Keep Going: An Address to the 2009 Elmira College Phi Beta Kappa Inductees
Good evening everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to all of you tonight on behalf of this year's inductees. Being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa is a great honor, and being able to give the student response is even greater. So, thank you.
According to Wikipedia (my most trusted source for information about the world), Phi Beta Kappa is regarded as the most prestigious honor society in the United States. Becoming a member of Phi Beta Kappa is a recognition of the enormous amount of work that we've accomplished over the past three and a half years. We have spent hundreds of hours on academics, striving to expand the limits of our knowledge. But academic success is not the only trait that members of Phi Beta Kappa share; there is more to this honor society than studying the works and ideas of others. By refusing to remain cloistered in our rooms, we have taken these ideas into the world to challenge them and ourselves against others. This, I believe, is the most essential aspect of Phi Beta Kappa.
Membership in Phi Beta Kappa is something I am sure many of us have striven for during our college years. It is an admirable goal, as it is reassuring to be recognized for one's academic achievements, to know that being intelligent matters to some people. Now, I view Phi Beta Kappa as a sort of paradox. While the process is very selective, once a person becomes a member, he (or more likely, based on our inductees tonight, she) joins a long list of some great Americans. There are multiple presidents and other famous politicians, as well as creative minds such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, the late John Updike and even Rivers Cuomo (the songwriter from Weezer). It's a pretty varied crowd that belongs to Phi Beta Kappa.
Yet while becoming a Phi Beta Kappa inductee is a respectable goal to have, this ceremony should not be viewed as the final step in your education. It would be pretty depressing for me to get up here and say, "Well, that's the farthest we can go! We've reached the summit of possible knowledge.” Instead, I believe that this induction is one part of the marathon, with Dr. Shephard and Dr. Mitchell like the people standing on the sidelines with a cup of water, keeping us motivated to continue seeking knowledge and become better people. Because while membership in Phi Beta Kappa may reflect one's accomplishments in the collegiate realm, it does not guarantee that you will use the skills that got you here in the future.
So I encourage every one of you to continue seeking self-improvement -- and I am not speaking only to tonight's inductees. Stretch yourselves -- in the classroom, at work, in your home and at every moment of the day. It will be a lot of work, but it is something that all of us can handle. Simply because we have joined the ranks of famous Americans does not mean that we have done everything that we are capable of. So let us, everyone, use tonight as encouragement not to settle but to continue running, to continue thinking, to continue working for a better self. Thank you.
-Paul
According to Wikipedia (my most trusted source for information about the world), Phi Beta Kappa is regarded as the most prestigious honor society in the United States. Becoming a member of Phi Beta Kappa is a recognition of the enormous amount of work that we've accomplished over the past three and a half years. We have spent hundreds of hours on academics, striving to expand the limits of our knowledge. But academic success is not the only trait that members of Phi Beta Kappa share; there is more to this honor society than studying the works and ideas of others. By refusing to remain cloistered in our rooms, we have taken these ideas into the world to challenge them and ourselves against others. This, I believe, is the most essential aspect of Phi Beta Kappa.
Membership in Phi Beta Kappa is something I am sure many of us have striven for during our college years. It is an admirable goal, as it is reassuring to be recognized for one's academic achievements, to know that being intelligent matters to some people. Now, I view Phi Beta Kappa as a sort of paradox. While the process is very selective, once a person becomes a member, he (or more likely, based on our inductees tonight, she) joins a long list of some great Americans. There are multiple presidents and other famous politicians, as well as creative minds such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, the late John Updike and even Rivers Cuomo (the songwriter from Weezer). It's a pretty varied crowd that belongs to Phi Beta Kappa.
Yet while becoming a Phi Beta Kappa inductee is a respectable goal to have, this ceremony should not be viewed as the final step in your education. It would be pretty depressing for me to get up here and say, "Well, that's the farthest we can go! We've reached the summit of possible knowledge.” Instead, I believe that this induction is one part of the marathon, with Dr. Shephard and Dr. Mitchell like the people standing on the sidelines with a cup of water, keeping us motivated to continue seeking knowledge and become better people. Because while membership in Phi Beta Kappa may reflect one's accomplishments in the collegiate realm, it does not guarantee that you will use the skills that got you here in the future.
So I encourage every one of you to continue seeking self-improvement -- and I am not speaking only to tonight's inductees. Stretch yourselves -- in the classroom, at work, in your home and at every moment of the day. It will be a lot of work, but it is something that all of us can handle. Simply because we have joined the ranks of famous Americans does not mean that we have done everything that we are capable of. So let us, everyone, use tonight as encouragement not to settle but to continue running, to continue thinking, to continue working for a better self. Thank you.
-Paul