2009 Opening Convocation
Stephens College held its annual Opening Convocation
on Thursday, Sept. 3 in the Kimball Ballroom of Lela Raney Wood Hall.
Stephens students, faculty, administrators and staff gathered for the
event to welcome in the new academic year.
Speaker Remarks
Susan Bartel :: Shatenita
Horton '06, MBA :: Dr. Dianne Lynch :: Rosario
Chico '09
Susan Bartel, Chair of the Faculty; Department Chair, Business Program, Graduate & Continuing Studies
Hello, I am pleased to bring you greetings from the Faculty of Stephens College. You have come to Stephens at an exciting time in our history. We believe our new president will help us soar and we are thrilled to have you with us on this journey. As I was considering what to say today I thought who better than some amazing Stephens women who have just completed the path you are about to begin. So I asked some seniors and recent graduates to share with me their top 10 pieces of advice for the Stephens women of today. In the interest of time, I will share the top five. Thank you to Gretchen, Meaghan, Miranda, Rikki, Alison, Amanda, Pauli, Rachel and Sharon.
1. Take classes outside your major. It’s worth it to try new things and explore. AND Besides it can help you win trivia games.
2. Get to know your teachers. They care about you and will guide you, teach you, and motivate you. They will become your mentors, friends and kind of like your new parents. Except they won’t give you money or do your laundry.
3. Time management is key. Get organized and prioritize. Some things really are more important.
4. Get involved. If you think you can't do it, make sure you try it. Don’t give yourself the option to quit.
5. Enjoy each moment. It goes by so fast.
And from me, I would like to share a story.
A young woman was hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. She
bought two roasting pans and all the traditional food for dinner. Her
new husband came in the kitchen while she was struggling to cut the
turkey in half. Knowing nothing about cooking a turkey he asked her
“why are you cutting the turkey in two?” She answered “Because
every Thanksgiving my mother cooked it after cutting it in two parts.”
So later at dinner, the husband asked his mother-in-law “Why do you cut the turkey in two parts to roast it? The mother-in-law answered, “Because I watched my mother cook it that way.” So, he turned to the 85-year-old grandmother and asked her “Why do you cook a turkey in two parts” The grandmother smiled and said “ because I never had a roasting pan large enough to fit a whole turkey.”
So what is the point to my story? As Stephens College
women we want you to Think critically. Analyze what you hear. Ask why.
Challenge assumptions and decide for yourself. Look beyond the obvious
and think more deeply and make choices that make sense for you, not
just what everyone else does.
As faculty we are committed to preparing you for life of the future
but never forgetting you are someone special today. To all of our students,
Welcome Home.
It is my pleasure to introduce Shatenita Horton.
She is an amazing Stephens woman indeed. She completed a MBA while working
full time and raising a family. She is Assistant VP of Business Banking
at Boone County National Bank and active in the community. She and her
husband have one son and are expecting a little girl, who will of course
be encouraged to become an amazing Stephens woman too. Please welcome
Shatenita.
back to top
Shatenita Horton '06, MBA, Assistant VP, Business Banking, Boone County National Bank
Thank you so much for allowing me to say a few words on behalf of the alums of Stephens College. First off, when I was asked to attend convocation today, I of course accepted thinking about how exciting it always is to get to know the students and see the beautiful campus. So my acceptance email ended by saying 'just let me know if there is anything else I need to know.' Little did I know the reply would be, 'oh we'll just have you say a few words.’ Excuse me? Say a few words! I had no idea I was speaking before I accepted the invitation. At the end of my few words today I was going to leave you with 2 things. I've decided I'm going to leave you with 3 starting with always, always, always, ask what is expected of you before you agree to do something.
Seriously though, as a nontraditional Stephens graduate, I participated in the Graduate and Continuing Studies program completing most of my MBA online. I did so while working full time and taking care of a family. I feel the choice I made to attend Stephens at that time in my life would be a tremendous positive impact on my family and my career. My path was a lot different than the path you all have chosen to take. I don't at all regret my decision as I have always felt everything happens for a reason. And that choice has afforded me so many opportunities and accomplishments and that is what I hope your choices do for you. Remember, all roads are not straight. Some of you will go through your 4 years of college and then head off to find great jobs, establish your careers, and maybe start a family. Others might get sidetracked a little as I did. My advice to you is regardless of where you go and what you do, always do your best and enjoy the ride!
The one thing I decided I had to do was get involved in Stephens since I didn't have the opportunity while pursuing my MBA. I currently serve on the Alumnae Association Board for Stephens. We meet twice a year right here on campus. Several women from all areas of the U.S. with different career and life paths come together on common ground to plan, initiate and have fun but we also get the opportunity to mingle, meet and greet with all of you. That is one of the most rewarding parts of being an AAB member! The Alumnae Association Board also has a special role in nurturing connections among alumnae. We serve as ambassadors for all alumnae, help the College identify schools and students who need to know about the benefits of a Stephens education, find ways to promote Stephens, and encourage giving to the College. We also love helping current students find internships and job opportunities, so keep that in mind as you see us wandering the campus in a few weeks.
