chancellor@ku.edu
Welcome to KU.
I suspect you are having a magnificent time. We certainly are up here. You may be wondering, why do we put on these flat hats and hot, heavy robes. The answer is, on the night before classes begin, we figured it was time for you to know your professor's idea of a good time.
We're serious. On a night like this, the opening of a semester, the greeting of a freshman class has always been a special time for universities. These robes and mortarboards are the symbols of learning, representing an academic tradition going back to the founding of the University of Bologna in 1088. Just as Italian students gathered 10 centuries ago, a little anxious about the next day's classes, so did KU's first freshmen class in 1866. There were 55 students then and they each had to be quizzed by the three faculty members to determine their state of preparation. We decided to skip those oral exams this year. We knew you were a fantastic freshmen class and wouldn't need it.
I have to admit that what you've gone through, Hawk Week, the events leading up to this convocation, is my favorite time of the year. The marching band is practicing. The football team is undefeated. (If you noticed at Traditions Night, Al Bohl had us beating UCLA in the fourth quarter.) Every student has an unblemished record. Not a single class has been skipped. And no one has received a parking ticket yet. (Be honest, now. No one has a parking ticket, right?)
Hawk Week is a relaxed, magical time. You make friends. You learn your way around. We teach some university traditions, like how to sing the alma mater. We serve up some homemade ice cream, throw a couple of parties, and we teach you the difference between a Wescoe beach and a California beach.
But above all, we try to welcome you and share with you why we believe that you made an excellent decision to attend the University of Kansas. This is now your university. You possess it by your presence here tonight. You should know that you acquired something of great value. When the guidebooks tell where you can get an Ivy League education at a public school price, KU -- your university -- is always cited, and it was again this summer in the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Your university, says the Fiske Guide, "is a great place to be. The rest of the country is finally learning what folks in Kansas knew all along. KU is one of the nation's best buys in higher educationþ. It offers remarkable educational opportunities at a relatively modest cost."
In short, your university has a national reputation for excellence.
Your Special Education department, for example, is ranked No. 1 in the country by U.S. News & World Report, the same magazine that ranked your Public Administration program No. 1 as well. Your Pharmacy program is 4th in the country in NIH grants. Your Spanish Department is 9th among graduate programs. Your clinical psychology program is 19th, your paleontology program is 5th. You total it all up; your university has over 20 departments ranked in the Top 25-30 in America in their discipline.
What kind of faculty teach at your university? Your university is a place where your biology professor just gave a lecture at Harvard, your Russian instructor just returned from translating for the President of the United States, and your history professor was just called by the New York Times, "the Dean of American Environmental Historians." You have chosen to attend a university whose openly stated goal is to be recognized as one of the Top 25 public universities in the country.
You should be proud of those accomplishments, and proud of your decision to become a part of such a great university. And you should be proud of your own ambition. A KU degree is not for everyone. Not everyone measures up. We believe you will.
So tonight, before classes begin, we want to formally acknowledge your entry into the Jayhawk flock.
Now, do Jayhawks really flock? I don't know. It is a mythical, not a real bird. You can't find it in your Audubon book. I don't even know if Jayhawks fly. But let's have a little fun and play with the metaphor. Help me here, because my faculty colleagues are going to think this is the dumbest illustration they've ever heard.
What I want you to do is, think of a flock of Canadian Geese flying in a large V-shaped wedge. Maybe they are headed south for the winter. Maybe they are flying west to bomb Manhattan. Then think about those gray geese with black hoods re-colored in crimson and blue. Blue bodies, yellow beaks, crimson heads. Now imagine that honking beginning to sound a lot like "Rock Chalk, Jay-Hawk." Aflac.
I do have a serious point. What I want you to do is think of the end of that 'V.' That is your spot. That's where the new jayhawks go. You are in the formation; it is a little precarious, but you could drop off. Why do geese fly in that formation? Because of aerodynamics. I know that for a fact because I asked Dr. C.T. Lan of our Aerospace Engineering program about the 'V.' As a KU professor usually does, he had an excellent answer. There is less drag, less air resistance and more up wash for those flying near the end of the wing. Think about this. Each bird in the 'V,' from the lead bird back, makes flying easier for the next bird, and the end bird gets the most help of all.
By taking up your spot in the 'V,' by entering the Jayhawk formation, you have the protection and assistance of all flying ahead of you. This is what it means to join a Jayhawk community. Yes, you could easily drop off, spin to the ground if you don't sustain the effort to keep up as part of the group, but we don't think you will drop out because there are Jayhawks ahead who will make your flying easier.
How far can we carry this bird metaphor? Well, let's go a little farther and talk about the Jayhawk family.
