Millikin University 2007-2008 Opening Convocation
August 27, 2007 – 7:30pm
Jamie Comstock:
Each year the keynote speaker for opening convocation is a member of the Millikin University faculty. This person is chosen as the recipient of the Teaching Excellence and Leadership Award that is presented at the Honors Convocation in the spring semester. This award is given to an individual who not only exemplifies innovative classroom teaching, but also demonstrates strong leadership among faculty, staff, students and our entire campus community. This past spring, the faculty member selected as the recipient of this fall award was Dr. Randy Brooks. [applause]
As Dean of Teaching and Learning, Dr. Randy Brooks guides the general education program at Millikin University and coordinates the university-wide faculty development program. He enjoys helping faculty achieve excellence in teaching. He also coordinates the assessment of student learning and university studies and in the majors based on the Millikin Program of Student Learning, or what you will soon know as MPSL.
Dr. Randy Brooks is a full professor of English and serves as chair of the Department of English. He has received national awards for service learning and international awards for his creative work as a writer, an editor and a publisher of haiku poetry. Given this, we tap him to teach a wide range of writing, literature and publishing courses each year.
Dr. Brooks led the curriculum design of professional writing programs emphasizing the integration of active learning, community service, technology and publishing. He also has administered the writing major at Millikin University since 1990, and he manages the Media Arts Center, which is an infrastructure for innovative service learning projects, computer publishing projects, community internships, and other student-centered publications.
Dr. Brooks has more than two decades of literary editing experience, and he has published 60 poetry books and four journals. In 1998, he was named the Hardy Distinguished Professor of English at Millikin University and he was asked to conduct research on haiku as a global literary genre. More than 500 of Randy’s poems have been published, including a book of his selected haiku which is called School’s Out. His essays, workshops and presentations on technical communication, haiku, publishing, teaching writing, and service learning are offered on a regular basis at national, regional, and local levels.
Most of you who have been here for awhile realize that our successful re-accreditation study report was edited by Randy. For this our entire community is deeply grateful. But it is now my professional honor to welcome to the podium my dear friend and colleague, our speaker for the evening, Dr. Randy Brooks. [applause]
Randy Brooks:
It is my honor and pleasure to be here tonight to welcome the returning students, welcome administrators, faculty, new faculty – and we have an awesome new class of faculty this year –, and new students, class of 2011.
Tonight I don’t want to talk about what you don’t know. Beloit College does this list called the Mindset List for 2011, and it talks about the things you probably don’t really know much about as incoming freshman. Like the Berlin Wall. Or you don’t know about days before bottled water. [laughter] But I want to talk about something you know, that you know first, before anyone else who could have come to college in fact.
You are the first group of students who have come to college having grown up with Harry Potter and having read the complete set of books in the Harry Potter series. [applause] That first book came out in 1997. Now it is 2007, and you have grown up with Harry and Hermione year after year. You have something very special here. You are participants in the greatest global literary event of the 21st century, and you have lived it as it has grown with you.
So tonight I want to talk a little “Potterese”. And I think I might just borrow Headmaster Dumbledore’s welcoming speech to Hogwarts. [laughter] He just beams at the students, he opens his arms wide and says:
“Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!” [starts to sit down, applause]
But I am not Professor Dumbledore, I’m Professor Brooks. And even though I am known for valuing conciseness and short writing – I do teach haiku – I have a few more words for you tonight.
Tonight I want to talk about the “Big Blue Sorting Hat”. [laughter] And I promise for those few of you – there might be one or two who haven’t read the whole series yet – I won’t ruin it for you. But first I want to start with the sorting hat ceremony in the first book and take us back to that and how it works at Hogwarts. And then I will talk about how it really doesn’t work that way here at Millikin, but we do have our own sorting hat.
Professor McGonagall welcomes the first year students and explains the sorting hat ceremony saying:
“The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room”
Then she talks about the four houses and how:
“Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards.”
As Harry and his friends are there that first year, they are very worried about how the sorting ceremony is going to work. Is it a test? I’m not ready for a test, they think. Is it a show of magic? A demonstration that I am worthy to be here? No it wasn’t that. Is it based on bloodlines and genetics, that family tree in the black house? No it wasn’t that either. Is it aptitude? Hmm, maybe some, but not all that much. But the Sorting Hat explains it a little bit saying:
“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see,
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all.
There’s nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.”
That is not the whole song, but I am trying to be concise.
Okay, so the Sorting Hat gets placed on the head and it listens to the student. It’s not placed on your parent’s head. You know they may try to sort you, but no it’s not on your parent’s head, it’s not on you friend’s head, it’s on your head. And it listens, and thinks, and listens to your mind, your heart, your soul, your choices, and it sorts you. That is how it works in the Harry Potter book line. And so the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter says in a small voice in Harry’s ear:
“Hmm. Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes – and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting. . . . So where shall I put you?”
Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.
“Not Slytherin, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that – no? Well, if you’re sure – better be GRYFFINDOR!”
So that’s how it works in the Harry Potter books.
What I want to talk about is Millikin University’s “Big Blue Sorting Hat” and how it works. Are you ready to come up here one by one? [yeah response] Actually, you will get to come up one by one; but not yet, not yet. [laughter]
The Sorting Hat kind of looks like this in fact. [holds up mortar board, followed by laughter] And it is going to take you awhile to get to wear it. It takes several years to put it on. It is a ceremony that we do at the end, but we do call it “commencement”, which means to begin or start.
So let me talk about how the Sorting Hat works here at Millikin. Basically, the most different thing is that you totally sort yourself. You have to sort yourself by your choices. By joining into communities of learning; finding those houses of study and development and experiences that will share in the sorting with you.
The first choice in the sorting process is just to be a student. You have made that choice: you are here, you are Millikin students, you are ready to go. Of course choosing to be a student means putting on those robes of a student; means to do basic things like go to class, do your homework, go beyond class, read beyond the assignment, party, study study study study study, play quidditch if you get a chance. [laughter] I saw some version of that out on the green last year.
One of your choices is just to choose to be a student, and not to just pretend to be a student and not go to class and not do your studies and do other things. There is also a choice of these learning communities, these homes for you. We call them majors at Millikin University; a place where you join in common effort and learning with others. We also have that university studies commonness where we all come together across our majors and join together.
The other thing about this sorting process is that you have professors who are very eager to help you sort this out for yourself; not for them, but for yourself. They will be your trusted adviser who will get to know you and work with you for two or three or four years. And you will stay in touch with them after you graduate and they will continue to be your advisers and write you good reference letters for jobs, and just celebrate when you get married or have children or have successes in your career.
They are very eager to share their magic with you. Some of them have amazing powers with words. Some know about potions and mixing. And some really know how to do that soothsaying we call the stock market out there. [laughter] And some have the healing arts. Others know about magical creatures with hairy legs that you have to touch. [laughter] And there is history; and history is magical.
The professors have prepared for you a four-year growth plan in each house. They have prepared strategies for helping you sort out what you need to know for professional success, for democratic citizenship in a global environment, for a life of meaning and value.
1st years get introductions to professional arts and skills. They do a lot of exploration of themselves, to know thyself, to explore your values, your ethics, your cares.
2nd years enter that common knowledge of the profession – what everybody in the profession knows and has awareness of. And we also ask you to look in the USA, the United States, through US studies and to look at the multicultural experience here in our world.
3rd years practice their profession and start using their arts. They know the global environment though too, and they will take that exploration out into the world.
4th years are asked to perform, to contribute, to put the magic to work.
And there is good news too. At Millikin the Ministry of Magic is not in charge; we have no Professor Umbridge! [laughter] You will not graduate with scars on the back of your hands saying “I will not tell lies.” [laughter] It’s good news.
And there also is not a curriculum that just says “read the text, take the test, then good you are out of here”. No, we don’t want our students to just have that experience. We want students to use their magic. We want you to integrate theory and practice in the classroom, in the community, in the world. And we want you to also collect those memories, to use your pensive to store up those memories and reflect on what we have learned by your actions, by your experiences. It is not enough to just know the books. It is not enough to just pass the tests. You have to put your magic to use.
And Millikin also is very concerned about the dark arts. We want to teach defense against the dark arts — those hard times of oppression, hatred, fear, ignorance, power without ethics, a world gone bad. We want you to know that you are going to have to fight this. It is up to you.
And what is the ultimate defense against the dark arts? Hmm.. [pause, someone shouts “Love”]
Yes, but it is not enough though. The Sorting Hat says this is a difficult question. The ultimate defense against the dark arts is to put it all together. Prepare to put your magic to use to fight the dark wizards. To transform yourselves and your community. To transfigure the world. To protect your friends and other muggles. To build a world that you want to leave to your children, and your children’s children.
The final sort of the Big Blue Hat is going to be the Millikin University graduation; where you will be ready to wear the hats of profession, of good citizen, of loving, caring friend. The ultimate defense against the dark arts is to be a whole being, filled with light. Ready to resist the dark arts. Ready to use the magic of knowledge and practice and the whole self to build circles of loving friends and neighbors. To build communities of professionals working for the good of all. To build a global environment that celebrates healthy life.
So welcome! Welcome to Millikin University. Welcome back to Millikin University. It is time to sort yourself; to continue sorting yourself. And at graduation, when you put on your Big Blue Sorting Hat, what will it whisper to you? I hope it says “Well done, you are ready, go into the blue and use your magic to transform yourself, your friends and family, your children, your neighborhood, your profession, your world. Go sort yourself. [standing ovation]