Convocation
August 31, 2004
Remarks to the Class of 2008
Good afternoon and thank you, Dr. Bill Dean, for the warm welcome.
I am honored, humbled, and excited to stand before you today as the 14 th President of one of the state's and the nation's finest universities. And I am especially pleased to welcome members of the freshman and transfer classes to this opening convocation. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at the President's Picnic that will follow this event.
A convocation to welcome new students is an age-old tradition in higher education. A convocation is a formal way to celebrate the sense of enthusiasm we all feel about the adventure of a new semester.
It is also your first introduction to our fine faculty. They are a key ingredient in your future success at Texas Tech.
We are here today to honor the important work of this faculty. They will quite literally change your lives through their advising, mentoring, coaching, and teaching over the next four years. I ask for a round of applause for our faculty.
University convocation represents a chance to reaffirm the extraordinary importance your family and you are placing on your education. It offers an opportunity for each of you to reflect upon all the exciting experiences that await you in this new academic year. As you think about what lies ahead of you at Texas Tech, I believe the most important quality you will bring to this experience is your attitude.
As the American philosopher William James said, “It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult undertaking which, more than anything else, will determine its successful outcome.”
I would suggest to each of you that the most important attitude you can have as you begin your career at Texas Tech is one of enthusiasm. The new adventure that you are beginning at Texas Tech requires enthusiasm more than any other commodity.
Enthusiasm for what you pursue here will help you find solutions when none are apparent, and it will help you achieve success when you did not think success was possible. I believe it is enthusiasm, above all, that will help you to accomplish your goals of living and learning in this new community. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective."
I urge you to pursue your journey through the new experience of college with all your energy. I hope that you will find something that excites you and engages you so much that it will keep you up at night and get you out of bed early, even on the weekend!
I hope that you find a passion that matches your own talents, so that you may discover something that you can pursue for the rest of your life with enthusiasm and joy. Of course, as you pursue your future at Texas Tech, I am sure you will need various sources of support.
Your family, your friends from home, your professors, and, I hope, the administration of this university, will offer you support. But one of the biggest sources of support you will find is one another. Look for new friends in the next few weeks, friends who are from a different part of the state, from a different state, a different country. Befriend someone who thinks differently than you do. Take advantage of the enormous diversity of people and opinions you will find on this campus.
To make your way successfully in the 21 st century, your college experience should be the beginning of the end of your unease about different kinds of people. It has always been our desire at Texas Tech that our students see the world in terms as wide and as open as the plains of West Texas.
As the first semester ever at Texas Tech began in 1925, President Paul W. Horn addressed the first 914 students to attend Texas Tech. He advised them with this prophetic quote that still resonates with meaning today:
“Everything that is done on these West Texas Plains ought to be on a big scale. It is a country that lends itself to bigness. It is a country that does not harmonize with things little or narrow or mean. Let us make the work of our college fit in with the scope of our country. Let our thoughts be big thoughts and broad thoughts. Let our thinking be in worldwide terms.”
If we look back on our first 79 years, it is clear that the community, students and faculty took President Horn's words seriously. After all, the founders of Texas Technological College had faced seemingly insurmountable odds in its creation. The founding of Texas Tech nearly 80 years ago is very similar to many of the stories contained in Dan Rather's book, The American Dream . I know many of you have read that book this summer as part of our summer reading program. Texas Tech was the American dream for a group of West Texas pioneers who believed the western two-thirds of this great state deserved a college of its own.
Several legislative sessions voted down the proposal and one governor vetoed the creation of Texas Tech after it had been approved by the legislature. But the founders of this great university persevered and realized their dream.
Remember Rubylinda Zickafoose in Dan Rather's book? She decided as an 8 year child of migrant farm workers that she wanted to be a teacher. Rubylinda was one of only two of her grandmother's 102 grandchildren to go to college. She did so in secret because her family did not believe in education. But she was determined to be a teacher and today she teaches at an elementary school in Florida and is working on her Ph.D.