Your parents have gently pushed you out of their nest, maybe even reassigned your room to your little brother. Anybody have that happen to them? That's what happened at my house. You have settled into your KU nest, and made it comfortable by stuffing into it more furniture, appliances, and electronic equipment than any room was ever meant to hold. If you avoid overloading the Daisy Hill transformers before October, it will be a miracle.
But how different is this KU nest going to be?
Let me be honest with you right from the start. We want KU to be as warm and as nurturing an environment as that family environment of the past 18 or 19 years has been. But we know it will be different. The university can't be as close to you as your family. But KU cares. We're here to help. Reach out. To your R.A. To your faculty advisor. To your professor. To your roommate. You've got a scheduling problem? Check out the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center in Strong Hall. That's what they do. They help people with schedules. Don't hang back. Ask questions. Get assistance. Don't wait. Don't let uncertainty or a simple desire to be cool get in the way. Don't let your professor's menacing glare cause you to fail to get the help you need. It's probably not a glare anyway, only a squint. He's probably one of the nicest people in the world, just nearsighted. If all else fails, and the bureaucracy seems impenetrable, come to the Chancellor's Office, Room 230 Strong Hall. We'll find some way to help you. That is what Jayhawks do. You are in the formation and you are headed for a destination -- a walk down the hill in four years. We want to see that you get there.
So, don't fear the change of the next four years. You will encounter a lot. What you may notice first is the absence of a parental clock. Now, I have to tell you, I am a parent. I have eight children. Let me speak for a moment as a parent, because I can identify with a parental sense of time. What do I mean by a parental sense of time?
Sam, time to get up. Sally, time to eat. George, time to get your car serviced. Harriet, time to clean your room.
The parental time clock will disappear.
Your relationship with your parents, or those who care about you, however, will not disappear. But it will change.
And now you have to be honest with us, student to parent: You will welcome the sudden absence of our long-suffering, well-practiced, self-sacrificing, intrusive, totally unappreciated efforts to tell you how to live your life. But this doesn't mean we've stopped caring. Every parent has this nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, you've forgotten to do something that we are certain will result in a personal disaster or a university catastrophe -- like forgetting to turn off the microwave.
But we know we have to trust you more, because you have more responsibility. And beginning tomorrow, you are especially involved in making your own decisions.
So, let me end with the most relevant example of trust and responsibility: good grades. Did anyone's parents tell them, Go on to KU and get some lousy grades? I don't think so. You would not have been admitted to KU unless you had the ability to be academically successful here. You can receive A's, B's, and C's. You can also receive grades other than these.
But whatever your grades, the key question will not be what grade you report to your parents. The key question will be what have you learned? Only you will know the truth of that. Only you will know if the grade you received is truly earned, or whether it vastly over-estimates your knowledge. Grades are easy. Learning is hard.
What the university expects is intellectual honesty. It expects intellectual honesty from the faculty and from the students. If you can't make the experiment work, don't fake the numbers. If you haven't read the assignment, don't try to create the illusion that you have. You are part of an intellectual market place, where ideas are important and truth and honesty and morality are real commodities.
So, what I would recommened to you: Be honest with yourself. Be honest about alcohol. You are not funnier when you're drunk. Those who claim you are funnier are not your friends. If you drink -- and all of you will have to make a decision about whether to drink -- drink intelligently.
Be honest about your beliefs. Don't hide your convictions. Women have a right to men's respect. They are not sex objects. Racist jokes are not to be laughed at. Racist jokes are your opportunity to assert your belief that we are all God's children. Stand up for your religious faith. You will never know what you believe until your faith has been tested.
The ethic that will serve you best over the next four years is a commitment to high standards. Don't accept mediocrity and call it excellence. Achieve excellence and then figure out how to do better. That is the Jayhawk way.
If this seems like we expect a lot from you as Jayhawk students, you are right. We didn't build a great university here on self-deception. Your university cares about what you learn here because we desperately want you to make a better world. It's that simple. We profoundly believe that students and faculty annually recreating the university on a night like this for a thousand years, or even for 136 years, can ultimately improve people's lives. Join this historical progression by dedicating your habits of heart and mind to creating a better life for the next generation. We know more about the world than we ever have. Let's create a world of more hope, and less pain. That was an honorable goal in 1088 and in 1866, and it's an honorable goal in 2001.
That is what I would leave with you tonight. You have begun your life as a Jayhawk in the best of all possible worlds. We live in an affluent, well-organized society, in the richest and most powerful nation on earth. How will you be able to make things better?
Robert Kennedy asked a group of students at the University of California that question in 1966. He said, "You live in the most privileged nation on earth. You are the most privileged citizens of that privileged nation. You can use your enormous privilege and opportunity to seek purely private pleasure and gain. But history will judge you, and as the years pass, you will ultimately judge yourself, on the extent to which you have used your gifts to lighten and enrich the lives of others."
Welcome to the University of Kansas, Jayhawks. See you in class.
