ࡱ> @B?Y ;bjbjWW )F==O6Sr]  ,,,8 "222222P6"X "z$x,22222d,,22ddd2,2,2@6v666,,2dd,,2 g5 Monsieur le maire; messieurs et mesdames les conseillers municipaux du village de Pontlevoy; M. Chenu, prsident de lassociation des anciens tudiants et amis du collge de Pontlevoy; familles daccueil et autres Pontileviens; Mme.Day; messieurs et mesdames les directeurs de la Lucky Day Foundation; M.Hudson; Mme.Steen; M.Mackaman; autres administrateurs du programme; messieurs et mesdames les professeurs; et chers tudiants et tudiantes. Tout dabord je voudrais vous dire que cest pour moi un trs grand plaisir de vous parler et que je suis trs, trs contente quon mait offert cet honneur. Je vous apporte les meilleurs sentiments de M.Jesse Rogers, prsident de mon universit et, bien sr, ceux des parents de nos tudiants. Ils sont ravis que vous ayez rendu possible ce semestre franais pour leurs enfants. Nous, les dlgus de Midwestern State University vous remercions de tout coeur de votre gnreuse hospitalit. Vous nous gtez, et nous en jouissons avec verve. Permettez-moi de continuer en anglais, sil vous plat. Dabord, je parle langlais avec plus de facilit que le franais. Ensuite, la plupart des tudiants que voici, ne comprendraient rien et cest eux surtout que je voudrais madresser, puisque nous clbrons aujourdhui leur bonne chance de pouvoir vivre une aventure quils noublieront jamais: leur stage dans un pays tranger, trange mme parfois, o ils gagneront des connaissances bien au-del de ce quils apprennent dans les salles de classe. Ils font la connaissance dune culture laquelle les Etats Unis doivent beaucoup, culture ancienne, culture moderne, culture globale. To those among you, who so far have only enjoyed the beautiful sound of the French language and who didnt understand what I said, I am happy to announce that I will continue in English. When Dr. Mackaman invited me to speak to you today, I was very happy. This is a real honor and I love to be flattered. So I gladly agreed quickly, lest he change his mind and ask someone else. I was going to speak to students who had that marvelous experience that I had had so many years ago when, as a fourteen year old German secondary school student, I first came to France. When I sat down to prepare my remarks, however, I had second, third, and fourth thoughts. What am I going to tell you that you find meaningful, that you remember into your future, that will guide you and help you make appropriate choices. I suddenly realized that this was scary stuff. What had I been told in similar circumstances? HELP! I couldnt remember. One normally doesnt remember these things. Thats what consoled me. If I do all right, thats fine. If not, thats fine too because no one will remember. So, dear students, let me congratulate you on the chance you have to study in this beautiful place and to learn within and outside of the classroom. Make this a time you will want to remember until you are an old grandma or grandpa and you tell your grandchildren about your studies in France, the beauty of the countryside in la douce France, the friendliness of the French people, the time whenyou fill in the blanks. Make this a time that will enrich your entire life and the lives of those around you. Lets take a moment and reflect. How did you get here? Think of all the people who made this moment possible. Fifteen years ago, the provost of Southern Mississippi, Dr. Hudson, and his friend and my colleague, Dr. Williams, began working together on study abroad programs. Certainly, they had something to do with your being here. Your mother who helped you pack and who since has sent you a cell phone, your father who got misty eyed when he had to let you go through the gate at the airport, the faculty in your university who encouraged you to go, donors to your university who helped pay, like the Lucky Day Foundation, the directors of international programs who assured all the paperwork would be done in time, like Ms. Steen, Dr. Mackaman, and Dr. Williams, your friends who came by and wished you bon voyage trying to sound French, your professors at the abbey who enrich your education, the staff who sees to it that you are taken care of. Would you be here if it werent for them? And they, who care so much and plan and assist and encourage and pay, would they have been able if it werent for others who supported them? There is a beautiful saying and I wish I had invented it, but I first read it in a text written by Marie de France who lived in the twelfth century. She, who was an excellent poet, said that if her work was any good, then that was so because she stood on the shoulders of giants. Think of it: you are standing on shoulders. Those who lend you their shoulders are standing on other shoulders and so forth and so forth. You wouldnt study if no one had explored, painted, invented, composed; you wouldnt read Shakespeare if he hadnt written; you wouldnt know how a seed turns into a tree if no one had found the cycle of life; you wouldnt sing a song if no one had thought of it; you wouldnt have flown here if no one had constructed the wheel and the wing and then some. You are connected to others, present, past, American, European, and far beyond. You are each a very special person. How do you respond to those people on whose shoulders you stand? Isnt it appropriate that you say thank you? Thank you for understanding, thank you for pushing me, thank you for explaining some baffling rule to me. