Remarks at New Student Orientation Banquet
by
Father Jonathan DeFelice, O.S.B.
President
Saint Anselm College
25 August 2007

In the name of the entire College community, I welcome you again as the newest members of our Community – our new transfer students and the Saint Anselm College Class of 2011. 

You have spent the last few days here in the relatively privileged position of having just about every administrator and faculty member available focusing their full attention on you alone.  It is something we certainly consider an important undertaking because we want to be sure that you get off to the very best possible start that you can.  Good beginnings can be the foundation for your continued success.

You have been given lots of very good advice these days:  study hard; be honest; study hard; get involved; study hard; form good healthy relationships; study hard; pray; and study hard.  All of this advice is very sound…and, if you take it to heart, you will succeed here.  If you choose to ignore it, this may be your last year here.  We want to you to succeed and we will continue to be with you on this journey, helping you to develop the wisdom that is very necessary to lead a good life in this world.

You are now members of a very special kind of community – one that has fifteen hundred years of tradition behind it.  This is, as you have heard often this weekend, a Benedictine college and though that may not have meant anything to you until the point of your arrival – it will make all the difference to your experience here if you take the time to notice.

This year you will learn about Saint Benedict – who he is, where he came from, the Rule he wrote for monasteries that communities around the world still follow a millennium and a half later.  You will learn about the monasteries of the old world that preserved and advanced our western culture and learning at a time when little else of real value was happening.

And you will begin to learn about some of the essential elements of what it means to be part of a Benedictine college; you will hear words like “community,” “stability,” “prayer” and “hospitality,” to name just few.  As time goes on during your years here these will be more than words…they will hopefully become part of the way that you look at the world.

I want to speak to you a bit this evening about one aspect of community – a word that you have heard often, I am sure, and a reality that you are expected to build while you are here at Saint Anselm.

I want to speak of this by telling you something I did just about one year ago this week.  Most of you no doubt have your own stories of new discoveries and new adventures from this past year.  My own involved a visit to a place I had never been before; a place that I had been told for a long time was fascinating, enchanting, exciting, and engrossing.  I had been told that people who go there always enjoy the time they spend, often even giving up hours of sleep to explore its wonders.  Despite what I had been told, I resisted taking that trip for a long time.  The reviews, I imagined, were probably exaggerated; the adventure something less than promised.  I thought about it over and over; I hesitated; I procrastinated. 

But then, finally, I gave in.  Still a bit reluctant to take the journey to this strange place, I sat at my computer and typed f-a-c-e-b-o-o-k.com.  And so the adventure began.  At first I had no “friends”; nothing on my “wall;” I haven’t founded any groups and I’ve joined just one. There’s not much information in my profile...and even a year later I haven’t “poked” anyone since I still don’t know what that means!

But the trip was all everyone said it would be…and more.  There in the land of Facebook, I saw some of you for the first time; I read about how wonderfully unique each one of you is, about your youthful enthusiasm, hopes for the future, and I delighted in your good humor.  That part of the trip was refreshing and energizing as I thought of all the great things you could accomplish as you begin this next phase of your life.

But there were things I saw and read that were, frankly, a bit discouraging.  Tales – in text or photos – of what you were going to make of this college experience; tales, that if true, will not only put you at risk to fail, but will turn you into something that is far less than you are by your God-given dignity and the opportunity you have here.  Bravado is neither a virtue nor a sign of maturity; disrespect of another’s gender or background, religion or talents, of other’s orientation, interests and accomplishments -- disrespect is not the sign of strength that it purports to be, but a symptom of the kind of prejudice that a liberal arts education is meant to overcome.

And it’s all there on the record for the world to see; it’s on your profile and group pages.  What is somewhat surprising to me is that you who are so technologically talented that you can correspond with multiple friends simultaneously, you are at the same time seemingly unaware that this is not a private conversation, but one that the world can and does see; it will last for years after you have left college.  In case you don’t know this -- more and more graduate schools and employers are researching what you have said and done in the lands of Facebook and Myspace.  They are aware that these virtual communities sometimes provide more information than applications and letters of recommendation would ever do…and sometimes the information has rather negative consequences. 

Now I said that there is some good there…even a lot of good.  But my reason for talking about this with you this evening is that what Facebook may wish to accomplish in cyberspace, you have the opportunity to accomplish really on this campus – not in a virtual community, but in the day to day interaction with real human beings.  The foundation of that community is respect – respect first for yourself and then for all those around you, no matter how different from yourself.  You must do this if you are to be educated women or men who understand that the God who made you, made you for real greatness; and that same God made all of us who are around you.

This is a very basic message for you who are now part of this Benedictine college community.  Think about what I’ve said and if there are new and positive messages that you need to communicate in cyberspace, then do so.  We want you to succeed wherever you are -- not only for the few years you are here, but for the years to come when you join the ranks of our alumni around the world.

We will do everything we can to help you.  Take responsibility for your lives and your work; develop a profound respect for one another to be a real community here. You have made a good beginning; continue to work at it; clean up your cyberspace and your campus image; study hard…and you’ll be just fine here!

Remember that on Monday, the first day of classes, we will come together as a college community at 10:30 a.m. in the Abbey Church when we will together invoke God’s blessing on this new academic year. I’ll see you on Facebook and I’ll see you in Church!

God love you all.