, well informed through broad exposure to basic areas of knowledge; an enthusiasm for life-long learning; self-confidence and self-knowledge; a respect for differing opinions and for free discussion of those opinions; and an ability to use information logically and to evaluate alternative points of view.” I believe you have had that kind of education here.

Evidence of that was on display all over campus this year as many members of this class undertook, as part of our sesquicentennial, a critical look at how the St. Lawrence of our founding in 1856 became the St. Lawrence of today. What were the ideals to which our founders committed the University? What were the intellectual, religious, social and cultural roots of these ideals? How did they manifest themselves in the historic St. Lawrence, and are they evident in the University of today? How was St. Lawrence shaped by its history? What can we learn from understanding our roots that would help us create a better future? Three seniors—Wendy Berner, Katie Gay, and Steve Peraza—were awarded special Sesquicentennial Fellowships to do major research on three topics—the history of singing at St. Lawrence, the role of the Universalist Church in the University’s founding, and how understanding something of the life and St. Lawrence experience of Jeffrey Campbell ’33, St. Lawrence’s first African-American graduate does and does not illuminate St. Lawrence’s historic performance on the issue of race. Beyond the work of these three, published in the St. Lawrence Magazine this past year, 17 other seniors enrolled in a joint history and economics senior seminar, entitled “1856” (for the year of the University’s founding) taught by Professors Liz Regosin and Steve Horwitz, in order to do additional research on 19th century influences on the University.

One of the joys of being a faculty member here is that teaching and learning go both ways—from faculty to students and students to faculty. I had the chance to review the work of all of these students. Their work leaves us a legacy of deeper understanding that will be important to the University long into the future.

Katie Gay gets the prize for “best one-liner” from her public presentation earlier this spring. Residential liberal arts colleges, of course, are profoundly shaped by place—by their physical location and the history and culture of the region in which they reside. In her paper Katie reported that the Universalists almost decided against locating the university here in Canton because students might be exposed to too much excitement!

Canton was and is the county seat, industry and activity were everywhere, and in his paper Tunde Akinmade quoted Blankman and Cannon in their St. Lawrence history that St. Lawrence County was the “most-rapidly growing and forward-looking in [New York] in the first half of the century.” For over a century now, of course, the population of St. Lawrence County has been essentially the same. I wanted to ask Tunde: “Did the founding of St. Lawrence somehow kill off that growth and excitement?”

From the very first, of course, St. Lawrence was co-educational, taking up the call for the higher education of women expressed in an article entitled “What is the Use of Education?” published in the Universalists’ New York Reformer in June of 1852. The author commented, as Katie noted in her paper, that: “Especially in regard to young ladies, it is thought the money expended on their education is wasted, unless they engage in school-keeping, or perhaps marry some professional gentleman . . . . . Have not females rational minds, capable of improvement, expansion, and enjoyment? Have not females some relish for the fruits of knowledge, as well as males?” Those words may seem quaint today but they were surely radical in their time.
In her essay from the 1856 class, “Smashing the Separate Spheres,” Katie Stoller stressed how deep St. Lawrence’s commitment was to the equal education of women from the very beginning:

The university did not just accept women, it also made no secret of the fact that it gave the same opportunities to men and women. Both male and female students followed the same course catalog and were required to take the same courses for their degrees. . . . . . St. Lawrence held its men and women to the same academic standards in the same subjects. . . . . . . . . St. Lawrence stood out [in this regard] among the Universities nationwide at the time.

The St. Lawrence of the 19th century was bold and visionary about education. I believe we remain so today.

Steve Peraza’s essay on Jeffrey Campbell, which explores in depth how our Universalist heritage shaped the way race has played itself out in our history, has all of the nuance and depth of the work of a mature scholar. While Jeff Campbell was indeed the first African-American graduate of St. Lawrence, his life and writings resist any simple-minded iconography. While Campbell spoke and wrote about the evils of segregation, he did not do so, as Peraza says “as a black man fighting for racial equality. His argument . . . . does not claim the empowerment of a racial minority historically marginalized and exploited as its goal. . . . . . . [Rather,] segregation is the moral rejection of the great gift of God that men are brothers.” Peraza goes on to say that Campbell “needs in the first sense, for his readers to understand that he does not see himself as an African American in the same ways most white people do, and in the second sense, for his readers to see that those who cannot see Campbell as anything other than African American have already circumscribed his humanity, and the inherent fraternity among people of the world, as well as limited the inherent equality of God’s creation. . . . . . . . racism in America tarnishes the humanity that joins all people.” Campbell wrote and spoke of these things in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, well before Martin Luther King, Jr. and others brought eloquence to these questions in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Steve makes it clear that Jeff Campbell had a love-hate relationship with St. Lawrence. In his 1940 essay, “Personality and Pigmentation,” Campbell began by speaking eloquently and positively about his experience at St. Lawrence, both as an undergraduate and in the Theological School:

From start to finish the six years of close fellowship which I knew with faculty and students of that Theological School has been one of the richest I have known in an experience abundantly blessed with such fellowships. Every opportunity or advantage which the school could make available to any of its students was placed at my disposal. Undergraduates from the South who had stated that the day I entered the building they must leave for good remained to become friends whose esteem I hope to merit to my dying day.

