Convocation Launches ’04 – ’05 Academic Year
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President James F. Jones, Jr. formally welcomed the members of the
Class of 2008 to Trinity on September 2, 2004, and urged them to
commit themselves to upholding the principles of respect,
responsibility, and accountability during the President's Convocation on the main
Quad. Beneath the statue of Bishop Brownell, the College’s founder,
President Jones gave the keynote address in a ceremony that included
an invocation by College Chaplain Daniel Heischman and remarks by
Interim Dean of Faculty Frank Kirkpatrick and Assistant Director of
Alumni Relations Charles Botts. Botts, a member of the Class of ’01,
led the members of the Class of 2008 in a spirited rendition of the
class yell from the Class of 1908.
The Convocation began with the first-year students entering the Quad
through the Fuller Arch, flanked on either side by robed faculty
members and surrounded by a gathering of faculty, staff, parents, and
friends. The formal ceremony marked the official beginning of the
College’s 181st academic year. During his speech, President Jones
offered a brief history lesson on the origins of the modern academy,
recounting the question that was asked of would-be students nearly 700
years ago: “What do you seek?”
In a speech that quoted sources as wide-ranging as Tolstoy’s Anna
Karenina and Adlai Stevenson, Jones told the incoming students, “You
are entering a vital community of scholars, each of whom is your
fellow learner in this place. … First and foremost, we must respect
each other and this place. We must treat each other, each of us a
unique human being with value, as we would wish to be treated
ourselves. And respecting others and this place means above all that
we must respect and value diversity in all its forms: family origin,
religious expression, economic background, nationality, gender, sexual
orientation, and the like because we are at root and by definition
interdependent, each one of us to each other.”
President Jones also quoted five lines of poetry that were originally inspired by the
British poet Christopher Logue:
“Come to the edge,” he said.
But they said, “We are afraid.”
“Come to the edge,” he said.
They came, he pushed them,
And they flew.
Visit the
Convocation site for additional information.
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