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If we think back over the thirty years that have elapsed since this University
admitted its first student, what of the human story do we find those
years record?
an end to smallpox,
the beginning of AIDS;
an end to the Cold
War, a proliferation of regional clashes;
an end to racism,
a resurgence of racism;
unprecedented prosperity,
a wider gap between rich and poor;
unprecedented access
to higher education, continuing low participation;
Mother Teresa, ethnic
cleansings;
genetic treatment
for disease, designer babies;
an internet of instant
access, the dehumanization of virtual love;
the world’s first truly multicultural society, cries for an English-only
environment.
Dark shadows lurk behind every physical or spiritual advance. Isaiah
Berlin was surely correct when he observed, following Kant: “Out
of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.”
An account of the
human record forces us to confront the bewildering contradictions that cloud
and confuse our story. Previous centuries turned to witchdoctors, shamen, sybils,
astral portents, even animal entrails, to resolve the confusion of competing
truths. These solutions to the human riddle, sadly, have often proclaimed an
exclusive purchase on truth. And opposing, exclusive explanations inspire violent
and tragic confrontation. We humans crave order, and ceaselessly attempt to impose
it upon a chaotic world.
Today we celebrate
the beginning of an academic year at Texas A&M International University,
the institution and the ground conceived to examine, to measure, to weigh, and
to describe these conflicted, human realities. “To give an account of the
record,” should be our task, Neil Rudenstine insisted throughout his tenure
as president of Harvard. Universities have acquired many and varied parts since
Plato gathered a few students on his porch. But like our progenitor, the Greek
academy, we remain, if we fulfill our calling, society’s one precinct of
the mind.
José Ortega
y Gasset, in his Misión de la universidad, describes the university’s
unique activity as profesionalismo, ciencia, cultura—professionalism, science,
culture. By professionalism, Ortega means an educational program designed to
carry our students directly into a career, a place in professional life. We at
Texas A&M International University fulfill superbly this responsibility.
Our most popular majors—nursing, teacher preparation, accounting, business,
criminal justice—propel our students into fine jobs and lifelong careers.
Preparation for careers in social work, health care, and law also figure prominently
in our curriculum.
Ciencia, or science,
for Ortega means unfettered investigation, research into whatever vexes or challenges
the human family.
“Investigación.... plantearse problemas.... describir una verdad
o su inverso.... demostrar un error.... enterarse bien de una verdad....” “Investigation....
to lay out a problem.... to describe a truth or its inverse.... to demonstrate
an error... to become thoroughly aware of a truth.”
The university habituates us to this most humanizing of all tasks, harnessing
reason to sort out, to reflect, to decide a course of action, to identify
a principle to illuminate our thinking.
In addition to training
professionals and stimulating investigation, the university transmits cultura,
culture, for Ortega“el conjunto de lo que hacemos o somos, esa terrible faena... que cada
hombre tiene que ejecutar por su cuenta... de sostenerse en el Universo, de llevarse
o conducirse por entre estas cosas y seres del mundo.” “Life signifies
a joining of what we do to what we are, that terrible task... which each human
being must execute for himself... to sustain himself in the Universe, to carry
himself and guide himself among all the objects and beings of this world.”
Culture clarifies
and organizes our particular view of life, “convicciones positivas sobre
lo que son las cosas del mundo... ideas vivas o de que se vive.” “Positive
convictions about how the world is... vital ideas to live by.” In the university
environment, we study, debate, and transmit cultura. And our culture equips us
to sustain ourselves and guide ourselves through life’s contrarian possibilities.
How may Texas A&M
International University live out the full meaning of its mission to our city
and our region? What programs or initiatives should we pursue if our university
is to guide and to nurture all who study and all who teach? What profesionalismo,
what ciencia, what cultura seem most suited to our historical, cultural, and
geographic reality? First and most important, we must foster in Laredo a cultura
to persuade our youth that the life they want, the life they deserve, cannot
be without higher education. Today, half of those who enter high school are lost
before they finish, and only one-half of the remaining half continues to college
or university study.
