(flute playing)
- Good evening new students,
and welcome to Eckerd College.
You certainly don't need to hear again
that the pandemic is unexpected,
unprecedented or posing new challenges.
All of that is true,
but these times are also
providing opportunities,
like this one, to gather
for the Ceremony of Lights,
not in McArthur Gymnasium on move-in day,
but in the core of our beautiful campus
at the end of your first day
as an Eckerd College student.
Students, parents, grandparents, siblings,
and friends of Eckerd,
who are joining us via livestream,
it is my distinct pleasure to welcome you
and the faculty present here,
as we introduce our new first
year and transfer students.
We began the journey that brought
us here together long ago.
In fact, the student in this class
who started their college
search with Eckerd the earliest,
began it in their 8th grade year
by completing an online inquiry
form on December 1, 2015.
And the rest of you eventually followed.
After that, we snail
mailed you, emailed you,
called you, texted you, Skyped with you,
and met with you during high
school visits, college fairs,
area interviews, and of course, virtually.
Through it all,
we asked you to approach
the college search process
a bit differently.
We asked you to put
aside magazine rankings
and replace that method
by looking for a place that fits you.
We asked you to look past the fact
that there is no ivy on our buildings,
but to understand that serious
academic work does take place
while still having a
little time for the beach.
Through it all, we asked
you to think outside.
This is a day that the faculty
and staff have planned for
with great anticipation.
Your Autumn Term, although
a bit unique this year,
is structured to provide a
thorough and gradual adjustment
to college life and the
academic experience.
The peer mentors, faculty and
staff are here to assist you,
so be sure to ask them questions
and participate fully in
and out of the classroom.
Members of this year's class
are an impressive group
of scholars and leaders.
They have joined us from:
Alabama, Arizona, Australia,
Brazil, California, Canada,
Colombia, Colorado, Connecticut,
Czech Republic, Delaware, Denmark,
The District of Columbia,
Florida, France, Georgia, Germany,
Greece, Hawaii, Iceland, Idaho,
Illinois, India, Indiana,
Iowa, Ireland, Japan, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts,
Mexico, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Monaco, Nebraska,
Nevada, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New Mexico,
New York, North Carolina,
North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Oregon, Pennsylvania,
Portugal, Rhode Island,
Slovakia, South Africa,
South Carolina, Spain,
Sweden, Tennessee, Texas,
The Bahamas, United Kingdom,
Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands,
Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
This geographic diversity
is a distinctive factor of
the Eckerd College experience.
In fact the average distance
the new students traveled
to Eckerd, is just over 1000 miles.
Your strength of character,
your commitment to others
and your approach to
becoming an educated person
will enrich you and
Eckerd in numerous ways.
We look forward to your contributions
and to your membership in our community.
Would the new students please rise?
President Fernandez, Dean
Harrison, Dean Annarelli,
ECOS President Will
Shedden, faculty and staff,
it is my great honor to
present the newest members
of the Eckerd College community.
Welcome.
(audience clapping)
- Thank you, John.
It is my pleasure and my honor
to receive you as students
of Eckerd College.
As Eckerd students,
you will be challenged
to stretch your critical
and intellectual skills,
to grow from encountering
new and different people,
places, and ideas; and to
expand your sense of social
and environmental responsibility.
You are joining a very
special kind of living
and learning community.
And just as you will be formed
by your accurate experiences,
you will have the opportunity
through your participation in campus life,
to shape this community
in meaningful ways.
This Ceremony of Lights,
expresses through symbolic
language and actions,
the transition that is
taking place in your lives
at this very moment.
Because of your prior achievements,
you have reached a personal
and educational milestone.
You have earned a place in
our community of learning.
Now upon gathering,
you found that your place,
a College medallion.
As a symbol of our commitment to you
and your commitment to
the Eckerd community,
I invite you now to put on that medallion.
Congratulations and welcome
to the Eckerd College family.
(audience clapping)
- You may be seated
because I'm gonna be
speaking for a long time.
(audience laughing)
I'm delighted to see you here in person,
and to welcome you to our campus
on this first day of fall
2020 as the sun sets.
For the first time tonight in public,
I'm going to acknowledge that
you are smarter than I am.
You are brighter than
Eckerd College President.
