Farewell to the Graduates
of 2014
President Kristin King
I
With a well-trained mind,
n just a few moments you will walk
we can keep learning across
out the doors into your new roles as
graduates and alumni. We’ve held you here,
careers and time. What
captive, for the past hour with some parting
better training ground for
thoughts about growth and potential.
life than Bryn Athyn College
We heard about planting and harvests,
where your engagement
about a tiny mustard seed growing into a
mighty tree, about new life springing from
with ethics, academics,
a fallen grain of wheat. A thing can seem
life skills and spirituality
to die or be lost, when really it is being
has sown the seeds for
reborn, transformed, multiplied.
ongoing transformation?
We heard about innovation and
flexibility, about the need to respond
–Kristin King, President,
to a constantly changing world and to
Bryn Athyn College
workplaces that reinvent themselves
continually. We heard about false endings
(your education isn’t really over), and false starts (those seeming failures that
teach us what we need to learn to keep advancing in a good direction).
With a well-trained mind, we can keep learning across careers and time.
What better training ground for life than Bryn Athyn College where your
engagement with ethics, academics, life skills and spirituality has sown the
seeds for ongoing transformation?
Your valedictorian spoke about leaving home to come here; then finding
home; and now leaving again. He celebrated the talents and accomplishments
that have transformed you as individuals. But more importantly, he celebrated
the spiritual foundation you share as Bryn Athyn College graduates: the virtue
and values, the call to become men and women of character.
Four years ago, most of you had left home to launch your college career
at Bryn Athyn. I addressed you at Glencairn and spoke of what the next four
years might hold in store. About the need to be open-minded, to get ready for
change, and to make the most of the incredible power of liberal arts education
grounded in New Church teachings. We talked then about what it means to be
human and eternally developing.
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