2009 Winter Commencement

Closing Remarks for President Jo Ann M. Gora
Saturday, December 19, 2009, 10 a.m., Worthen Arena

Thank you for your thoughtful remarks, Doctor Linnehan. You and Doctor Costill both have exhibited the importance of innovation and collaboration through your many career accomplishments. As we conclude these Commencement ceremonies, I also would like to say a few words about why innovation and collaboration are so important to our collective future.

Today is a day of celebration, but as many of you graduate, I know that you do so with worries about the future. The economic and employment news of the last year certainly has been sobering. While that news and your worries are real, I want to offer my perspective.

This is not the first time that economic prospects have been challenging for a graduating class—and you, like your predecessors at the university, will make your way through these difficulties and emerge better and stronger for it. I have found that Ball State students embrace innovation and collaboration with a "can-do" attitude, and that approach will serve you well in this economy.

Further, it will continue to pay dividends throughout your working life. As a sociologist, I am well aware of the studies that show that you and others of your generation will change careers—not just jobs, but careers—six or seven times in your lifetime. I firmly believe that a college education is the best possible preparation for a lifetime of careers, rather than the training for your first job that so many portray it to be. If you keep your enthusiasm for collaboration and your quest for innovative solutions intact, you will come to view these junctures in your life as exciting opportunities, instead of intimidating pressure points.

I know that you will be successful in meeting these challenges because I have watched you embrace that innovative and collaborative approach as students from the moment you arrived on campus and my husband and I helped some of you move into your residence hall. Your successes in completing immersive learning projects around Indiana have increased this university's reputation and improved Hoosiers' lives, and your digital expertise was a major reason we launched Ball State’s Emerging Media Initiative.

A Ball State education is defined by this collaboration and innovation as students and faculty work side by side to solve real-world problems. We are intentionally working to strengthen that emphasis through our immersive learning objectives. I know our alumni value this emphasis on innovation and collaboration—because they have told me.

Not a week goes by that I don't hear from Ball State alumni about that special professor they had on campus. It happens in letters, in e-mails, in phone calls, in meetings as I travel. A graduate shares with me a story or an anecdote about that teacher who made a difference—who not only taught the subject material, but who truly mentored and collaborated with that student. That mentoring and collaboration then inspired the student in a lasting way. I'm sure each of you has a similar story about at least one of your faculty here.

The members of the Ball State faculty are some of the best models of collaboration and innovation I can imagine. Many observers separate the roles of learners and teachers, or students and faculty, if you prefer. And while I value the traditions of Commencement, it's also true that this perception of separation is reinforced at events such as this one.

Teachers and learners are separated this morning by the order of march, by academic garb, and by seating arrangement. But any professor will tell you that when a class is really going well, those separations fade away. The key is that everyone is collaborating in the learning process. Education is truly effective when it is integrated, and I trust that as you leave here, you will carry that collaborative spirit with you and will take it into your workplace and spread it throughout your community.

Whether you realize it or not, you have been a crucial part of one of the most memorable periods in Ball State history. You were key to the expansion of our popular Late Nite program. You asked challenging questions of many noted campus speakers, from Barack Obama to Thomas Friedman. So many of you stood on McKinley Avenue—a road that looks completely different than it did just a few weeks before your arrival as freshmen—to hear Dave Letterman speak as we dedicated the building in his name in 2007. You were among the first residents of Park Hall, the state-of-the-art residence hall that served as the prototype for the ones that have followed it.

You were active participants in campus discussions about sustainability and global warming and you saw us begin construction of our geothermal system, the largest of its kind in the country. You have witnessed the transformation of the Pittenger Student Center, complete with a new and revitalized Tally. You were there to welcome the women’s basketball team back to Muncie after the Cardinals not only made it to the NCAA tournament for the first time in history, but also earned an upset victory over two-time defending national champion Tennessee in the first round. As you graduate today, I want to assure you that you will continue to be very important to this university.

Ball State University has received much recent national recognition and people correctly see us as a results-oriented university on the move, responsive to twenty-first century needs. Our Education Redefined strategic plan includes more than one hundred outcome measurements—as it should—to hold us accountable for our progress. Our Ball State Bold capital campaign will enable the complete and successful implementation of that strategic plan, improving the Ball State experience for generations of students who will follow you to this stage.

For those you will meet, however, you will be the ultimate outcome measurement. You will be living proof of the value of a Ball State education. Your collaborative spirit and innovative approach will be living proof of the value of a Ball State education. In doing so, you will provide the most powerful endorsement of who we are and what we do here at the university.

The results of your innovation and collaboration are sure to bring satisfaction and joy to us here at the university. We are always rooting for your success, of course, but the fact is that wherever life takes you after today, you join the ranks of more than one hundred forty-six thousand fellow alumni and become a Ball State ambassador.

Today, we have gathered to honor your academic achievement and to show our pride in your accomplishments. We have symbolized your new status in the world of learning by granting you degrees. I now wish to recognize two other groups.

Members of the graduating class, I present to you for recognition the faculty who today wear academic regalia in a centuries-old tradition as a symbol of their commitment to teaching and to the search for truth. Our society has charged them to create, preserve, and transmit the accumulated wisdom of mankind to each new generation. Your graduation reflects their excellent performance. Will the faculty please stand? Please join with me in showing them our gratitude…Thank you. Please be seated.

There is another very special group of people whom we want to recognize and thank. Members of the graduating class, these individuals have provided you with counsel, friendship, support, and encouragement during your years of study. Your graduation reflects their love and pride in you. Would the parents, spouses, relatives, friends, and sponsors of the graduates, please stand and be recognized?

We are very pleased to have all of you here today to share the joy of this occasion with those who are graduating…You may be seated.

On behalf of the Ball State University Alumni Association, I welcome each of you into our alumni ranks. Please stay in touch. Keep us informed about the changes and achievements in your life, and remember that the Alumni Association is always ready—indeed, eager—to hear from you. Know that you are always welcome here on campus, whether for a visit, a committee meeting, a class reunion, or even to continue your education.

I offer each of you my hearty congratulations on your accomplishments to this point and my sincere best wishes for your future endeavors. Enjoy the rest of this special day with your friends and family, and as you continue your life of innovation and collaboration, may you carry the "can-do" spirit of Ball State University with you wherever you go.