Hello all:

I just gave my convocation address (copied below). Also during convocation I won the philosophy departmental award.

Convocation Address; May 7, 2009
Mary Tetzlaff

President Lazarus, Provost Berry, Deans Eaker, Burk, and Schreiber, Faculty, and fellow Seniors of the Class of 2009—greetings to you all.

I'm going to start by talking about numbers (and my apologies from the start to any math majors whom I might inadvertently offend).

There is much evidence that we now live in a culture of numbers. Even here at times, it seems that we live in a culture of statistics and quantification and scores.

It starts in middle school for most of us--if you're from Texas, it was the TAKS test. Then in high school, SAT and ACT scores. And now, GRE and GPA. And very soon (sooner than we'd like) we will become familiar with credit scores, salary figures, and interest rates on our student loans.

Some people try to live their life by numbers, to make their decisions by numbers, to order their sense of value by numbers. There is, admittedly, an appeal to this system. One appeal is, I think, ease. Now, getting the numbers is difficult but once you have them, making decisions about them them is pretty easy. You put one column up against another and compare the data. You put them descending order and take the top, oh, %5. Best of all, you feel like you're doing this with a sort of objectivity. Your prejudices, your inclinations, your own, subjective sense of value—well, you just don't have to worry about that.

But the thing is, I don't think we're that kind of creature. I don't think Man is just a counting animal.

Aristotle has three formulations of what kind of animal Man is. (You didn't really think I'd go through this whole thing and not mention Aristotle, did you?) According to Aristotle, Man is a rational animal, an imitative animal and a political animal. I think here at the University of Dallas we have been given plenty of opportunities to excel in all of these areas.

Now, that we are rational animals seems pretty straightforward. It just seems to mean that we think purposefully. We do think purposefully here. We think with the end of truth and with the end of understanding. We think about a good deal of things and we think a good deal about certain things. In fact, I have it on good authority that at any given moment there is an average of 5.8 seniors in the Capp bar, just thinking—in contradistinction to doing homework—and I think that's a new record. We think with each other; we think with our professors; we think with some of the best thinkers in the long stretch of Western Civilization.

We're imitative animals too. By our very act of attending this University, we recognize that there are persons in history worth imitating. We are also inundated with opportunities to imitate worthy living examples. We find such examples among our peers: be it in their enthusiasm for UD traditions, their support of their colleagues, their tenacity in their studies, or their passionate concern for the state and preservation of this University. Most of all, though, I think the faculty incite emulation. Sitting here before you are several men and women who have served as exemplars to us for years, exemplars of character and commitment. By their treatment of and respect for the material, by their generosity with their gifts, by their dedication to our education both in and outside the classroom, by all this they inspire not only our admiration and respect but also a desire to echo these qualities in our own lives. We are blessed to have such sources for imitation.

And finally, we are political animals. Now, I don't mean that any fancy sense, I just mean it in the sense that we've been working, and living, and learning together for four years. We've weaved for ourselves a fabric of support and reliance, responsibility and charity, earnestness and joviality, confidence and camaraderie. We've experienced epics together in the Lit Trad sequence; together we've watched the seedlings of Western Civilization take root, grow and bloom; we've seen the world together during our Rome semesters; we've danced together at Mallapalooza and Battle of the Bands; we've celebrated key holidays such as Groundhog Day together; we've watched, we've helped and we've cheered for each other as we have jumped the final hurdles to get to Graduation. I think what we have here is a polis. We've built a citizenry of mutual appreciation, respect and trust.

And I think that's what bothers me about that culture of numbers I was talking about. Living your life by numbers, by ranking, by quantifying, all that seems to indicate a lack of trust. A lack of trust in other's judgments, in your own judgments, in the very ability of human beings to make good judgments and stand by them.

We have been entrusted with a treasure here. And as in the parable of the talents, we have to trust this gift we've been given, this gift we've nurtured together. We have to trust that we are set on the right road. As Chris Wolfe argued in his Ruskin Rhetoric Competition winning speech, we have to trust that we are on the path of orthodoxa. As President Lazarus said in his final letter to the student body, we have to trust that the treasure we have tended here will serve as a strong and fixed point as we go on to move about in the world. We have to trust each other that we will each use this treasure well. We have to trust ourselves that our hard work has been toward a good end. We should trust that the polis we've built here together will not die with our dispersion.

I look at you all, Class of 2009, and I see such gifts, such greatness. I look at you and I trust you. I trust that you will use your gifts and do great things.