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for helping me to become the person I will be. How do you best show your gratitude to those on whose shoulders you are standing? I want you to look at yourselves and each other. See all those shoulders? What are you going to use them for? They are good for shoving people with arrogance. They are good as well for other people to stand on. Isnt that the best way you can say thank you, giving to those who follow you that, which you have been given by those who came before? But before you can support other people to the fullest of your potential, you have to know who you are. So, let me ask you: what do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see the son or daughter you are? Do you see the student you are? Do you see the friend of your friends? Do you see that your hair needs combing? Do you see a drawn face because you stayed out all night? Do you see a free and brave American? Do you see the child you once were? Do you see the person you will be? Do you see a child of God? What is important to you? Is it the way you look? Is it the material you learn in class? Is it your family? Is it your friends? Your books, your music, your art? Is it your faith? Study yourself. You who see the messy hair, are you satisfied that that is what you see or are you worried that such concerns do not deal with matters substantive? You who wasted your time drinking instead of taking advantage of the opportunities for growth this semester in a foreign country offers you, are you proud of yourself? You who see a mathematical genius, are you happy with what you see, or do you feel a void when it comes to concern and caring for others? You, who see the believer, are you pleased with what you see or do you think your faith might be based on fear of the world rather than on an understanding of its vanity? You, who see the American, are you comfortable with yourself, or is there a nagging doubt that you may not be accepting of others? You, who see the family member, are you content with what you see, or do you think you arent enough of an individual? If you are happy with yourself, find out why this is who you want to be. If you are not happy with the way you identify yourself, it is time to do something about it. If you want to be of service to others, you must at first be in agreement with yourself. You must know your strengths and your weaknesses. Only if you critically identify who you are, only if you accept yourself, can you use your strengths and correct your weaknesses. Neither arrogance nor denial work. Being away from home is the perfect time to take stock. Try to see yourself objectively, as the other students do, as the French do, and learn from them. And then, study the world around you so that your actions may produce the effect you are seeking to achieve. Have you ever looked up what to study means? The Latin word studere translates into to be eager. Thus, when our ancestors called an individual eager, they meant to say that he or she wanted to know more, was eager to learn. Are you? One of the most eager persons who ever lived was Socrates. He went around the market place and asked everyone about his trade. He was curious about how cloth was produced, so he asked a weaver; he wondered how sandals were fashioned, so he consulted a shoemaker, etc. What do you think his motto was? Ask the expert sounds pretty good, doesnt it? Lifelong learning has been a buzz word for a while. What about A new and improved Socrates? But no, his motto was I know that I know nothing. He knew that the only way he could learn was to admit his ignorance. So, let me encourage you, no, not to be ignorant, but to admit to your ignorance; to be eager to learn. There is a German proverb es ist noch kein Meister vom Himmel gefallen, which means no master ever fell from the sky (or heaven. In German, as in French, there is one word for both sky and heaven.) To make that phrase clearer, you might perhaps say no master ever came out of the blue. If you want to reach perfection, you must work at it. So, be attentive in school, and then reflect on what you have learned, talk to others about it, analyze