Southeastern Massachusetts University - Scrimshaw Yearbook (North Dartmouth, MA)

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DEAN DONALD C. HOWARD Associate Dean of Students REFLE C TIONSJ As graduates of the Class of 1979 you set forth on a new adventure in your ongoing voyage through life. You enter into your future, l suspect, with the same mixture of concern, uncertainty and hope, that many of us who have preceded you faced ours. Hopefully that future will contain for you much fulfillment and the joy that comes from fulfillment. But true and lasting fulfillment can only be realized as you grow in your understandings and insights, both about who you are and what life is about. Those understandings and insights come through a con- tinual process of thinking out concepts and values that will form the foundation of a working philosophy by which your practice of life will be guided. In expressing a fond farewell to you may I share some thoughts from my own life's philosophy that could prove helpful as you search for your own. To Truly Live To truly live, l believe is to be aware that there is something larger than one's self. That despite our fall from Grace we are not aimless atoms ambling to annihilation, rather we are the highest expression of God's cre- ation, with a beginning in time that stretches to an infinity beyond time. And because we are, we have a duty, a responsibility to express in whatever we create, a reflection of our God bestowed virtue. To truly live is to recog- nize the fact that we neither live nor die 'unto ourselves, we are accountable not only to God in matters eternal, but are answerable to both mankind and God in matters temporal. Upon this recognition we discern still another, that of our obligation to bring into the lives of our fellow humans a full measure of love, dignity, respect for human worth, goodness and purity of purpose. Remembering always that such power as one possesses to shape the course of events, influence the lives of others, flows not from a life lived for self, which is a life of alien- ation, but from the strength of interpersonal relationships. Such is the life that satisfies, for it goes beyond mere survival. The roots of human dealings are of the spirit, without which nothing profound in the way of influence can ever be generated. And the spirit is what comes from within. When a life of survival is compared to that of a life that satisfies, the comparison is obvious. The former you can meet every day by the score. Their numbers can be found among the human zombies of the world, the dull clods in whom no magnetism resides, and whose capacity to lift the human spirit or motivate a human action is nil. They can also be found amongst the brilliant, brittle or sophisticated types who populate so much of our urban society. But their characteristics are one and the same. They are self servers, and the selfish. The pleas- ure-for-the-moment seekers. Their interest is primarily in things and only in people when people can be used as objects to gain an end. They are indifferent to everyone's needs and feelings but their own. The sum of it all is that they are the selfish takers, not the givers in life. Be a giver, but also realize that in giving there is a positive sense in which you must likewise be an unselfish taker, capable of receiving from others the flow of their commitment to you and the expression of their love and care for you. Without such natural give and take your capacity for healthy relationships becomes a parched and pinched experience, your life an unbalanced ledger.

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Kass DONALD E. WALKER UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT l have always been optimistic about the future, even when world and national matters looked far bleaker than they do now. But my optimism for you, for your future, and for what you will contribute when you leave here is greater than usual. I think we are going through a period in which there is a special maturing of our democracy. A period when we appear to be regaining a sense of se f-sufficiency, not in a romantic, pioneering sort of way, but in a very realistic and practical way. sense this in such things as the trend towards the use of solar energy. A decade ago peop e looked more to the government and other large institutions to solve their problems. Now think more people are saying, they're- tired of waiting for someone else to solve their prob ems-they'll do it themselves. That's healthy. l think it's at the heart of the way a good university community functions. l think it's the true substance that makes us strong as a group, when we really believe in the capacity of ourselves and our colleagues to solve those problems which confront us. And I think this has a lot to do with you, with this group of students who have been here for four years and are now leaving. ldon't expect you to remember a great deal of details of what you learned here, but I do expect you've learned how to learn. l think you now have a basic grasp of where the boundries are and where you might push to bend them back a little. Those of you whom l have had the opportunity to know personally have been a source of inspiration to me for l did not come across this optimistic vision of the future by QQ! reading books. I came across it by listening to what you had to say and watching what you did. I was impressed. No, all wars have not been fought, nor all battles won, but you rekindle in me the feeling that we will meet successfully the challenges before us, and that is what really makes my task as president of SMU rewarding far beyond the traditional yardsticks with which we try to measure happiness and satisfaction.

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Celestino D. Macedo Dean of Students Donald C. Howard Assoc. Dean of Student Life 22 Victor P. Caliri Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences A--it bs Joseph P. Sauro Dean of the College of Engineering . 4 :N Nj . 53-?! 'A-1 -V' Norman Zalkind Chairman of Board of Trustees 51 I. x Mary Louise Walsh Assoc. Dean of Student Life