But then he went on to describe his ordination. The examiners were fair and tough, he said, but they struggled with their decision:

Finally the committee voted ordination. It did so with more travail of spirit. There was the genuine fear of kindly people who disliked seeing a harmless idealist hurt. . . . . . There was a second, far deeper, fear. It was so deep I doubt if any of that committee could have placed a finger on it. I felt it in this way. They wanted their church to be the kind of institution which could unite its theory with its practice. Inwardly they knew that it was not, nor, within the limits of their imagination, could they see it becoming such. They feared lest that central weakness be demonstrated to the world. Through no connivance of my own I happened to be a walking demonstration of that weakness. Failure to ordain me would have been an even more flagrant confession of the same failure. In that dilemma they were caught and the whole denomination, not to mention liberal Christianity [and All of America], with them. . . . . .

. . . . . . . Neither the “Great Democracy” nor the Universalist Church can be true to itself without recognizing in word and intention the fact that “He hath made of one blood all nations.” The unique factor of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets is that they never say “all men should be brothers,” but that they already are. It is the refusal of men to act on the reality of their common brotherhood which has produced the Hell in which we blindly struggle today.

Ideals and action—the courage to “unite theory with practice”—we surely live that dilemma yet today. It pains me beyond imagining that our African-American students say they still hear racial epithets almost daily in this town. That should be the simplest thing to fix, the least one could do, and yet it feels to me so often like trying to grasp a puff of smoke in my hand. I am embarrassed and sorry.
I said two years ago on Martin Luther King, Jr. day that “this amazing Laurentian, Jeffrey Campbell, needs a biographer.” In Steve Peraza, he has found one!

Other remarkable essays by our students include Kathryn Courcy’s on St. Lawrence County education in the 19th century; Kaia Klockeman’s on educational finance in general and financing St. Lawrence, in particular, in the 19th century; Adam Casler’s on the history of the relationship between president and board of trustees at St. Lawrence; Shawn Mayo-Pike’s on law, lawyers and judges in 19th century St. Lawrence County; Liam Nolan on Henry Rushton and his role in the history of canoeing and boat building in the North Country; and Brenton Lyon and Susanna Whitaker-Rahilly in separate papers on the role of the railroad in the 19th century North Country and its effect on St. Lawrence.

And then also, of course, there is Wendy Berner’s paper on the history of singing at St. Lawrence. Informal as well as organized singing have been a central part of student and community life at St. Lawrence since its founding, and Wendy describes it all wonderfully. A Laurentian Singer herself, she helped organize and then performed with the Laurentian Parlor Singers (a group of 8 from the Laurentian Singers) a series of songs from different eras of singing at St. Lawrence, including my all-time favorite from a turn of the century St. Lawrence song book. It is entitled “Sucking Cider Through a Straw,” and the words go like this:

The prettiest girl I ever saw was sucking cider through a straw. Said I to her, “My dear, what for do you suck cider through a straw?” Said she to me, “Why, don’t you know that sucking cider’s all the go?” Then cheek to cheek and jaw to jaw, we both sucked cider through a straw. And if by chance the straw did slip, I kissed sweet cider from her lip.

You are indeed a remarkable senior class. My wish for you is that you will think of St. Lawrence as home throughout your life, no matter where you are and what you are doing, and that you will come back home here many, many times in the years to come. We are going to miss you, the great class of 2006, very, very much. To commemorate your sesquicentennial commencement, each of you will find a small gift inside your diploma case. Thank you!

St. Lawrence University Catalog, 2006-07, 5.

Katherine R. Gay, “Remarks”, Charter Day Ceremony, St. Lawrence University, April 3, 2006.

Edward J. Blankman and Thurlow O. Cannon, The Scarlet and the Brown: A History of St. Lawrence University 1856-1981 (Norwood: Plimpton Press, 1987), 1, in Akintunde Akinmade, “Universalism in America, the North Country, and St. Lawrence University,” April 27, 2006, 13.

Katherine R. Gay, “The Right Time for the Right Place: St. Lawrence, Universalism and the North Country,” St. Lawrence Magazine, Winter, 2006, 13.

Katie Stoller, “Smashing the Separate Spheres: SLU's Co-educational Mission and the Empowerment of 19th Century Women,” 20-1.

Steve Peraza, “Glimpse of a Visionary: Jeffrey Campbell ’33,” St. Lawrence Magazine, Winter, 2006, 19.

Ibid., 19.

Jeffrey Campbell, “Personality Not Pigmentation,” The Christian Leader, 1940 (the newspaper of the Universalist Church).

Ibid.

Wendy Berner, “Oh, When the Saints . . . . .: A Brief Look at the History of Singing at St. Lawrence,” St. Lawrence Magazine, Summer/Fall, 2005, 15-19.