Boston State College - Bostonian / Lampas Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 23 text:

;? :-••- ■We »: M||j MINISl %AT1 Cji $ ]gf . . -»■- jrvjfrr ' - -aat? ? . . ■ — dtfft tA wr ■ ; rf? SUS - ' , • sasMJ jrfpa i- ' - FSSlI •rw - - W««i« -•»- 5W r -tfw7i LiI1 : r ;: T iir 5S H ?W- 3

Page 22 text:

DEDICATION LAMP AS 1969 WISHES DR. JOHN J. O ' NEILL SUCCESS IN HIS YEARS AS PRESIDENT OF BOSTON STATE COLLEGE

Page 24 text:

PRESIDENT DR. JOHN J. O ' NEILL To each member of the Class of 1969 1 would like to offer my most sincere congrat- ulations on your achieving your baccalaure- ate degree and every good wish for your fu- ture personal and professional success. The years that you have spent here at the College can be characterized on the national scene as an era of extremism in a climate of confrontation. Our nation has been going through a period of agonizing self-appraisal. Neither the end nor the results of that ap- praisal are yet in sight. I can say to you now, without the risk of being indicted for expound- ing presidential platitudes, that the world you face is a world of challenges . . . challenges that you cannot avoid. You have no options. It will be difficult for you to assess imme- diately the values of your educational expe- rience over the last few years at Boston State College. Your training here may be adequate for your immediate utilitarian needs but the true measure of what you received from the College will be those attitudes that remain when you have forgotten the details of what you learned here. I hope that the most significant experience you have had in college has been an aware- ness of the fact that there are few easy answers to the complex problems that each one of us must face as individuals and as citizens of a democratic society. But, if it is true that rarely are there simplistic solutions, it is equally true and important to remember that there are often a wide variety of meaningful alternatives. The meaningful yield of your years at Boston State College will be what remains overtime from the abrasiveness of daily living. If this has been a successful period in your lives, the results will be difficult to quantify but none the less real. What will be involved will be such intangible variables as character, compassion, commitment and aspirations— perhaps the capacity for introspection, a sense of the essentially tragic nature of life, its ephemeral quality and the ability to feel deeply, balanced by a sense of the comic spirit. Now for the future. I envisage the development of our enrollment to approximately 10,000 students over a relatively brief period of time. There will be a greater diversity of specialized programs at the College to meet the needs of an urban society. At the same time we will continue the development of strong liberal arts programs. To meet its responsibilities for the future, the College must have vastly increased physical resources for its academic programs. You are only too well aware of how inade- quate our present facilities are. If Boston State College is to achieve its objectives, it must have your continued interest and support. Consequently, I would like to take this opportunity to urge you not only to join the Alumni Association but also to take an active and articulate part in the Associa- tion ' s program for the support of the College. John J. O ' Neill President 20