Lees McRae College - Ontaroga Yearbook (Banner Elk, NC)

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Dr. Brad Crain presents Dr. Dykeman the Lees-McRae coat of arms and a congratulatory certificate recognizing her as Graduation Speaker for 1986. ou have a vision of how much more edu- cation you need . . . , 'There is no job you will undertake that someone has not undertaken before and others will not be undertak- ing but you make that job yours because you are a unique individual and you are addressing that chal- lenge. I suggest to you that a poorly plowed field can fore- tell the downfall of a region. l suggest to you that a corruptly conceived business or industry can suggest the dryrot of a nation and a slovenly cared for home can reveal the downfall of a whole civilization, because our work lives long after we are gone. No matter how small we think our job may be, somewhere fallout occurs not just in our time and place but later on down the road. ipqffwf gig ,I Graduation 185

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DYKEMAN SPEAKS AT GRADUATION . . . Drawing on her travels to Germany, Greece and China, novelist Wilma Dy- keman told the Lees-McRae College Graduating Class to share the educa- tion they received with their commu- nities and the world. Dykeman also encouraged her au- dience to appreciate the word 'work,' a much rnaligned term todayf' Call- ing it what binds a person to himself and a community or civilization to- gether, she quoted Sir Laurence Oli- vier on 'work,' that blessed yoke without which we cannot live. She told graduates to approach their life's work with discipline and imagination. Discipline is associated in most minds with prisons, parents and professors, she said. But it is discipline that leads people to choose whether to spend their time shoddily or well. Imagination, often associated with the poet's flights of fancy, re- leases us from the prison of ourselves and is not an escape but a plunge into the reality around usf' While visiting the amphitheaters in Greece, Dykeman realized that three centuries before Christ people had been pushing and rushing and hurry- ing to go to the theater to attend there a reflection of the human experience in some of the greatest tragedies that have ever been written and some of the most lancing comedies as wellf' They shared part of the human experi- ence that is still part of our western heritage today, a common experi- ence of learning, enriching the human psychology and the human spirit. While visiting the city of Peking, the 75 acres of temples and palaces and libraries and gardens with some of the greatest artistic creations known to the oldest continuous civil- ization in the world today and realized these treasures had been contained strictly for the royal family in the For- bidden City. It became kind of a symbol for our learning and our challenge and par- ticularly your learning today because you are a part of America in the sense that you are educated. You have a vi- sion of how much more education you need, how much we all need. But it is not just learning for your own little 'forbidden city,' for your own self. It is that of the theater of the Greeks to share, to go out and reach out to oth- ers and make their experience part of the great human experience in your own relationship, not just to your own tiny community, although it must be- gin there, but also to the great broad community of people wherever they may live? sw W 5, ' L , ,E 1-, Za ,, N . ,, Dykeman related she walked through

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I Approach life's work with discipline and imagination . . . discipline that leads people to choose whether to spend their time shoddily or well . . . imagination re- leases us from the prison of ourselves and is not an escape, but a plunge into the reality around us. , into the world around usf' The imagination I refer to is a part of every human life that is well lived. It belongs to a parent who can 'imagine' the joy and the fear and the terror of being a childg it is a parent who can understand the adolescent's needs and the dis- covery of a new and challenging world. It is the 'imagination' of a man or woman who can identify with a partner's needs . . . a politi- cal leader who dreams that free men think and who writes the Declaration of Independence . . . the businessman who thinks and 'imagines' new ways to bring com- fort or ease or necessities to hu- man life around the worldf' Dr. Dykeman described a visit to the Nazi death camp of Dachau where she and her family sensed 'the depravity that is possible to the human mind. The visit was redeemed, she said, by a poorly printed pamphlet her husband found at the camp, the writings of a Dutch prisoner which argued the message of the camp was to prac- tice more humanityf' You are a part of the elite now, Dr. Dykeman said in reference to the gift of education conferred upon the students. Don't hide the knowledge away in your own little 'forbidden cityf This is the vision you face to- day, Dr. Dykeman concluded. That is the challenge that you 186 Graduation I would suggest to you that there are two ingredi- ents to making your work important and to making your work well done and enjoyed, and they are two of the most misunderstood words today. The first word is 'discipline,' discipline that makes you make choices between whether you will spend your time shoddily or whether you will spend your time well, whether you will choose the second best or whether you will choose the best. The second ingredient is 'imaginationf reflecting not strictly in the sense of the poet's imagination or the author's imagination but imagination that lets one identify with the experience of others, Dr. Dy- keman pointed out. The imagination is not an es- cape from the world, it is a plunge into the reality