So now to the other two things I will leave you with today. The first would be to highly consider Stephens for graduate school. You obviously chose Stephens for a reason (we all did!) and what better way to continue your education but to do it here. Secondly, get involved. Make the commitment to give back to the school that has given you so much. Do that now by joining the student government or clubs within your academic area. I know personally that involvement in anything can not only help the resume, but most importantly help you grow as a person. That’s why I chose to get involved in projects that benefit people less fortunate than me and also the community I live in. So get involved now; believe me, you won’t regret it!
And now I would like to introduce our keynote speaker,
Dianne Lynch. Dr. Lynch is the 24th president of Stephens College and
started here on June 2nd of this year. We are so please to have her
here at Stephens and are extremely excited about the path that she will
lead Stephens down. Dr. Lynch is speaking today as our new president
because what better way to set the tone for this year and the future
but to hear from our new leader. I am so excited and honored to know
her and to learn more from her as I know you are. Please help me welcome
Dr. Dianne Lynch!
back to top
Keynote Address
Dr. Dianne Lynch, Stephens College president
Good morning. Welcome to our opening convocation for 2009. I am so delighted to join you all here.
Convocation means a coming together, a gathering, an opportunity for us to recognize and celebrate the community that we are, and will continue to become. It is also a very special day for those of us new to that community:
For me, as your new president, and for our first-year students, the freshman and transfer students who arrived on August 23.
This morning, we convene – just for a few minutes – to greet one another, to be together. And to mark the beginning of our new and exciting journey together.
In doing so, we join thousands of Stephens faculty, staff and students who have preceded us in this tradition—a tradition that has been alive and well here since the early 1800s.
Most of those privileged individuals who have stood where I stand today talked about the past, about our experiences and our traditions and the accomplishments of our forefathers and mothers.
That’s all valuable and important and I would encourage you to find out as much as you can about our illustrious history. But not today.
Today, we’re going to talk about you, our students. About the choices you’ll make, and about what I hope you will do to make your time at Stephens College as important and valuable and transformative as it can be.
This summer, when we arrived in Columbia, my 11-year-old daughter, Annie, told me that she was going to think about who she wanted to be at her new school.
When you go someplace new, when you start over at a new school, you get to decide whether you’re still going to be the person you were at your old school, or whether you’re going to be someone new.
Well, she said, you might still have zits or you might
still not really have much of a fashion sense, but you get to decide
what kind of a kid you want to be. You get to start from scratch. You
get to build your new life.
She’s 11, but it’s been my experience so far that she often
knows what she’s talking about.
So today, I’m going to tell you about the choices I hope you make, about the ways I hope you decide to become that singular someone you truly want to be.
And you don’t have to be new here for me to
hope that these things will be true of the life you choose to lead.
First, and perhaps most important I hope you choose the hard things.
I hope you do the things worth doing.
When you look back on your time at Stephens, you’re not going to wish you’d taken the easy path, or the lazy one. You’re going to remember the learning experiences that pushed you, that demanded the most of you, and that compelled you to be better and smarter and more creative and more disciplined than you knew you could be.
I hope you throw yourself completely into everything
you do. I hope you don’t do things half-way, or with fear, or
by holding back.
I hope you succeed, but if you don’t, I hope you fail spectacularly
– because that means you will have tried to accomplish something
bigger, harder, more challenging and more amazing – and you will
be better for having done that, no matter what else happens.
I hope you create your own space, your own vision, your own voice, your own place in the world.
Alan Alda, that tall, weird guy from MASH, said it
well:
“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. It
is not the previously known. You have to leave the city of your comfort
and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing …. but what you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.”
I hope you expect the best – of yourself, and
of those around you. People have a tendency to rise – or fall
– to our expectations.
I hope you read. You can’t be an educated person who doesn’t
read. That’s oxymoronic: (the readers here will know what that
means)
I hope you go to the library and pick up books about subjects you don’t even recognize, that you read everything and anything you can, all the time – because language widens our horizons and deepens our sense of the world.
I hope you write thank you notes. I have written more
thank you notes since I arrived at Stephens College than in my entire
life – in fact, in the entire lives of everyone I know –
and I can tell you with some authority: it’s a good thing to do.
That little piece of paper with real-life penmanship (and mine is terrible,
by the way) on it says something that no email can say. It says I took
the time. I cared enough to give you my words. And I did it in spite
of my terrible penmanship.
I hope you call your mother, and your father, and your grandmother.
But not too often.
I hope you remember that nobody cares about you as much as you do. That’s
not an insult: it’s permission. Permission to stop letting the
opinions of others shape your perspectives – on your life, on
your efforts, on your self-worth.
I make a lot of speeches – not sure you can tell that today, but it’s actually true. And I used to get so nervous about them. I used to worry that I would say something wrong, or people wouldn’t think I was as smart or as clever or as articulate as I think I am (or should be). And then I realized that I had listened to hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of speeches, and you know, I couldn’t remember a single one of them. Not one. I remembered that one of our graduation speakers one time started his speech with a very dirty joke – but to be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what that joke was (not that I would repeat it here).
