Charge to the IU Class of 2003

By Gerald L. Bepko, Interim President, Indiana University, speaking at IUB commencement

Photo by Paul Martens Interim President Jerry Bepko addresses the IUPUI 2003 graduating class

I know that people may worry about such things, since one time a student commented on my commercial law class. He said, “Professor Bepko, I want you to know that if I had only one hour to live, I would want to spend it in your class. Because in your class, each moment is an eternity.”

In 1830, Bloomington was a town on the edge of the frontier, scarcely more than a tiny way station amid the deep forests of southern Indiana. There were only two buildings and three professors. In that year, in IU’s first commencement, only four persons were graduated. James Dunn became a Hoosier lawyer and served as a colonel in the Civil War. Hamilton Stockwell became a physician and a member of the Indiana General Assembly. In his spare time, he traveled the world. Michael Hummer became a minister. And James Rollins became a lawyer. Later, as a U.S. congressman, he spoke eloquently in support of the 13th amendment to the Constitution and aided President Abraham Lincoln in abolishing slavery.

You share a common inheritance with these graduates, though the university from which you graduate has grown and changed. Today, there are 250 structures on the Bloomington campus, with state-of-the-art technology, among the best in the world.

The spectacular beauty of the IUB campus is never more vivid than in springtime. It looks like what most folks picture a college to be, said a recent article, “gracefully aging buildings made of limestone quarried from nearby hillsides; rolling lawns and gardens…Even a brook meanders through this leafy 1,700-acre campus…”

This article was not in a journal on architecture or landscape design. It appeared in a publication of the Association of International Eductors that profiles success in internationalizing campuses. It said that, although IU Bloomington is nestled in the hills of Monroe County, it is “a Heartland Campus that encompasses the four corners of the globe.”

So, as Hamilton Stockwell traveled around the world after graduation in 1830, today’s students are able to gain global perspective through overseas study options, through the international students enrolled here and through the extraordinary intellectual resources here. In the aftermath of 9/11, our country needed language, cultural and geographic expertise on Central Asia and Afghanistan. This need catapulted our Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center and Indiana’s Department of Central Eurasian Studies, already very highly regarded and funded by our government, to the national forefront.

The recitations in 1830 of Greek and Latin have given way to philosophy and physics, music theory and medicine, English literature and informatics. The three faculty of 1830 are now 1,700 faculty who staffed 320 degree programs to enrich your education. The four who graduated in 1830 compare with the nearly 7,000 students participating in today’s commencement.

The common inheritance should include a pride in the institution—one of the world’s great universities. From today forward, you will carry the name of IU. You’ll benefit from the association with the hundreds of thousands of extraordinary people who have gone before and carried the banner of IU in such proud fashion. People like James Dunn, Class of 1830, who became a lawyer and heroic Civil War colonel.

With this association goes a responsibility to make your own contribution to this grand tradition by upholding high standards of integrity. Yes, integrity. Consider this bad example.

A business person called his representative in Congress and asked for intervention in an environmental lawsuit in which the government was enforcing environmental laws against his business. The member of Congress said, “I cannot do that. It would be wrong.” The caller said, “It makes me angry that, after contributing to your campaign, you won’t help me. Why, I wouldn’t vote for you again if you were St. Peter.” The member of Congress replied, “If I were St. Peter, I’m afraid you would not reside in my district.”

Most importantly, as you graduate from this great university, you inherit the obligation to be generous—generous with the knowledge you have earned and willing to put it to work in the service of others.

Author James Agee included this idea in his chronicle of the Depression era called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. He describes talking with an old lady whom he met living in the valleys of Appalachia in a little shack with dirt floors, no heat, no plumbing. Agee asked the woman what she would do if someone came along and gave her some money to help her out. The old lady rocked in her chair and shook her head while she pondered the question. Finally, she said, “I guess I’d give it to the poor.”

That’s the essence of your inheritance from IU: to use what you have learned here to make the world a better place, to make better whatever place or groups you become part of, to leave wherever you’ve been better than the way you found it. This is a simple commitment of life that most learn when they are very young, but now, blessed as you are with the power of knowledge, the cultivated intellectual assets that you’ve acquired at IU, you have a special opportunity and ability to apply that simple thought on a much grander level.

That power comes with this special responsibility to others, and to yourself. For the best lives of meaning and adventure are those devoted to service to others, like 1830 alumnus James Rollins who served as a member of the U.S. Senate in the cause of ending slavery.

May you be so fortunate as to live lives of meaning and adventure.

And to express our pride in your work to date and your extraordinary promise, I say on behalf of IU, thank you. Thank you for your intellectual accomplishments; thank you in advance for your commitment to serving others; and thanks for hearing and absorbing this charge to you as the Class of 2003.