New Student Convocation 2022

Rutgers University–New Brunswick
September 2, 2022

"Showing Up"

Chancellor-Provost Conway, Vice-Chancellor Mena, Deans, student leaders, and most importantly, our newest Scarlet Knights, good afternoon, and welcome to this day!

To all of our first-year students and transfers, I know that I speak for everyone on the stage when I say that we are so excited to have you here, that we are so eager to learn more about you, and that we are so thrilled that you decided to join this community. No matter your journey to this moment, you are now a member of the Rutgers family, and it is my fervent hope that as part of this family you will find the coming years challenging, stimulating, provocative, and perhaps even unsettling. And here I'm only talking about what happens in the classroom. What you decide to do outside of class is going to be as important and as life-changing as that which you'll experience in the seminar room, the lecture hall, the lab, or the studio. This is at it should be.

What this means, though, is that you all now have the privilege and burden of “choice.” You have the freedom to choose your path forward, to sort out what will make the most sense for you as you grow into your adulthood. For those of you who are certain that you have everything figured out, please accept my encouragement to free yourself of that spell. This is your opportunity to explore, to wonder, to declare, to assert…to pause…to change your mind. And for those of you who feel a bit lost, wondering how you’re going to figure out the bus schedule, much less your major, please accept my reassurance that this is okay. In fact, I find it desirable. While it may not feel like it now, there is something emancipatory in admitting that you don’t know your next move.

Of course, when you admit that you don’t know, when you discover the radical possibilities of questions like “why” or “how,” when you dare to raise your hand and ask a question—any question—or when you invite your classmates to explain their worldviews, you will also come to understand what I meant a few moments ago when I said that you have the privilege and burden of choice. You may not yet appreciate it, but when you decided to come to Rutgers you were declaring that you wanted to make a difference. For almost all of you, this decision was about making a difference at a personal scale: getting a degree, acquiring a skill, landing that job, getting paid. This is totally appropriate. It’s also not enough.

Once you get settled into your new routines, I want you to reflect upon what it means to have so many options in front of you. And in doing that, I want you to think with intentionality about what you are going to do with the privileges and burdens of these choices.

Might you deploy your intellect to solve an intractable problem that is bedeviling the world? For example, perhaps you can fashion a technological breakthrough that will improve access to clean water. Or maybe you will be the person to address the supply chain challenges that are impeding the development of mass-produced electric vehicles. Or there’s the chance that you will articulate a new way to find meaning in heretofore inscrutable ancient texts. Or, perhaps most importantly, it may well be that you can broker a resolution to the age-old question: Taylor ham or pork roll?

Now, if any of you are unhappy that your president is challenging you to solve problems that his generation couldn’t fix or, worse, maybe even created, I get it, and even more than that, I sympathize. In many ways I’m not being fair. But any good and honest historian (and I think I am both) will tell you that there have been no kept promises of fairness in the equation that we call society. We all have our preferences, our desires for a little bit more, and our preconceived notions of justice.

Does this sound political and perhaps even a little inappropriate for an address welcoming you to Rutgers? If so, that’s okay with me—you can send me an e-mail about it later. Believe it or not, you won’t be the first! In fact, this past May, I received some criticism for being too political in my commencement address. The source of my pen-pal’s anger? I spoke about the role that higher education needs to play in the work of saving democracy. Frankly, I’m not sure how this is too political. I love democracy, I am concerned about its integrity, and I look forward to the day when I am confident that it is once again secure.

I dare to presume that you all have been paying attention to the world around you and so I don’t have to explain that we are at an inflection point in this society. You have been living through the most challenging era I’ve known in my lifetime (and I was a teenager when mullets were unironically popular). Your daily newsfeeds have been occupied by political turmoil, viral clips featuring people shouting over one another, climate instability, the Kardashians, and a shocking comfort with lies that are presented as truth. It is disheartening to know that you have come of age in an era where there is a general acquiescence to incivility. Call me naïve, but there is so much to be gained if we only committed ourselves to be better, to be kinder, to be thoughtful, to be still, to be open-minded, and to be critical thinkers. And, go figure, this is why you are here. Yes, you have the privilege and burden of choice, but you can make choices to shape a better future.

This past summer, I was on a business trip in Seattle, meeting some individuals in the world of global philanthropy, hoping that I could build connections that will benefit Rutgers in the future. One morning, at the end of one such conversation, my host gave me a copy of Bill Gates’s book Showing Up for Life. This is a short collection of reflections written by the father of the arguably more famous Bill Gates of Microsoft fame. Long before the elder Gates was caught in the reflective glory of his son’s accomplishments, he was known and beloved in his community for his dedication to service and his selflessness. For Gates, the secret to attaining that respect was quite simple: you show up.

As he wrote in his preface, “I believe that, over time, our actions and our ideas shape what I call public will. By that I mean the nature of our collective actions and policies that tend to give substance to our ideas about what we want our world to be.” For the elder Gates, the “public will” was the manifestation of the hopes and dreams articulated by people who decided to show up and be engaged citizens. And, importantly, this work could happen at any level. It could happen in the kindergarten classroom, the public library, the election polling station, the food pantry, the campaign rally, the protest march, the internship, and, yes, it can happen on the college campus.

As you will certainly come to learn in your classes, every reader brings a personal interpretation to an author’s writing. When I read Gates, I hear someone saying, “Please show up. Please demonstrate that you care about your community and, in this moment, our democracy. Please know that this is a time for speaking openly about your passions and commitments. But know that it is also a time for listening and respecting others’ viewpoints. Disagreement is fine. In fact, it is healthy. Furthermore, if we are to aspire to make a better world, even if only for ourselves, we must attend to the challenges of scarcity that surround us, whether that be a scarcity of resources or a scarcity of compassion. If we do these things, our actions and ideas will most certainly shape a public will committed to improving all of our lives.” This is what I hear in Gates’s words. I hope you hear it, too. However, if you don't, and if these exhortations make no sense to you, that’s fine. I only ask that you use your Rutgers education to explain to me, with cogent argument and evidence, why and how I am wrong. Consider this a challenge. Is it a lot to expect from a new college student? Absolutely. But I am quite comfortable expecting great things of you, just as you should expect great things of me and everyone seated behind me.

One final word. Gates’s book was given to me by someone I met for the first time when I was in Seattle. On that morning, two strangers sat down and shared our stories. We hailed from different backgrounds and traveled very dissimilar routes in our lives. In the meeting, we dared to be honest about our worldviews, our upbringing, our concerns in the present, and our hopes for the future. Over the course of ninety minutes, we discovered that while we started as strangers, we were, in fact, kindred spirits who felt like we had known each other forever. For me, this was a powerful reminder of what open, honest, and thoughtful conversation can yield. It was a reminder, in fact, of what showing up can mean. Yes, we met as strangers, but we left as new, old friends.

As you enter this part of your life's journey, please keep in mind all of the possibilities that are in front of you. Be unafraid to take new paths, dare to ask questions, be a good citizen … show up. I assure you, doing these things will mean that your days on The Banks of the Old Raritan will be spent with new, old friends.

Thank you for your time and attention, and welcome once again.