The Tapestry of Character
Janet McReynolds,
Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
2001
When the officers of Phi Kappa Phi asked me to provide remarks for this induction ceremony, I immediately began to ask myself and others this question: What can I say to a distinguished and talented group of students? I think I concluded that only a fool would try. But here I am; I promise to make it brief.
You were invited to join Phi Kappa Phi because the organization is convinced that in recognizing and honoring students of good character who have excelled in scholarship, it will stimulate others to strive for excellence. So by inviting you to join this honorary organization, you are called to be a person of sound character and to strive for excellence in all that you do. If each of you does this, you will inspire others to strive for the same standards.
I have personally been intrigued over the past two decades as I watched the varying degrees of seriousness with which the officers of Phi Kappa Phi have undertaken their duty to identify students who met the standards of good character and excellence in scholarship. Ponder for a moment how would you identify such students? Yes, you can look at the GPA, but how would you address the matter of character?
I am confident that you may be able and willing to think of friends and acquaintances who are persons of good character according to your judgment. So if you can identify some friends who are persons of good character, probably you must, at least in some measure, have an idea about what that means. I wonder if your thoughts are the same as mine.
Please allow me to go daringly into a brief discussion about how I have framed the tapestry of our lives in order to describe my view of how a person of good character might be defined. For most of us, our lives have four major components. I know we could debate about the terms to use for weeks, but I am going to keep it simple. For most of us our lives consist of work; some might call it career or vocation or profession, but I am calling it work; next is family, family of origin, the newly created family, surrogate family or significant others, then the self, and finally the community. So without being caught up in the rhetoric, for the moment I want to frame the tapestry of our lives around work, family, self and community, realizing that you will want to tell me later about the omissions I have made. When you stop to think about it, though, it is really the intersections of these four parts of our lives that causes some of the most interesting challenges.
Several years ago a colleague of mine brought me a nice blue satin star and said, “Here. Hang this on your bulletin board so that you will be reminded to not define yourself solely by your job.” I thoughtfully put the blue satin star on my bulletin board and started thinking about the message.
You may be wondering why I mention this. After all, you and I have spent many years preparing to do our life’s work (or vocation, profession or career) and we want to be well-prepared. And surely that is commendable. But this message is still a solid one – Try not to define who you are solely by your work (job, career, profession). So my hope is that you will hang a blue satin star or some other symbol as a gentle reminder that who you are is more than your job, vocation, career or profession.
When I was thinking about this idea of work, I stumbled onto a book at a conference entitled, Let Your Life Speak. The author, Parker Palmer, frames his book around the word “vocation” which is rooted in the Latin word meaning “voice”. The author proposes that our vocation does not come from willfulness but from listening. In other words I cannot just will myself into becoming a computer specialist. I should listen to the voice within to determine what my skills really are. The author believes that we are born with a number of gifts, but we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disabuse us of them. In the author’s way of thinking, true vocation joins self and service. Now that is something to think about. True vocation joins self and service. I found this a refreshing perspective on work and on service. I wonder how many of us would have chosen some other path had we listened to the voice within.
My next hope for you is that you will consider all of your education, including of course your SIUE education, a privilege that calls for you to work within your community and to share your skills. As I think of it, the learning that we do is not just for the work that we choose, but it is also for sharing with others and for our work within our communities.
I know many of you have devoted much time to helping others in your communities. Each year when I attend the events at SIUE where we celebrate and honor those who are good community leaders and citizens, I am amazed at how many SIUE students give so generously of their time.
For those of you who are working hard in your community, please keep up the good work. For those of you who might not have begun, I urge you to find a cause that stirs your passion and throw yourself into it. It takes a lot to hang in there and help a fledgling organization which has few resources. And it takes a lot to maintain a long term commitment to a cause. But surely the people who do so are persons of good character. If you cannot find a cause in your community that stirs your passion, I urge you to look again at Time magazine’s special issue of February 12. On the front it said, “This is a story about AIDS in Africa. Look at the pictures. Read the words. And then try not to care.” The Time Special Report said, “No other place on earth has been as devastated by the virus as southern Africa. This is a story of what happens when a disease infects not just individuals but entire societies–swallowing families, communities and hopes and raising the question of whether the rest of the world’s reluctance to do more to stem the modern curse amounts to an enormous crime against humanity.” If you are wondering what you can do, go to Netaid.org (an arm of the UN). Netaid is creating the largest on-line global community to address extreme poverty. So if you cannot find something in your commuity that stirs your passion, look at the Internet site.
