Shapiro: Take advantage of new beginnings
Ruth Stevens
With faculty members, trustees and others in academic regalia processing from Nassau Hall, Opening Exercises is big on tradition.
With the newest members of Princeton's student body streaming into the Chapel, the event also carries an air of renewal and anticipation.
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Trumpets heralded the start of
Opening Exercises Sept. 10 in the Chapel. Faculty,
trustees, students and others streamed into the
building to celebrate the beginning of another
academic year.
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"While Princeton is over 250 years old, its vitality continues to depend on an energetic and dynamic interaction between the old and the new, between tradition and change, between faculty and students, between friends and colleagues and between the great ideas and cultural artifacts of the past and the new ideas and innovations that are so characteristic of contemporary life," he said.
"One of the defining features of a university is the opportunity to constantly renew itself," he continued. "Each year we have a new opportunity to take the best of our past, add all the talents and energies that incoming students and faculty bring to the campus, and rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of a deeper knowledge of the world around us. This interaction between the past and the present, the faculty and students, can help lead us to a fuller understanding of ourselves and to a capacity to endow all our endeavors with greater meaning."
Shapiro told the students that they are entering the University at both a time of great transition in their own lives and a time of rapid change in society.
"It is within this exciting backdrop of change that all of us must prepare to draw inspiration from the past as we simultaneously find new ways to construct a life that is full of meaning to others and ourselves," he said.
"It is for this reason that we at Princeton have chosen to sustain a diverse academic community," he continued, "where intellectual life is both informed by tradition and inspired by a fuller understanding of previous human efforts, but whose fundamental commitments are to teaching, to the development of new knowledge, and to a deeper understanding of the human condition."
Shapiro said that the University is committed to providing students with opportunities for both intellectual and personal growth as well as to an academic and extracurricular life that supports such a commitment.
As symbols of that promise, he pointed to this year's opening of the Frist Campus Center and celebration of the centennial of the Graduate School.
"Frist was designed to host a heavy schedule and a broad range of activities, and yet we anticipate it will also serve as a magnet for informal interactions and impromptu conversations," Shapiro said. "You are the ones who will first enjoy Frist, and I hope that each of you will contribute to making it a true center of campus life. I hope that each of you will use this new venue to put aside time to enjoy new friends and to expand your horizons by learning about and from each other."
The 100th anniversary of the Graduate School gives the community an opportunity to reflect on the school's role in transforming Princeton "from a small liberal arts college to a great modern university," Shapiro said.
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"Princeton enjoys a worldwide reputation as a scholarly community," he said. "Each year our faculty and graduate students make many important and significant contributions to the world of scholarship. We are very proud in particular of the achievements of our graduate students and the great honor they have brought to this university."
Shapiro noted that one of the central objectives of a Princeton education is to give students the ability to look forward thoughtfully because of their understanding of the past.
"However, beyond all this, it is my greatest hope that your Princeton education will give you the desire and ability to engage in the kind of vigorous moral discourse that gives meaning to all our lives," he said.
"In your years on this campus, as your knowledge blossoms, so correspondingly will your power to effect change, and as a direct consequence your ethical responsibilities to the well-being and interests of others will increase," he added. "Opportunity and responsibility are companions in life's journey. As one's knowledge and opportunities grow, so too do one's ethical responsibilities. New opportunities give us an ethical obligation to concern ourselves with the interests of others, to focus on what we will create next, what role we will assume in the future, how we can prepare ourselves for the task ahead, and how dedicated we will be to its achievement."
Despite Princeton's many achievements, the University is focused on the future, Shapiro said.
"We are inspired by what we have done, but we are most excited and energized about what we may do together in the years ahead," he said. "We are awed not by who we are, but by a vision of what we might become.
"Likewise, although we are inspired by the many accomplishments of those who join Princeton's academic community this year," he continued, "we are energized by what you all may do to alter the complexion of your lives, this community and the world beyond."
Shapiro concluded his address by expressing his wishes for the Class of 2004.
"As you set forth today on your academic careers at Princeton, I hope you will be open to, indeed will seek out, the unexpected, the unfamiliar, and even on occasion the uncomfortable.
"You are not here to chart an easy course but to take intellectual and creative risks," he said. "You are not here to replicate your past experiences, but to have new ones, in the company of others who will support you, challenge you, befriend you and significantly enrich your lives.
"I hope that each of you will take full advantage of the new beginnings that are available to you at this juncture in your lives and in the life of this institution. I hope that your education and experience here at Princeton will not only prepare you for your life's work, but inspire you to create a life full of meaning."
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