Or how about Trish Dziko, the African American executive with Microsoft? She left her millionaire position to create a non profit foundation to ensure access to technology to inner city schools so that students could cross the digital divide. Her dreams were for other people's children and for their successful integration into a high tech world. The dreams in Dan Rather's book are of fame, family, innovation, and service. They are dreams like you all have when you think of the future.
I urge you to dream big, like the founders of this university did. With big thoughts and even bigger dreams, our predecessors grew the science college into a comprehensive university embracing not only the sciences but also the humanities and arts. Their thoughts were so big that Texas Tech today stands as the largest single employer and the largest source of economic development in the western two-thirds of the state.
Indeed, for 79 years, Texas Tech has stood by its commitment to think broad and big thoughts and to demand the full expression of the talents of its students. Our mission proudly embraces the values that stand for Texas Tech University: Excellence, Teamwork, Integrity, Social Responsibility and Diversity. In its first 79 years, Texas Tech has educated young men and women of Texas who have become national and world leaders. You might have read a story like theirs in Rather's The American Dream .
I refer to students who are graduates of this institution like Ed Whitacre who put himself through Tech working for the phone company. Ed Whitacre has always worked for the phone company, and he currently serves as Chairman of the Board and CEO of SBC Communications. Regarded throughout the world as one of the most influential figures in the telecommunications industry, Ed Whitacre learned about the value of hard work and benefit of big thoughts at Texas Tech.
Helen Palit earned a bachelor's degree in social work at Texas Tech. As a social worker in New York City, she wondered if something could be done to provide unused restaurant food to homeless people. Her concept of delivering unused, good food to hungry people is now employed in over 200 American Harvest programs around the country, and she is recognized as a national leader in the fight against hunger. Ms. Palit learned to not harmonize with things little or mean, but to hold big hope for all humanity.
Or consider Terry Cook, an African-American from Plainview who came to Tech as an Engineering student and found relaxation in singing. Today he is principal bass baritone for the Metropolitan Opera and has thrilled audiences throughout the United States and Europe. Terry learned to dream in worldwide terms at Texas Tech.
Jerry Rawls graduated from Texas Tech in the 1960s and went to the Silicon Valley to make his fortune. But he returned to Texas tech to donate the funds to build the Rawls Golf Course and even more to endow the Rawls College of Business Administration.
Or consider Jonathan Johnson, a senior this year at Texas Tech. He started running as a child each time his mom sent him to the grocery store. This year he won the 800 meter track event at the Big XII competition and at the NCAA Track meet. Then he went to Athens to represent his nation and his university in the Olympic Games and also to realize his dream.
Our first President Paul Horn knew that such outstanding students would come to characterize a Texas Tech education. He believed in a student's potential to do big things.
I am just as convinced of your potential today. You and I know that your destiny will be forever changed by your education at Texas Tech. What an amazing and exciting thought.
We live in special times –never in our lifetime have the values of higher education -- to promote learning for life, to improve human knowledge and understanding, and to help solve the social and economic needs of our communities and states -- been more important to society. Yet, never has the cost of education risen so rapidly. We take the escalating cost of education very seriously at Texas Tech, but you can do your part to reduce the cost of your education by working hard to graduate in four years.
Here is my one piece of practical advice: you must take an average of 15 hours each semester. This is a fundamental principle. Taking only 12 hours each semester will not allow you to graduate in four years and will, therefore, add significantly to your overall costs.
Take heed.
Let me conclude by promising you that Texas Tech will provide an atmosphere where you will flourish if your attitude is one of enthusiasm. I also promise to support an administration, faculty and staff that will serve your desire to succeed. As president, I believe that Texas Tech should put the success and welfare of its students first.
So I close today with my promise to you to do all I can to place all the opportunities of a good education within your reach.
The rest is up to you.