August 28, 2007
Freshmen welcomed to AU at 2007 Convocation
Pam Nadell, Scholar-Teacher of the Year, welcomes the class of 2011 at Opening Convocation. (Photos by Jeff Watts)
“Forty years ago, I began my academic career in a session like this,” recalled President-Elect Neil Kerwin as he welcomed the freshman class at Friday’s Opening Convocation. New and returning students gathered on the quad under a bright Washington sun to launch the academic year with speeches by Kerwin, student government president Joe Vidulich, and Scholar-Teacher of the Year Pamela Nadell.
Kerwin recalled his own first semester at AU as a defining time in his life. “I worked harder than I ever did before,” he said. Hard work led to confidence in his own abilities and ultimately prepared him for the rigor of higher studies and academic life.
“We know you’re smart,” he told the gathered students. “We know you’ve worked hard enough to qualify for this very strong freshman class.” But now, he said, will be the time to push yourselves to the utmost by taking the full measure of what AU offers, and taking the full measure of yourselves.
In time, he told them, they will leave AU prepared to change with a changing world, and to be experts in their fields. And they will leave with the invaluable experience gained, he said, by “using this great city as a laboratory.”
By tradition, AU’s Scholar-Teacher of the Year gives the key address at Opening Convocation. This year’s address was delivered by Pamela Nadell, Patrick Clendenen Professor of History and director of the Jewish Studies Program, College of Arts and Sciences.
New arrivals on campus have come not only with their suitcases, but with “bags of cultural capital that bind us to other communities,” she said.
The tales of princes and princesses, goblins and jinns that students once heard at bedtime were an investment in their future. “These stories have not only informed your lives, they constitute part of your cultural capital,” she said.
She urged students to unpack their stories from their memories—the stories their parents told them, the stories they keep inside about themselves—and share them with others, because stories tell about our past, divulge our differences, and reveal our commonalities.
The knowledge of shared stories, and the sharing of our own stories to enrich our communities, provides us with a sense of community and belonging, and ultimately enables us to change our communities for the better, she said.
“I especially look forward to hearing the stories of your past,” Nadell said, “which will shape our future together.”