I want to turn now to the third part of the tapestry that I have called the “self”. You might want to use other words like inner self, self concept, alter-ego or even ideal self. This part of our quilt is perhaps the most complex since we spend most of our lives developing, defining, re-defining, and cultivating the person we want to be or become. I think a person of good character keeps on examining the qualities that he or she displays, both publicly and privately. The entire breadth of our education can hopefully be put to good use when we work on defining who we are or will be. A recent speaker for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration said, “It is not where you start, but where you end.” I think that is a very valuable insight. Each of us has limitless possibilities for defining who we are and who we might become.
I submit that the person of good character refuses to grow stagnant and keeps on moving toward a better self. I cite Jimmy Carter, who left the Presidency and with his wife, Roselyn just keeps on building homes for Habit for Humanity. I think of Betty Ford who came to terms with her own addiction and went ahead to build a now world famous, first class treatment facility. I think of Ruth Simmons who will become President of the very prestigious Brown University, in spite of having been born poor and African American. She will be the first African American to lead an Ivy League institution. And I think of Lance Armstrong who never gave up even though the cancer, when he was just 25, had spread to his brain and lungs. At 27, he went ahead, as you know, to win the Tour de France, the most demanding sporting event in the world. It is said to be like running a marathon every day for 20 days. He said cancer made him “a better man. Just like all survivors, I am more aware of things around me, and I’m more patient. I’m a happier person than I was before.” To keep on becoming a better self, is the single most important quality for a person of sound character.
Finally, I want to touch on the last dimension of the tapestry of life called family, but I do want to be careful to define family both traditionally and inclusively since the word family is gaining new meanings. I have given considerable thought to what a person of good character means within the family context. I think it means all of the traditional things: to love, and honor, and cherish our family. But I want to add one dimension that I hope you may have already discovered. Even though Thomas Wolfe, the great American novelist said “You can’t go home again”, I think we must. We must go home to rekindle the memories of our family as it was and as it has become. For if we fail to rekindle the memories of our family, we forget our roots. Forgetting where we have come from may have merit for some, I suppose. But for the persons of sound character, I think it sharpens our focus on the values and teachings of our family, and it gives us wisdom for the next generation. Those of you who may have gained an education beyond your family members bear the responsibility for bridging your future with your past and with your family. When we do that, we share a bit of learning while bringing the family member’s vision of tomorrow closer to our own. Nelson Mandala, in his autobiography called Long Road to Freedom said he always thought a man should build a house close to the home where he grew up. And after being released from prison, he did just as he believed.
I want to mention one other thing I have learned about family: Expect the unexpected. The family member who at one stage of her life may be strong, confident and full of direction, may at another time be the most vulnerable and the most in need of support.
Counting on one of your family members to always be with you when it matters most is natural, but I want to caution you to expect the unexpected. We have no choice about major or terminal illness, some social misfortunes, or in some cases, relocation to another geographic site. So, I have learned to prepare for the unexpected. Maybe you will want to also.
This evening I have reminded you that your invitation to this honor society carries with it some expectation–for you to continue to develop the good character traits you now possess and to continue your record of achieving excellence in all that you do. If you continue to develop your character within the context of work, community, self and family, you will inspire others. SIUE will have a pool of bright and caring scholars for induction into Phi Kappa Phi for many years to come.
Congratulations to each of you for having been invited to join Phi Kappa Phi and for your wisdom in accepting the invitation. Through the organization, you may meet many people of good will. I am confident that each of you will continue to live the life of distinction that has earned you this invitation. Also, I am confident you are aware of the many kinds of community needs that await your contributions. Just to let you know that most ideas are borrowed, I want to tell you the sources that influenced my thinking for these remarks. I’ve mentioned already Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak and Nelson Mandala’s autobiography, Long Road to Freedom. I read again Robert Fulgham’s All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I am sure you remember what we learned in kindergarten.
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life.
Take a nap every afternoon.
Watch out for traffic, hold hands, stick together.
Be aware of wonder.
I also pondered some ideas from Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, and Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul by Jack Canfield and others. I simply could not put down Lance Armstrong’s story. It’s called It’s Not About the Bike. I was absolutely stunned by the special edition on AIDS in Africa that Time magazine published February 12. And in closing, I was most intrigued by a line from George Bush’s inaugural speech. “ I ask you to be good citizens. Citizens, not spectators, citizens, not subjects. Responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.”
I wish each of you well. Thank you for your patience.
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