Indeed, you are much more
intelligent than I am.
Like you, I applied to
Eckerd many years ago;
like you, I was accepted, but unlike you,
I took a 45 year detour
before finding my way here
to this beautiful place of possibility.
As the College's new president,
my Eckerd journey is beginning
as the same time as yours.
This incoming class might be remembered
as the class of the pandemic,
but you are so much more than that.
Are you not?
You will be the first class
of the post-pandemic year.
You have so much you want to do,
so much you must strive for,
so much remains for you to accomplish.
The world is waiting,
it will be calling you, and
you will be ready to go forth.
The word pandemic comes from the Greek,
meaning all the people.
What a happy etymology
for such a sad word!
The notion of all the people,
embraces our shared humanity,
our essential equality, our frailty,
our resilience, our hopes.
Since its founding 60 years ago,
a similar humanist spirit
has animated our college.
Not surprising because the
liberal arts and sciences,
were born precisely out
of a democratic impulse.
Democracy requires well
educated individuals
for it to thrive.
The founder of the Cuban
Nation said it best,
"Ignorance kills nations."
He was right.
At Eckerd, everything
we do is to empower you,
to find your purpose
and to illuminate your
passion with reason,
and enlighten it with ethics;
so that you can impact the world for good.
Our faculty teach and learn,
side by side with you.
Even our low horizontal buildings
that invite the outside in,
speak the architectural vernacular
of inclusion and equality.
With each Ceremony of Light,
we rekindle our commitment
to a personalized education
for a higher purpose.
At Eckerd, we pose timeless questions
of the human experience
as we wrestle with the
timely issues of our life.
From racial injustice, to
environmental stewardship,
from economic structures
for inclusive opportunity,
to innovation in science and
technology for the common good.
From the complexity of U S
history to global cooperation,
from creating the next great works of art,
to understanding the
lives of other species.
You are here to explore education
as a personal adventure of discovery,
has been one of the cardinal
points of Eckerd College.
At Eckerd, you will find
rigor with creativity,
autonomy with responsibility,
structure with flexibility,
opportunity with expectations,
challenges with support,
intensity with relaxation
and individuality within community.
As you explore it, do not
forget to connect the dots.
Our campus, it's in between geography,
where the water's edge
meets the city's edge,
begs you to make connections.
Connect with peers, faculty, and staff.
Make connections across
subjects and disciplines.
Make connections between the
natural and the social world.
Connect the heart, the
mind and the spirit.
Ours is an education for life.
The German philosopher
Immanuel Kant, wrote,
that the keys to happiness are three.
Something to do, someone to
love, something to hope for.
My hope, is that you
discover those three keys
during your time at Eckerd.
But as the American poet,
Joanna Klink has written,
"There are no empty hopes,
but knowing what to hope
for, is steady work."
Each of us is responsible
for doing that steady work
of knowing what is meaningful
for us to hope for.
Hope should be our guiding light.
Tonight as we welcome you with light,
I urge you not to fear darkness.
Only in the dark, can we see the stars.
If, and when you stumble,
we will be here for you.
During difficult moments,
you can count on us and each other,
and you might want to heed the advice
of a popular influencer of our times;
L Gaga, who said, "Just dance,
gonna be okay, six feet apart and masked,
da da doo da doo, just dance."
I come from a family where
the women light candles,
such a small gesture of hope.
Do not think for a minute
that these were helpless
and hopeless women.
On the contrary,
with little, if any formal education,
they were wise, strong, resilient.
They survived poverty, wars and exile.
They buried parents,
husbands and children.
They bathed babies, their
own, and those of others;
cooked flavorful meals
and tended lush gardens.
At turning points in my life,
my grandmother would tell me,
"(speaking in foreign language).
I'm gonna light a little candle for you."
That was her way of hoping
that I would choose the
path of enlightenment.
Tonight, we light little candles together,
for us all, for our nation, and the world
with hope just like so many before us.
Thank you.
(audience clapping)
- Hello Class of 2024!
Welcome to Eckerd College!
My name is Will Shedden,
your student body President.
It is a hallmark of our lives together
as Eckerd College students,
that we treat one another
and our beloved campus
with respect, integrity, and honor.
Central to our shared
values as a community
are the Honor Pledge
and Shared Commitment,
which you have before you.
