Here is the text of the speech I will give to graduates and guests on April 3, 2022
Tracy Llanera recently described
what we are living through as existential nihilism. By that she means that we
have all be deprived of our former feelings of control and stability. The
culprit of course, is Covid 19. This gathering is one of the “small treats” she
says we are all seeking. In a larger sense, we are seeking a return to our old
normality. But, I fear, it will be a new normality that will emerge.
Here is an example
of the old normality. February 2020 found me sitting on the veranda of the El Presidente Hotel in Havana only a
short distance from the Florida Straits. I was there with Dr. Jeffry Miller and
honors student Chinedu Okeke. The three of us had just participated in an
international conference and the next day we were to board a plane back to the
USA. That participation was part of our longer effort of partnering with the
University of Artemisa. You may have seen one of the fruits of that partnership
here on our campus, the right-angle mural painted in between Nelson Hall and
the Magale Theatre. At that point the three of us had heard of a mysterious
viral infection in China, but like most of the rest of the world we were not
prepared for how momentous and universal Covid 19 would become and how it would
affect us all. All was normal. The SAU budget could pay for our trip. We traveled
without masks or inoculations, and fully expected to return to our normal
lives.
There
is no official starting date marking Covid’s arrival. It is not like December 7
or 9/11. We now know more about its arrival and spread and the destruction it
has caused and continues to cause.
Back at SAU the
news about Covid slowly drifted in. On March 12, 2020 I sent an e-mail to all
my classes saying:
“I’m anticipating that SAU will move all classes
to online instruction at some point soon.”
Very quickly I
received an e-mail back from the provost telling me that:
“Could you please
inform your students that NO such decision has been made and the University
will share updates directly to them, especially through our web site.”
Soon after, SAU
sent another message:
“Out of an abundance of caution,
the Southern Arkansas University Magnolia campus has cancelled all face-to-face
classes scheduled for the week of March 16-20 prior to spring break March
23-27. Please note that students currently enrolled in online courses will
complete course work as required March 16-20.”
Wow! In two weeks-time faculty had to completely
revise their teaching methods. You must understand that at that point I had
never taught an online class.
Online education has been around for a while
but today it is nearly universal and comes in many different flavors. In 1996 I
was tasked, long before our graduating class was born, to develop SAU’s first
online class: general psychology. This was when the Internet was still very
young and SAU decided not to go forth at that time. Probably just as well. But,
that experience taught much about writing web pages and I began to incorporate
them into my classes as lecture notes.
Fast forward to March 2020. The question now
was how could use my course web pages as a full-fledged online courses? I
decided to beef up those lecture notes into an interactive online course. I,
along with nearly every SAU faculty member, worked feverishly to have something
ready for students at the end of our two-week hiatus.
One advantage we all had was our Learning
Management Systems (LMS). Doesn’t that title sound corporate? Our graduates may
not realize that they have been using a Learning Management System in many of
their courses. It’s called BlackBoard and is one of several LMS’s (there were
more, but they were eaten up by bigger fish such a BlackBoard and Canvas). Well,
I had never used BlackBoard and now I had to. I learned that it nicely handles
many routine jobs such as keeping a gradebook and giving and grading tests. It
also has some advanced bells and whistles that I have yet to explore fully. All
of us were now entering a dark tunnel. Little did we know two years ago how
long that tunnel would be.
Now let me switch to a little
psychology. The psychology of disaster, the psychology that requires us to face
up to and adapt to unwanted horrible situations. Think of tornadoes and
hurricanes. Think of war. Think of pandemics.
In my history of psychology textbook
I write about one such disaster, the war in the former country of Yugoslavia.
It was a country that emerged after World War II, a country with many different
ethnic groups and religions that had been held together by its stong leader Josip
Broz Tito. He ruled Yugoslavia from 1953 to 1980. After he died, Yugoslavia slowly
broke up into several other countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and
Montenegro. But, the breakup was accompanied by a hard war.
The incident in that war that I
describe in my text is the siege of Sarajevo that took place from 1992 to 1995.
There, 500,000 residents were under siege from the mountains surrounding the
city. During that period some 1200 persons (including 60 children) were killed
or wounded by sniper fire. Soon, food, fuel, and water became scarce. As the
siege wore on, people adapted. Children once again played in the streets,
barriers to sniper fire were erected, and signs were posted warning of target
locations used by snipers. I can imagine a wife calmly warning her husband to
be careful to avoid being hit by a sniper as he went to fetch needed supplies
for his family. Today, thankfully, Sarajevo has restored itself but bullet
holes were intentionally left on many buildings as a reminder. Sarajevans
erected a monument to that era along with the names of the children killed.
We are not dodging sniper fire. In a
way we’re dodging something worse an invisible virus. We are not living in the
rubble of destroyed buildings caused by rockets and artillery shells like in
Ukraine. Now look to today’s news. Nearly 10 million Ukrainians have become
refugees. Many have seen their homes destroyed and many have been killed or
injured. Notice our table decorations, SAU’s colors are the nearly same as
those in Ukraine’s flag. Let me pause briefly for a moment of silence and hope
for the end of hostilities there.
But, once again, human psychology plays a
role. Ukrainian men and women have armed themselves to defend against Putin’s
aggression. Many have volunteered to provide essential services and food. Yet,
no one now knows how the Russian “special operation” will end or if it will
ignite yet another world war. We sit and watch; we are appalled by the ruins we
see on television; we are sad to see the pain, death, and destruction. Yet, as
in Sarajevo, life goes on. People adapt.
