Remarks—Opening Convocation, August 26, 2004
Daniel F. Sullivan

A warm welcome to you all. Today at this opening convocation we celebrate achievements of students, faculty, and administrative staff, and gather to hear words of inspiration and wisdom from a very special faculty member, selected by faculty and administrative colleagues to give the fourth “First Lecture”—a new tradition begun four years ago.

As we formally “convene” the university in this ceremony today—always a time of hopefulness and optimism for our work because we have yet again the chance to help shape the lives and character of a university full of great students—we face a special set of challenges from the society we serve that we must find ways to meet. One day this past summer I had looked up from some reading and was staring absent-mindedly out the window. My seven-year-old grand-daughter came up to me, waived her hand in front of my face, and said: “Grandpa, anybody home?” Many times I wonder if anyone is at home in America with regard to issues like:

• Access—the continued and embarrassingly consequential lack of inclusion of the lower-income and the non-white when it comes to college attendance. In America today, despite various federal and state programs and the efforts of colleges and universities like St. Lawrence, lower income non-white students of the highest academic ability and high school performance quartiles are about as likely to attend and complete college as the lowest ability and lowest performing but highest income quartiles of white students. For students of roughly equal ability and performance, race and social class still matter greatly in America when it comes to college attendance and college completion. This is shameful, and as a society we seem to have a declining will to fix this.

St. Lawrence, I’m proud to say, ranks sixth among all selective liberal arts colleges in America in the percentage of its students receiving Pell grants, the federal scholarship grant reserved for the lowest income group. Over 20% of our students receive Pell grants; despite its huge wealth and the small size of Harvard College in the university’s overall budget, only 6% of Harvard students are from families whose income is low enough to make them eligible for Pell grants. On the other hand, historically we have been lower than our selective college peers in the percentage of our students who are American students of color. The percentages in our last two first-year classes put us now into the middle of the pack, so we are gaining on this one, but we must continue and increase our commitment. I worry about this all the time as we try to work out St. Lawrence’s way into the future, but I fear that way too few Americans worry about this any more.

• Another issue we face is a growing loss of confidence by government leaders, prominent social critics and a large segment of the population as a whole in our judgments regarding what is knowledge and what should be taught and how. The Academic Bill of Rights movement is just one indicator of this; another is the set of provisions in the draft federal higher education reauthorization bill inserted by Congressmen McKeon and Boehner. We face, and are fighting, a whole new potential level of federal and state regulation of the core of what we do. This has always been a testy issue in America, but we had, I believe, achieved a kind of mutual understanding with the vast majority who care about this—a reasonable understanding of what academic freedom means, and a reasonable level of trust that we draw thoughtful and appropriate distinctions in our teaching between “knowledge” and “ideology.” The increase in what some call “activist pedagogy” and the appropriate willingness, thank goodness, of scholars of all kinds to “speak truth to power” on a whole host of critical have called into question in the minds of many the historic levels of mutual understanding and trust. Some of this, as I say, was unavoidable but I think we as a profession will have to spend more time in respectful explanation to our society to achieve once again a reasonable understanding of academic freedom and a sufficient level of trust that we are drawing appropriate distinctions between knowledge and ideology in our teaching.
• Add to that a growing concern in America that educational outcomes are not as high as they should be given the level of investment we are making in higher education and you have declining governmental and taxpayer support for the whole higher education enterprise—with the possible exception of Division I athletics! What a sad place for a country to be that depends as we do on human capital formation for our economic vitality. But it is a fact that fewer and fewer Americans believe that increasing our social investment in higher education will produce increasing returns. They want us to be more accountable for the investments they do make, and they’d like more for less.

I believe we have gotten the accountability message. We know that the constant tuning of what we do to maximize its positive impact on students can happen only with ongoing outcomes assessment. We also know, of course, how complicated truly good outcomes assessment is and so have quite reasonably resisted simple-minded, one-size-fits-all approaches to it. In these next years, as we prepare for our next full, ten-year Middle States accreditation review, just three years away, we must move to a whole new level on the issue of outcomes assessment.

Grant has important things to say about this in his Dean’s report for this year, which will be available shortly, and I too will have more to say about it in a few weeks as we gear up and begin a new level of effort with regard to outcomes assessment.

• Finally, I must say that the much more unsettled world situation and in my personal view America’s much more awkward and inadequate approach to it in recent years creates a background of instability for the good work that we do here. The tension I feel every day over getting the normal business of the university done well sits on top of a huge tension I feel with regard to the global political situation and our role in it. I believe all of us are more scratchy and testy than normal, no matter what our political views are, and that makes working through the kinds of complicated issues that are always with us, and should be with us, more difficult than usual. I feel empowered with regard to the first set of challenges we face that I have mentioned—I believe that we can play an important role in creating the right kind of change, both locally and nationally—but I feel far less empowered when it comes to the world situation. Surely it makes the educational work we do here even more important, and so we must do it with increased commitment and success, but if Rome is burning there are days when it can feel like fiddling. I have no good answers for this, and because as you know I am a “glass 2/3 full” kind of person, I’m horrified at what some of the rest of you must be thinking!

At the same time, whatever we as individuals choose to do about all of this, it is still the case that the chance to influence the leaders for the future that our students will become is an awesome responsibility and opportunity. We must not let it slip. I know we will not let it slip.

So, today, in our 149th year, we convene the university to begin again our crucial business, and to recognize and applaud some terrific students, faculty, and staff. It’s great to be here with you as a part of this truly wonderful enterprise. Dean Cornwell, please present the Dean’s List!

The John P. “Jack” Taylor Distinguished Career Service Award

Convocation August 29, 2002 – Daniel F. Sullivan

The John P. “Jack” Taylor Distinguished Career Service Award is given periodically to recognize an administrator who has worked at St. Lawrence for a minimum of twelve years and who sustains the exceptionally high standard of performance exemplified by Jack Taylor, retired Director of Dining Services. Its purpose is to recognize devotion to students and quality workmanship in a well-respected member of the campus community. It is a wonderful award to have, because so often in colleges and universities exceptional work by administrative staff goes under-recognized.

It was awarded first in 1994 to Jack Taylor himself, upon his retirement as Director of Dining Services. In subsequent years, beginning in 1997, it was awarded to Sharon Pinkerton, Associate Director of Personnel; Janet Flight, Registrar (now retired); Harlan Lowry, Catering and Purchasing Manager in Dining Services; Lisa M. Cania, Associate Vice President of University Relations; Edna Dana, Assistant Director of Telecom; Rene Murphy, Manager of Microcomputer Users Services; and last year, upon her retirement, Dorothy Fletcher, Dining Services Manager. All of these people—some of the best at St. Lawrence—represent wonderfully the ideals of the Jack Taylor Award.

This year’s award goes to someone of outstanding dedication and commitment to excellence—a person who has worked continually at St. Lawrence for 29 years, unfailingly responsive, a “can do” person in every area of his responsibility, and just the kind of staff member the Jack Taylor Award was designed to recognize.

I am delighted to announce today that Earl Froats, Facilities Operations Manager, is this year’s recipient of the Jack Taylor Award. Earl, will you please come forward!