We must lead the
state in implementing and perfecting the dual language curriculum, a task at
once professional, scientific, and cultural. As the most basic preparation for
higher education, for professional life, and for a rich experience of our culture,
each graduate of a Laredo school should read, speak, and write fluent English,
fluent Spanish. We at the university must prepare teachers to deliver in our
schools a fully integrated, dual language experience for grades pre-K-12. In
this, we should be second to none.
We must push forward
enhanced opportunities for ciencia, for research, doctoral study in business,
in education, in Hispanic studies, in criminal justice. And we must expand existing
agreements to allow broader access to schools of law and medicine.
We must expand our
Faculty Fellows program, now established in three high schools, to mentor and
to discover with high school faculty the best possible manner to deliver the
Advanced Placement curriculum to Laredo’s students as they prepare for
university study. At the same time, we must devise a freshman year experience
to ensure adequate support as young people transition from secondary to higher
education. We must make students aware of our wide array of opportunities for
international study—at no additional cost or loss of time or of credit—and
foster a cultura in which international study becomes commonplace. Our Texas
Center for Border Economics and Enterprise Development will partner with the
business community in Laredo, with our city and county governments, to bring
our classroom to the workplace and our expertise to the service of economic development.
A technologically enhanced delivery and distance education will, judiciously
employed, complement courses of study in all disciplines. And Laredo, the Gateway
City will, through the Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade, lead
scholars and businesspeople alike to new levels of the professionalism, science,
and culture of international business and trade.
Finally, and most
important, Texas A&M International University must be, for Laredo, for South
Texas, for our students from all over the world, y para nuestros vecinos al cruzar
el Río Bravo, and “for our neighbors from across the Río
Grande,” a beacon lighting the way to growth of the mind and of the spirit.
For the university’s greatest gift—to me and to each of you— is
the gift of new life. A university experience made possible the life I have led,
my own heart and head quickened by an unexpected discovery of Spanish literature,
and its lifelong, endless study.
Students, you
should here come upon a new way of being, a passion awakened, a relentless thirst
for a life and or a career you may never have imagined. When you discover your
passion, it will not resolve all the riddles and uncertainties I referred to
a few moments ago. Rather, your spirit and heart will begin to grow and to swell,
the years bringing only a wider, deeper hunger for more growth, new understanding.
And you will begin to formulate your own answer to life’s most profound
question: How will you serve a world which, for a short time, you will share
with all humanity?
The university’s
gift of new life engenders an eternally receptive spirit, energized by an eternally
restless mind. Let no graduate of this institution ever be tempted to develop
with the years a hardening heart or a narrowing vision. Montaigne exaggerated
only slightly when he observed: “Temperance is the vice of age.”
If, in 1970, the
year our university was founded, a Laredoan were to have left our city, and were
that traveler to return today, he or she, after surveying the astounding changes
and growth, might exclaim: “Laredo has indeed entered a new era, a new
age.” Indeed, we are already living a new age not unlike the one described
by Helen Keller’s great teacher, Annie Sullivan. When Temple University
conveyed upon her an honorary doctorate of humane letters, in her acceptance
speech Miss Sullivan describes moments in history when our common humanity finds
itself lifted to a new height, a new vision. Teacher, scholar, and student become
the agents of new clarity, new inspiration, new life that sets us free. And new,
clear light illuminates our contrarian, conflicted humanity.
Certain
periods in history suddenly lift humanity to an observation
point
where a clear light falls on a world previously dark. Everything
seems strangely different. Familiar ideas put on new garments and parade
before us. Scholars and thinkers scrutinize events with a new intensity
to learn their meaning, and people look for a sign, a miracle....
Education
in the light of present-day knowledge and need calls for
some spirited and creative innovations both in the substance and purpose
of current pedagogy. A strenuous effort must be made to train young people
to think for themselves and to take independent charge of their lives.
Surely Annie Sullivan’s
words describe what we in Laredo, today, are awakened to embrace. Courage, innovation,
reflection and freedom buoy our spirits. Professionalism, science, and culture
flourish within our walls. We are the point from which a clear light falls. Que
Dios nos lleve en la mano. May God speed us in our task.
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