It is because we trust
and value one another
that we enter into these
commitments publicly.
It is because of the mutual respect
and admiration among the
faculty, administration,
and student body, that we
enter into these commitments
in the presence of our professors.
Most importantly, we sign this pledge
to form the remarkable community
that we call the Eckerd family.
This has never been as
important as it is this year,
as we must exercise new self-discipline,
responsibility, masks,
and social distancing
to keep our community safe.
You will find the commitment
on a card in your program.
I now invite you to join me
in reciting our commitment.
On my honor, as an Eckerd College student,
I pledge not to lie, cheat or steal,
nor to tolerate these behaviors in others.
I furthermore commit myself
to the values embodied
in the Eckerd College Shared Commitment.
Now, if you would please sign the card.
As you leave the ceremony,
you'll be directed to
place it in a basket.
And again, welcome to Eckerd College!
(audience clapping)
- According to the book of Genesis,
light is the oldest gift,
a sign of the victory,
and meaning of, and being
over chaos and the void.
But in the academic world
you are now entering,
light symbolizes knowledge and truth.
Tonight, as we light these candles,
we do so, as a way of expressing
our commitment individually
and as a community, to those values
that will sustain us as individuals,
nourish us as a community of learning
and enable us to serve
the needs of others.
After your faculty mentor
lights the class candle,
I invite each of you to approach
and light your own candle,
then return to your places.
When all the candles have been lit,
please join me in the responsive reading
of the Litany of commitment,
which you'll find in your program.
(audience member chuckles)
- [Audience Member] Okay.
(audience member laughing)
(indistinct)
(woman laughing)
(faintly speaking)
(group chattering)
All right, looking beautiful.
Please join me in reading
the Litany of Commitment.
As we pass this flame,
we commit ourselves to a community
in which hope, understanding,
and wisdom are our foundation.
As we receive this flame,
we join a community in
which learning and service
are our calling.
In a world darkened by
ignorance and bigotry,
we choose to seek the light,
rather than curse the darkness.
- [Adience] Let these
candles light our path
toward the pursuit of
knowledge, discerning judgment,
and responsible action.
- This light reminds us,
that we join together
to pursue an education,
filled with innovation,
adventure, and imagination.
- [Audience] With this light,
we join with generations
of Eckerd College students
whose courage and creativity inspire us.
- As we pass this flame,
we commit ourselves to knowledge, justice,
generosity, and understanding.
- [Audience] May these
candles serve as a reminder
that only light can drive away darkness,
only love can drive away hate,
only hope can drive away despair.
As we pass this flame,
we commit ourselves to grow
into our full humanity.
(flute playing gently)
- When we conclude our
program this evening,
I'd like to remind you
all that your peer mentors
will extinguish your candles.
You'll be dismissed
according to your groups,
but you all are welcome to sit
around and enjoy the evening.
Under normal circumstances, the
benediction would be offered
by the Director of the
Center for Spiritual Life,
Reverend Doug McMahon.
Unfortunately, Doug was
recently diagnosed with leukemia
and is currently undergoing
chemotherapy treatment
at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.
As we come together this evening,
may the light of our candles
and the light in our hearts
join together to send our
love and prayers to Doug
for complete healing
and a speedy recovery.
Doug, if you're watching
the live stream, we love you
and can't wait for you to get
back here where you belong.
To all of you,
the newest members of the
Eckerd College community,
we pray that you will
live compassionately,
that you will be comfortable
and confident to be yourselves.
That you'll be creative,
show gratitude, learn,
think outside, be bold and resilient.
We pray that you will
never be a bystander.
Be there for each other.
Stand up for each other.
If you see something, say
something, do something.
Study, work, play, and
be kind to one another,
that the strength of
love may overcome hatred.
The flame of faith prevail over despair,
and the light of hope fill
your hearts with courage,
today, tomorrow, and in the years to come.
The next four years are
going to be magical.
Believe in the magic of Eckerd College.
Amen.
- You may be dismissed by groups.
The first two groups
that may be dismissed,
are groups A and B.
Everyone else, please keep seated.
The platform party may also be dismissed.
(group chattering)
If you're awaiting to be
dismissed, peer mentors,
please collect the honor pledges.
