Manhattanville College - Tower Yearbook (Purchase, NY)

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MOTHER O ' BYRNE

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Life in Manhattanville is a unique creation. Not the product of a single idea, it is the surge of many minds and hearts. Its spirit is manifest — the gui¬ tars, banjos in hootenanny harmonies, the thrill of phone calls, unexpected visitors, the spontaneous tales and laughter, the never ending bridge games, alarms ringing, girls rising. It is the meeting of faculty and students over snack bar tables. It grows. It is the discovery of beauty in each new season on campus; it is the joy of living with youth wondering. It is the glow of find¬ ing a friend, of falling in love. It is the outpouring of this experience to others less fortunate. It breeds that smile, that ' Hello ' which greets you in the halls, on the walks, everywhere. It tells you that the something encountered lies deeper still. It is all of these pictures, these voices, these people, all bound up in the prin¬ cipal reason for Manhattanville ' s exis¬ tence—learning. Learning from classes, seminars, lectures and books presup¬ poses freedom to think many thoughts, to understand in part, to search further. Mutual search sparks scholastic enthusi¬ asm and courage to move towards the yet unknown. Self is given to the search, return comes, and dialogue is born. The life of dialogue is self-generating; it rises from recognition of another ' s presence to recognition of Divine Pres¬ ence. Perhaps it is here that our prob¬ ing must deepen and rest. To know is to understand; to comprehend in depth is to love. Living love expands the sub¬ ject ' s circumference, and creates upon an existing base. Manhattanville is both the core and the new creation. 5

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dedication A liberal arts college exists not to communicate facts to its students, but to enable them to see relationships. It requires that a student study a wide variety of subjects, that she may be able to see a bar of music and a mathe¬ matical equation, and understand the similarities of the two. It refuses to relegate knowledge to separate compart¬ ments because it recognizes that life is not so patterned, and that it is for life that it must prepare the student. If Manhattanville has been at all successful in carrying out the purpose of a liberal arts education, it is due in great part to the vision of its President, Mother O ' Byrne. For she has inaugurated a wide and expanding college curricu¬ lum to help her students meet the demands of today ' s increasingly complex world. But she has also recognized that a liberal education does not lie in academic learning alone, that it is rather by the union of academic and social life that a student acquires meaningful ideas. Thus she strives to make Manhattanville a part of the world com¬ munity instead of merely a college planet, so its students may become worthy citizens and architects of the future. Finally, understanding that no academic or social ideal can be true unless solidly based on spiritual realities, she has so orientated Manhattanville life that each student may dis¬ cover and grow in knowledge of the Sacred Heart, source of all truth. It is in gratitude for this vision and effort that we dedi¬ cate this yearbook to her, gratitude for the opportunities we have been given, gratitude for the charity which enables us to realize what it means to be rooted and grounded in love. In this charity, this love, Mother O ' Byrne epitomizes Manhattanville, and through her example, in¬ spires us to do the same.