2007 New Student Convocation

Remarks by Chancellor Richard Herman
August 20, 2007

Welcome Class of 2011!  Welcome to Illinois!

I am Chancellor Richard Herman and I want to introduce you to several of your fellow classmates.  Math major Alexander Castro is from Creal Springs, Illinois, in beautiful Williamson County. 

Alex will major in mathematics. Alex, that was my major in college!  Alex topped off a great academic career in high school by volunteering at the Poshard Foundation for Abused Children.  Good for you, Alex, and welcome.

Meet architecture major Caroline Vanacker from Palatine, Illinois.

Her dream is “to construct buildings to solve problems.”  Caroline, check out our new College of Business Instructional Facility now being constructed at Gregory and Sixth streets.  It will be an energy efficient green building. Welcome, Caroline.

Meet chemical engineering major Connor Grant from Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey.

Welcome to Illinois, Connor.  Connor told us that his three most important issues are global warming, world poverty, and energy security.  I agree. You might want to join the Student Clean Energy Committee.  Good luck Connor.

Students, meet engineering major Sarah Treece from Gilman, Illinois.

Sarah said she is excited to meet new people from a wide variety of backgrounds.  Sarah, you have come to the right place.  We have students here from all 50 states and 120 countries.  Welcome Sarah.

Political Science major Jacques Anderson comes to us from Collinsville, Illinois. Jacques says she wants an experience she will never forget, one that will lead to international work, perhaps as a television host for the Travel Channel.  Welcome, Jacques.

Meet aviation major Jeff Beck, from Decatur, Illinois, birthplace of the Chicago Bears.

Jeff’s dream is to be a pilot for a major airline.  In fact, Jeff already has his pilot’s license.  I imagine Jeff you will be joining the UI Flying Team.  Welcome.

Bioengineering student Jonathan Siow comes to us from Singapore.  His dream job is one that is no job at all, but instead an activity that engages his mind.  We will help you achieve that goal, Jonathan.

And welcome to all of you.  I wish I could introduce each and every one of you.

So here you are, at last!

Who will you be at the end of four years?

How will you change?

How will you change us?

Will you invent the next YouTube?

Or the next Mosaic, Netscape, Eudora, PayPal, Slide or Yelp?

All those networking breakthroughs were developed by Illinois students just like you.

Or, will you write the following?

“Twilight comes early, as it will for a few more weeks.  The sky, ice blue through the encroaching willows and cottonwoods, flares up, a brief rose, before collapsing to indigo.  Late February on the Platte, and the night’s chill haze hangs over this river, frosting the stubble from last fall that still fills the bordering fields.  The nervous birds, tall as children, crowd together wing by wing on this stretch of river, one that they’ve learned to find by memory.”

Those are some of the opening lines of Richard Powers’ National Book Award winning novel The Echo Maker.  Richard is a professor and an alumnus, in physics and English, and may be one of your professors in the next four years.

Perhaps you will discover the third domain of life as our own Carl Woese did. Four years ago, he received the Crafoord Prize, equivalent to the Nobel Prize in the field of bio sciences.  That same year we received two Nobel Prizes: one in physics and one in physiology or medicine.

And four years from now?

Here’s what I know: There has never been a time in our history when there was not some new, life-changing discovery waiting to be made.

Think about this: Just four years ago, in northwestern China, scientists discovered the fossil of a new species of flying dinosaur thought to have existed 120 million years ago.

Four years ago. An eyelash of time in history.

I know that more than a few of you sitting here today on the 20th of August 2007 will go on to create something that will change the world.  The next new thing!  A fourth domain of life!

Your discovery may be a breathtaking poem, the solution to a an unsolvable equation, a social networking site that will bring millions of people across the planet together, a book or a musical score or a piece of art that will move us to tears or action or peace. A car that runs on air!  A cure for cancer.  A way to stop us from killing each other through wars and arbitrary divisions.

You are sitting here today because we believe that each of you, the Class of 2011, has that potential.  This is your moment in time.

OK, maybe you won’t change the world right away, but your world view will be changed four years from now when we award you your diplomas.  And part of this Illinois experience will include becoming friends with people who are not like you.  This is another way to measure success.  We highly recommend that over the next four years you make an effort to develop many friendships with students who are not like you.

This will enrich your life beyond measure and will help you in the future as you negotiate the new global workplace.

We are one campus, many voices.  On the Illinois campus we have students from every state in the nation and from 121 countries.  From Albania to Zambia; from Burma to Venezuela.

Here we welcome the individual.  Here we respect differences.

Here we practice the idea that every human life from every single country has equal value.  Here we can have that crucial conversation that begins with the simple question: I want to know how you see the world?

We believe that you don’t create community by erasing conflict.

Instead, we believe this is where we push and define new boundaries.  We do not run from controversy.

One campus, many voices.  With that in mind, I want you to turn to the student sitting behind you or next to you or in front of you and introduce yourself.  Go ahead. Take the chance.  Who knows?  You might make a friend for life!

In the 1868 Inaugural address that established this great university, Regent John Milton Gregory said, “It is no ordinary work which we are set to do, and it comes to us under no ordinary circumstances.”

This is not an ordinary place, you are certainly not ordinary, and these are not ordinary times.

Four years ago we became a nation at war.  Today, sadly, we are still at war.  Author Chris Hedges writes, "Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history."

Show us a new way.  Help us to move away from hatred and violence toward understanding and acceptance.  We believe you can change the world.

Take the seeds of your dreams and idealism and plant them in the fertile soil of Illinois.  Let them take root and grow.  Let me assure you:  We will nurture them.

While you are here take it all in.

Go to Quad Day and find a cause. Join a club. Speak out. Get involved. Give back. Volunteer on campus and in the community. Do not be indifferent. Go to lectures and concerts and seminars and workshops.

Have fun, too.  Stuff Huff and paint the Hall orange.  Bundle up in your Illini hoodies and head to Memorial Stadium for football.  Learn all the words to the song we are about to sing, “Hail to the Orange.”

Look into our Leadership program, where you can learn skills that will prove invaluable whether you end up at Yahoo or in the Peace Corps or in the recording studio.  Check out our Study Abroad program.  And visit our Undergraduate Library: the most socially connected undergraduate library in the nation.  It even has its own FaceBook account under the name “David Ward.”

Join our new online networking community for all Illinois students and alumni, faculty and staff, alwaysillinois.org.

Stay up all night and debate the existence of God or the Matrix, or both, and then watch the sun come up over this beautiful landscape.  Bus, bike and hike to class. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Keep asking “why” and “why not?” And always ask, “why not me?”

This is the Illinois Experience.

We are so delighted that you are here with us.

One Campus, Many voices.

Let yours be heard.

Welcome to Illinois! Have a great semester and an even greater four years.

See you right back here…in 2011…at Commencement!