The point? My standing up in front of a room talking
mattered a whole lot more to me than it mattered to anybody else out
there in the audience – to you. I stopped being willing to allow
others’ perceptions of me shape my perceptions about myself.
I hope you listen. Nobody learns anything new when they’re talking.
I hope you remember the turtle, who moves forward only by sticking her
neck out. And I hope you nurture a life of the mind.
I hope you live internally as well as externally. I hope you are an
intellectual – a person engaged by great ideas and gripped by
fierce curiosity – and I hope you leave Stephens with more questions
about the universe and your place in it than you had when you arrived.
I hope you sign up for things you don’t want to learn. I hope
you tap dance. Paint. Sing. Write poetry. Ride horses.
I hope you fall in love. Wildly, ecstatically. Can’t eat, can’t sleep. Really obnoxiously euphoric all the time because any world that could produce this person must be a PERFECT world In love. And then I hope he or she breaks your heart. Because what doesn’t kill us truly does make us stronger. Here’s the good news that you’ll take out of that bone-crunching, can’t-get-out-of-bed, the world-is-ending experience: It won't kill you. And that’s powerful information to have the next time it happens. Because if you’re lucky, you’ll fall in and out of love many, many, many times before you have the understanding and the power and the wisdom to recognize that this really is the one.
I hope you live a life you are proud of – not in the aggregate, not when you look back on it from afar, but up close, every day. Every hour. Every choice you make.
I hope you ask yourself, when you make those choices:
What would my grandmother say? And how would I feel if this decision
of mine were posted on a great big billboard across the street from
her house?
And I hope you learn to be quiet. You all are what we call digital natives:
You grew up in the era of the Internet. By the time you arrived at Stephens
College:
You’d watched – on average – 20,000 hours of television,
played 100,000 hours of video games, and talked on the phone for another
100,000 hours (and you’re multi-taskers, so sometimes you were
doing all three of those things at once).
You’ve sent 250,00 emails or text messages – and most of you say you can text blindfolded, no problem.
That all seems perfectly normal to you ….
But it’s important to remember that it’s also all new.
The first commercial text message was sent in 1992 – 17 years
ago.
Today, the number of text messages sent EVERY DAY – over 1 billion -- exceeds the population of the planet.
The amount of technical information in the world doubles every 72 hours.
And more than 80 percent of 4 year olds today have
used a computer.
What does that mean for you – for all of us?
It means that there is so much noise in our lives tat we cannot begin to hear our hearts beat. It means we are never alone with our thoughts. With our dreams With our selves.
They used to have a tradition here at Stephens College
that was all about teaching our students to breathe – actually,
to exhale.
It’s called Vespers, and it’s all about being quiet, about
discovering the person within.
In the old days, in the days of required stockings and no boys on the floor, Stephens students would gather in the auditorium on Sunday evenings. Sitting every other seat so they would have some space and they would just sit. Quietly. Listening to their own breaths. Centering themselves in what was even then a chaotic world.
It is one of the fondest and most important memories of our alumnae, who have told me over and over that it was one of the most valuable lessons they learned at Stephens.
I plan to revive that tradition of Vespers, and I
hope you will join me in that effort.
And finally I hope you experience Stephens the way one of our May graduates
experienced her time in our community. She wrote this as a letter to
the new president before anybody knew it would be me – and I keep
it on my desk as a constant reminder of what we are when we are at our
best:
Here’s what she said:
“It’s difficult to put into words the essence of Stephens College.
Stephens is a magical place where strong, independent women come to learn from each other’s strengths.
Stephens students are an enormous part of what makes Stephens great. We are strong, independent, ambitious, hardworking and courageous. We have a variety of talents, backgrounds and interests. The fact that we are different is irrelevant. We put our difference aside in order to succeed ….
I am a living example of the power of Stephens to transform….Stephens provided me the direction and support that I desperately needed when I had little else. Stephens has been the birthplace of my creativity. I have found a deep sense of direction and purpose. For the first time in my life, I know who I am and where I am going. I am a Stephens woman just waiting to take the world by storm.
Stephens is a place where dreams come true. It has
awakened in me dreams that I didn’t know I had and made them a
reality. I can honestly say that there’s no place in the world
I would rather be. … Please don’t underestimate the difference
you can make here. We’re small in numbers but we have an enormous
unconquerable spirit.”
Stephens is a place where you will discover your dream, where you will
work hard to make them come true. It is a transformative place –
a place that realizes the hopes and faith of one of my heroines: abolitionist
and freedom fighter Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born a slave, but she
lived a life of courage, determination and commitment to freedom. I
leave you today with her directive to each of us:
Every great dream begins with a dreamer.
Always remember: You have within you the strength,
the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars, to change the
world.
I hope you dream big dreams while you’re here at Stephens College.
I hope you develop the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach
for your own stars.
And then I hope you go out and change the world
– One big hope, one daunting challenge, one silent moment, and
yes – one thank-you note – at a time.
Rosario Chico
'09, Student Government Association president
Remarks to come.
