Remarks on Acceptance of the Distinguished Alumni Service Award
Franklin Hall, Indiana University, 10th May 2014
Dean Singell, Chair Pavalko,
Faculty Members,
Ladies and Gentlemen
Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht bhur fáilte chroíúil agus as ucht bhur gcuid flaithiúlachta.
Thank you so much for your warm welcome and generous hospitality.
As I arrived here yesterday, coming up Kirkwood Avenue through the Sample Gates and into the leafy campus of Indiana University, memories instantly came back to me of my arrival here to study in Autumn 1966.
Much has changed here since my time, of course: the Sample Gates, for example, are relatively new but the grand old buildings remain – Memorial Union, Franklin Hall, President’s Hall – and, just off campus, Nick’s English Hut still nourishes the spirit of the Hoosiers.
To be presented with the Distinguished Alumni Service Award means a great deal to me, and I thank you, Dean Singell, for this very special recognition. I feel honoured to join the ranks of previous recipients, whose range of experience and knowledge reflects the excellence and interdisciplinary nature of education and formation at Indiana University.
Last year’s three recipients were Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Honorable Shirley Slanger Abrahamson; former U.S. Secretary of Education, Dr Roderick Paige; and internationally renowned musician, Booker T. Jones. While time does not permit me to evoke every recipient of this award I would like to mention another world-renowned musician who represents the excellence of Indiana University – that is, Bloomington’s own Hoagy Carmichael, whose legacy lives on at the University today with the Hoagy Carmichael Collection of archives, memorabilia and his own piano. These are truly deserving recipients, distinguished in every sense of the word.
As a recipient today of this Distinguished Service Alumni Award I am both humbled and proud to represent the Department of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences. It is a true privilege to be back in the company of the faculty and students of my old school, and I look forward to meeting graduates of the College at this afternoon’s Commencement Ceremony.
As I recalled at this morning’s Commencement Ceremony, my decision to study at Indiana University was somewhat serendipitous. At an earlier point, I was on a trajectory towards Berkeley, where I was due to study with Neil Smelser, however funding issues and the offer by Indiana University of a teaching assistantship, significantly changed that course. As a result I was fortunate enough to be part of the Indianapolis Area Project, conducted in my time here by Professor John Scanzoni.
As a young man from the West of Ireland I was very excited to be part of such an ambitious programme of sociological research. Almost half a century later that programme, now known as the Sociological Research Practicum, under the auspices of the Karl F. Schuessler Institute for Social Research, has delivered numerous in-depth quantitative and qualitative investigations on a wide range of sociological topics. It is a great honour to be joined here this lunchtime by students and faculty members who are actively engaged in the ongoing practical work of this project.
Coming to the cream and crimson environs of Indiana University in 1966 I was an idealist and a dreamer. Some might say, indeed, that in the intervening years, not that much has changed. Leaving Indiana, however, along with that idealism, I had garnered technical capacities, a solid body of intellectual work, and above all the capacity to rigorously challenge the status quo.
While each generation confronts different societal challenges there can be no doubt that in youth, we share an unquenchable idealism and desire to realise our deepest dreams. As the older generation now, as leaders and educators, it is our responsibility to encourage those students who are graduating today, and the young people who share this fragile planet, to boldly pursue their dreams and to assure them that we have not forgotten ours. In that pursuit, these young people will both question perceived wisdoms and drive positive change, improving society for the generations to come after them.
Both our countries are emerging from a crisis that has interlocking economic, financial, social and political strands, but also moral and intellectual dimensions that run deeper than most official framings of the crisis suggest. In overcoming this crisis universities are challenged, I believe, to recover the moral purpose of original thought and pluralist, emancipatory scholarship. In particular, we might collectively ponder on the fact that the conceptual strength of Western political economy was never so impressive as when it was heavily informed by philosophy and ethics.
May I leave you with the words of the great American author, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, more commonly known as Mark Twain:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Thank you for your attention.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.