We, too, are under attack and gradually we
have learned to cope. Yes, we have lost many to the disease. We have had to don
masks and limit our exposure to others by social distancing. We have had to
cancel this very event for the last two years. We have witnessed an incredibly
fast medical response to the virus as well. Vaccines have been designed and
created much more quickly than in the past. Even this week we have seen the
arrival of the fourth booster shot.
Look around and notice that we are,
once again, gathered as honors students, family, and friends. This gathering
did not take place in 2020 or in 2021 because of Covid. Masking has come, gone,
come again, and gone again. Social distances are getting nearer and nearer. Our
species, it turns out, is highly adaptable. All of us in this room have adapted
too but not to missiles, bombs, or bullets. No, we have adapted to a virus,
Covid 2019, that airborne invisible thing that has killed and sickened millions
around the world.
Our adaptation has included many
changes. We are only now beginning to feel more comfortable while in large
groups. Look at all of the Plexiglas barriers we have erected. Look at the
ubiquity of masking. Look at how we have had to alter our attendance at church
and Sunday Schools. Psychology students learn the German word Zeitgeist. It’s a word that does not
translate easily to English. One common translation is the tenor of the times.
A better way might be to ask: What is it like to live in the United States in
2022? How has that changed since 2020 and the arrival of the virus. Let’s look
at some words that help describe those changes:
Zoom. It used to mean to go fast. Now it describes
a software app by which people can meet remotely. Most of us in this room have
Zoomed and will likely continue to do so. I will zoom with Dr. Lanoue next
Friday.
Take home tests. Before Covid that meant a test in a course
that you could work on at home. Now it refers to the diagnostic test to detect
whether you are harboring the virus. Julie and I became grandparents for the
first time in December. Before we visit our grandson, John Edward, we each swab
our nose and conduct at-home Covid tests.
New Normal. What is normal? That, perhaps, has been our
biggest adaptation. Normal is hard to define but is easy to see when “normal”
changes. Think of the elbow bump. The masks. The online classes. The
quarantines. The old normal is gone. What will replace it. We’ll know that
answer soon.
Travel. More than anything else, Covid has affected
our ability to travel. Before 2020, honors students had traveled to Italy,
France, Cuba, London, and Antarctica. Only now are travel opportunities once
again available. Next week, for instance, an honors student will travel to
Baton Rouge to present a research poster at the Southwestern Psychological
Association’s first in person meeting in two years.
So, what will the new normal look
like? What changes will it bring? I’m sorry, I cannot give you those answers.
We will all just have to live through them and find out for ourselves. That
describes the new normal. In other words, we are nearer to the end of the
tunnel, but we are still in it.
Before I wrap up, I need to thank a long list
of people. First of all, let me thank you, the audience, for being here. Nobody
succeeds without the support of others and family is the first prop. So, too,
are friends. Let’s give them a hand thanking them for their many years of
sacrifice and support.
Next, let me thank the decorating committee
for doing such a nice job on short notice in making this room look so inviting.
All of them are honors students and one of them is among the graduates. Let’s
give them a round of applause.
The food served by ARAMARK was first rate, as
usual. These tables and chairs did not magically move out of that closet over
there and set themselves up. No, they were set up by the Reynolds Center staff.
Let’s give them a round of applause too.
Working hard over the last two weeks were the
Honors College staff. We have an assistant director, David Wingfield, who works
behind the scenes at home now because of Covid. However, he demonstrates every
day just how much can be accomplished remotely. The Honors College has an
undergraduate and a graduate student assigned to it. Jonathan Parker is our
undergraduate assistant. I have overwhelmed him with work and requests over the
last two weeks and he just marches on getting each job done. Thank you, Jonathan.
Our graduate assistant, Praveen Mudda, comes from Hyderabad, India. We met by
Zoom, btw. It was 9 pm in Magnolia and 8:30 am in Hyderabad the next day when
we first met. Now in Magnolia, he, too, has had to respond to my many requests
and has done so quickly. So, this event would not be possible without these
three. Let’s give them a hand too.
There is yet another group I need to
thank, our donors. My dear friend, the late Harold Fincher, co-founded the
People’s Bank and was among the first of our donors. His legacy lives on as his
bank continues to support us financially and in many other ways. Look at the
names on your tables, they too give to us generously. Early in the academic careers
of the graduates you see in front of you, I warned them that someday I’d ask
them to contribute financially to the Honors College. All of them here have
benefitted from donors who have endowed scholarships making it possible for
them to attend SAU with little or minimal financial burden. Let’s thank our
donors.
On your tables, you will see donation forms
from the SAU Foundation. That foundation is the money arm of the SAU
enterprise. They recently completed a capital campaign in which they raised
nearly $29 million dollars from over 4,000 donors. Part of my job is to see
that some of that money goes to the Honors College. So, please take that form
home with you and think about sending us some money so that we can continue to
provide honors education at SAU and continue to produce classes like the one
sitting here today.
Lastly, I’d like our Honors College graduates
to stand up together for one of the last times they will do so. They have lived
through the old normal and the new normal. They have coped with and overcome
all of the challenges to reach this point. They are the reason we are here
tonight. As you know by now, our graduates are a special group of SAU students.
Their average GPA exceeds 3.6. Five of them have earned all A’s. Four of them
earned all A’s and one B. In an era in which the majority of students take six
years to earn their degree, all of these students graduated in three or four
years. Just so you will know, seven of them represent the college of Liberal
and Performing Arts. Four of them earned degrees from the College of Business.
Three of them earned degrees from the College of Education. The rest, ten of
them, earned their degrees from the College of Science and Engineering. The SAU
Honors College serves all four of the other Colleges. These graduates are among
the best SAU can offer. Let’s give them our biggest round of applause!
Now that I am about to stop talking we can get
to the fun part of today’s meeting. First will be the draping of the Honors
College Medallions on the neck of each graduate.
