President to ESF Graduates: ‘Make Us Proud’
Spring 2008 Graduation
5/12
SYRACUSE — The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) celebrated the accomplishments of more than 400 graduating students at the College’s Convocation ceremony May 10 at Syracuse’s Landmark Theatre.
ESF President Cornelius B. Murphy, Jr., offered the graduates encouragement for the road ahead.
Spring 2008 Graduation Gallery
“The world you’re about to enter is full of opportunities and complexities, but I know you’re up to the challenge,” Murphy said. He quoted inventor Thomas Edison, who said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Murphy added, “Now I know you guys, and I know you’re not afraid of overalls.”
Murphy concluded his remarks with an Irish blessing and called on students to “go forth, make your mark, and make us proud.”
The Class of 2008’s class marshals were Daniele M. Baker, environmental and forest biology, and Christopher Schalk, environmental science. Schalk was also co-valedictorian along with Christopher Thompson, environmental and forest biology. Thompson currently lives in San Francisco and was unable to attend Convocation.
Schalk gave a brief speech in which he quoted poet W. B. Yeats as saying, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Schalk said the ESF faculty had lit that fire in all of its students, adding, “If that flame were extinguished we would not be standing here today.” Schalk called on his classmates to “ensure that the green movement is not just a fad but an integral part of our society.”
Guest speaker George W. Curry, ESF’s Endowed Kennedy Chair and a Distinguished Teaching Professor, spoke about the graduating class’ civic responsibilities in the years to come. Curry provided two examples of civic engagement: Eleanor Roosevelt, who was instrumental in drafting the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Landmark Theatre itself, which was nearly demolished 30 years ago to build a parking garage before a group of Syracuse residents intervened.
“It is our hope,” Curry said, “that you will take with you this sense of civic responsibility and engagement.”
Benjamin Stephens, the chair of Class of 2008 and a construction management major, presented ESF with the class gift, the renovation of the TGIF bar, which is used when College faculty, staff and students gather once a month in an informal social setting. In presenting the gift to the College, Stephens said the class gift would help develop mature attitudes toward alcohol among future students. Any money left over from the renovation will be used to purchase hardwood trees for the Syracuse Community Trees program.
In his closing remarks, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Bruce C. Bongarten said the class gift reflects the class’ sense of fun and responsibility.
“There is a society that supports us, and it is your responsibility to support it,” Bongarten said. “There is every reason to believe that your lives will be filled with meaning and success.”
After the convocation, Schalk expressed the excitement he and his fellow classmates felt.
“I’m not really nervous to enter a Ph.D. program after graduating,” he said. “Professor Curry provided us with a sense of historical context for what we’ve learned at ESF.”
By Zac Cummings
