Wyoming Seminary Alumni Day Convocation
May 4, 2013
Barney’s Remarks: Free and Responsible Persons
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you, Julie,
I am honored and humbled to have been named to speak to you this morning. I would very much like to thank John and Lisa Morton and all my classmates on the Class of 1963 reunion committee for the work they have done in preparation for this very special occasion. Speaking for the Committee, we also want to express our profound appreciation and gratitude to Julie Strzeletz and John Shafer for having shepherded us with through the process over the last six months. It has been a true pleasure to have had them as part of our team.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, June 10, 1963. My classmates here this morning will certainly remember that day. It was warm and overcast. The Class of 1963, 122-strong, the girls in their white dresses, the boys in their dark suits, processed into the Nelson chapel, in well-rehearsed and quiet anticipation of the ceremony ahead. The Commencement speaker was Dr. Robert Oxnam, the President of Drew University. Although all listened, probably only a few heard what Dr. Oxnam actually said. According to the following day’s Wilkes-Barre Record, his address was titled “The Free and Responsible Person.” (HOLD UP NEWSPAPER, showing p2.)
As Dr.Oxnam spoke HE held up a copy of the previous day’s Wilkes-Barre Record with the headline “Kennedy Urges Equal Rights for All,” to emphasize that our culture was facing its greatest crisis and that the future generation (that’s us!) had the responsibility to save it through our commitment to freedom and justice. We were facing a big crisis in this country at that time. (HOLD UP NEWSPAPER, SHOWING p1 and READ HEADLINE.)
This was heady stuff. But as he spoke, we were most likely indifferent because of what that moment meant to us– we were graduating from Wyoming Seminary. Maybe we heard what our class advisor, Mr. Bugbee, had to say. He gave the Charge to the Graduates. My mother wrote me that his was a “dilly of a speech,” filled with good will and humor, and all just loved it.
You might be thinking: Why did his mother have to write that to him? Now I must make a confession. I was among those receiving diplomas, but I was not physically present. My senior year was spent as a Rotary Club Exchange Student in Australia. On June 10, I was living on a cattle station, what we would call a ranch, in the bush country of northern Queensland. I had completed what remained of my Sem graduation requirements while in Australia, and, considering the time-difference, I actually graduated 14 hours before any of my other classmates! My mother wrote me a seven-page letter detailing every aspect of the ceremony. She also mailed me the newspaper page I just showed you.
I think Dr. Oxnam would be proud of us. I think we actually did become free and responsible persons. The last fifty years hold a whole lot of truly significant history and change and we have weathered that history and change well. I think that as we reflect back on our lives over those fifty years, we can find great satisfaction in whom we are and what we’ve done.
This school played a big role in shaping us for our future. We were ready for college. We knew how to study. We knew how to question. We certainly had our share of points of view. Those post-Sem years were fraught with issues that would challenge and confound our directions for life.
How did Sem make us ready to move on? We had great teachers. Some of our teachers were Sem legends who had taught our parents. Those of you from the classes ahead of us will remember the names: Alice Cochran, Erma Foster, Edwin Roberts, Helen Brown, Harold Brown, Leroy Bugbee, Horace Parker, Ted Abbot. They all started at Sem in the 1920s! How privileged our lives were to have been touched by these dedicated and venerable educators. Some of our teachers were also seasoned Sem veterans: Mary Tribler, Robert Buntz, Esther Wainstein, Ruth Reichenbacher, Dorothy Edwards, Jim Pugh, Harold Miller, Everett Lord. Some of our teachers were youngsters – Harry Nageli, Herbert Quick, Jack Betterly, John Magagna, Frank Light. I would name them all, but you get the idea.
These were people who shaped our minds, regardless of what we thought of them at the time. “She’s too tough.” “He failed me on that test.” “I love her class.” “She thinks hers is the only class we take!” “I have to memorize my oration?”
At the time, it was just school – something we did every day because we had to. We went to class; we participated in sports and other extracurricular activities; we put up with –or sought to evade – the dorm rules; we went to Blue and Whites, we made friends; we memorized our senior oration. We didn’t think of it as anything more meaningful than that.
But who made that Sem life for us? Our teachers. They were our instructors; they were our coaches; they were our advisors; they were our dorm parents. We hardly gave a thought to what it took for them to do what they did for us.
Teaching in a school like Sem is not a job. It’s a profession that requires dedication, commitment, responsibility, and a great sacrifice of personal time, especially for teachers with families. For some at Sem - those in the dorms, one is on the job 24 hours a day.
Teaching, coaching, and advising do not remain static. The nature of today’s world, especially in the areas of technology and accessibility of information, is one of overwhelming and accelerating change. Teachers have to be aware of and able to meet the challenge of change. All of us know that if we want to understand how to use the newest iPod, we have to ask our kids or grandchildren to explain it to us!
Pedagogy today is always in catch-up mode. Every student in this school has a laptop, iPad, or tablet. They all have iPhones or similar devices. Through these, they have instant access to the entire scope of human knowledge. For us, fifty years ago, that knowledge was abridged and filtered through encyclopedias, sets of beautifully and uniformly bound books that were out of date before they left the presses.
We need our teachers to stay as current as possible with change. We need them to be able to think and teach outside the box. And, we need to understand that those teachers who are outside the box today, are already in tomorrow’s box! Teaching, coaching, advising – all these aspects of education require something else – learning.
A school like Sem must constantly encourage and support its teachers’ continued learning, not only in their subject area but also in pedagogy. This is why our class has established The Class of 1963 Faculty Professional Development Fund as our gift to the school. While modest at the moment, we hope the Fund will grow over the years. We want Sem’s teachers to know that we appreciate and value what they do and that we want to help them grow professionally.
Our giving is not directed to bricks and mortar. While we do value bricks and mortar and are very excited about the new Kirby Center and changes at Nesbitt Field and all else that has taken place over the last half century, the physical settings of education are of little value if not populated by those who are prepared to provide that education.
As it did fifty years ago, Sem today has exceptional teachers, dedicated to the academic and personal growth and future well-being of their students. We, the Class of 1963, as “free and responsible persons,” are proud to be a continuing part of that time-honored tradition.
Thank you.