A Commencement Gift (2014 Spring Commencement Saturday Afternoon)
- Date: 05/10/2014
- Author: Dr. Luis M. Proenza (President, The University of Akron)
- Location: E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall
Today you complete an important chapter of your life. Next month I shall also, as I complete my presidency here. And so, as we both contemplate our futures, allow me to offer you one final University of Akron lesson. This one is on me.
People often speak with fondness when they reminisce about their college days.
Of course, that is likely not the case with you graduates. At least, not yet. Your minds are still so chafed and swollen from final exams, research papers and senior projects, there is no room yet for nostalgia. But it will come.
For most of us, the college years coincide with the full bloom and beauty of youth. It is a time of limited responsibilities and unlimited potential. As we mature, we grow wistful about these years, wishing we still had that freedom…that optimism…that ability to bend down and pick something off the floor without groaning.
But if we limit our perceptions of college to warm memories, we have missed a very important point: universities also are magical places of discovery, innovation and transformation, the likes of which you will rarely encounter again.
Ironically, I learned about the magic of universities not at a university, but at a place called Woods Hole.
Named for the narrow passage on the Eastern Seaboard that separates Buzzard's Bay from Vineyard Sound, Woods Hole is situated at the southernmost tip of Cape Cod and serves as the gateway to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Islands.
It is home for two major scientific institutions: the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, or MBL.
Noted and aspiring biologists from around the world have gathered at the MBL for more than a century to further our knowledge of life.
More than 30 years have passed since I first went there, awed just by the names on the buildings – Loeb and Lillie, for example – which tell much of the history of modern biology.
I was an aspiring neurobiologist, and I went to see where much of the cutting-edge research in my field was being done, and to meet those who were doing it. It was an experience I will never forget.
I returned often, as many do, first to collaborate with others, and eventually to work with my own team in a laboratory of our own.
Eventually the appeal of organizational leadership lured me away but I spent sufficient time there for Woods Hole to work its magic.
While there I worked on scientific problems that were later the subject of published articles in such periodicals as the Journal of Physiology (London), the Journal of Neurophysiology, and Vision Research.
Full disclosure: I can’t remember much, if any, of the content of those articles.
What I do remember is more personal and at the same time more abstract, because it represents the people I met and their ideas.
I won't bore you with the "who's who" list of modern biologists that assemble every summer at the MBL. Suffice it to say that this then-young biologist was a bit star-struck.
There is one individual, however, whom I would like to tell you about, and to share with you a thought of his that has echoed through my life.
I remember George Wald most clearly - a man with a remarkable presence, yet unassuming . . . self-assured, yet humble . . . ordinary, yet eccentrically and intelligently obvious.He had already won the 1967 Nobel Prize for his work on the chemistry of photopigments - those molecules that first absorb light in our eyes and thus allow us to see - and on the role of vitamin A in vision.
We used to see him on his daily walks, hands clasped behind his back, walking purposely, dressed in jeans and a simple cotton sleeveless shirt. Hardly the image of a Nobel Prize winner!
We sat with him over coffee, or chatted at the dock.
Years later I again encountered George Wald, this time in the form of his words published in a book.
I would like to share those with you now. I quote:
"Surely this is a great part of our dignity…
That we can know, and that through us matter can know itself;
That beginning with protons and electrons, out of the womb of time and the vastness of space…
We can begin to understand;
That organized as in us, the hydrogen, the carbon, the nitrogen, the oxygen, those 16 to 21 elements, the water and sunlight –
All, having become us – can begin to understand what they are, and how they came to be."[i]
Let me repeat that because it is worth savoring; it is worth pondering:
"Surely this is a great part of our dignity…
That we can know, and that through us matter can know itself;
That beginning with protons and electrons, out of the womb of time and the vastness of space…
We can begin to understand;
That organized as in us, the hydrogen, the carbon, the nitrogen, the oxygen, those 16 to 21 elements, the water and sunlight –
All, having become us – can begin to understand what they are, and how they came to be."
There, in a few short sentences, I perceive the magic of the MBL, and the magic of universities. To me, those elegant and profound words speak of our relentless pursuit of truth, of the progressive discovery of knowledge, of the connectedness of life, and the sense that we can, and we must, advance our common future.
As you begin to reflect on your years here at The University of Akron, it is my good wish that in addition to joyful memories of friends and relationships, you will recall the magic: the wonder of discovery, the satisfaction of analysis, and thrill of creation. That magic is our commencement gift to you – take it wherever you go, add to it, relish it, then share it.
[i] (George Wald, quoted in: Philip Ball, Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water, June 2000, p. 3
- Topic Category: Commencement Address
- Tags: [george wald, magic of universities, woods hole]
- Filed in: Speeches, Statements to the Community,