it, turn it over this way and that so that the material becomes your own and you dont simply ape others. School is another interesting word. It has a Greek root meaning leisure. When the Greeks took it easy, they sat around and enjoyed thought provoking conversations. Isnt that what can easily happen in school? Isnt that what these surroundings invite you to do? Dont you experience that your mind is growing, that you think new thoughts, find different interests? Arent you contributing to that thought provoking conversation? Are you enjoying it? Well, if you are, you follow in the Greek tradition. You allow experts to teach you what they know; you decide what to accept and what to reject. You create your own point of view. You think; and you find; and in so doing, you become. If you do it right, your shoulders will grow very strong; and the day will come when you are able to carry, support, and lead others. How would you describe a leader? Someone others respect. Someone others want to imitate. Someone others want to be around. You cant be a leader without others. Can you accept people whose opinions are diagonally opposite to yours? Doesnt a leader have to? Can you talk to those people? Can you explain yourself? Can you convince? Can you feel empathy even towards people who dont want to follow you? Are you ready to compromise? Are you ready to stick up for your ideal even when it means a severe loss? Are you willing to concede that you made a mistake when you did--and you will? Can you apologize? Can you be happy when others go along with your ideas and proudly proclaim them as their own without giving you credit? Can you say yes to someone you profoundly dislike? Can you say no to someone for whom you really care? Can you say no to yourself? Will you be genuine in the face of temptation? Can you be modest in success and proud in defeat? Do you have character? That is what I am asking. I am inviting you to study yourself, work on yourself. Study the world so that you are able to meet its promises, its opportunities, its traps, and its vanity on your own terms. Find the way from ignorance to knowledge, from naivet to sophistication, from passive absorption of others ideas to that independent thought from which derive those your own terms with which to meet the world. I am inviting you to get an education in the true sense of the word. Educere means to lead out of. A former boss of mine, a university president once defined education perfectly. I liked it so much that I would like to quote it for you: Education has, as its one, unified, and single purpose to lead out and away and to lead forward. To lead humankind out from ignorance and superstition and base motivation and behavior--to lead forward to an understanding of, and an appreciation and respect for, the human condition at its best, to lead toward understanding of the world about us all, to lead to the improvement of this world, for the benefit of all who live in it. You are at the threshold which separates your adolescent past and your adult future. As you grow from ignorance to knowledge, from innocence to responsibility, that future is being placed on your shoulders. Make them strong. You have great promise. Live up to it. We all here believe in you and trust you. Each in our own way, we stand ready to help. You only need to ask. But none of us can do it in your stead. You have to walk across that threshold and face whatever it is you find on the other side. Never forget that you are important to those who went before you, to those who assist you, and to all those who will stand on your shoulders; never forget what you owe them. I wish for each of you that, when you are as old as I am, someone says to you: you have proven yourself. If that happens, and I trust it will, then the partnership of universities that makes it possible for you to be here has been successful, and because of the likelihood that it happens, I feel truly privileged to have had the opportunity to talk to you. Bonne chance, et merci!  Dr. William C. Moran, President of Lander University (Greenwood, SC), 1992-2000     Friederike Wiedemann Provost, Midwestern State University Wichita Falls, TX PAGE  PAGE 1 p ,  %%2233334477O:P:::::::::::;;;;; ;;;;;;0JmH0J j0JU jU j0JU>*6mH nHnHmH *n o + , ##$$--q3r3666$$##$$--q3r3666O:::::::::::::;;;;#6O:::::::::::::::;;;;;;;; hL  &#$f( +Dh&`#$$$'0 / =!"#$% [J@J Normal$5$7$8$9DH$a$CJ_HmH sH tH <A@< Default Paragraph Font, @, Footer  !&)@& Page Number,@, Header  !2@"2  Footnote TextCJ8&@18 Footnote ReferenceH*07RURU7F      &272 Ydqqqt;6; ";!Y`dkmt!!/0:;STxy@AACGItuyz{|HKtuyz'(mp5=!!$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$//N6O6g6h66666666666666677777N6O666666666666666777777 ssteenContinuing EducationC:\WINDOWS\DESKTOP\Conv04W.doc@HP LaserJet 8100 Series PCL 5eusm178560HPBFCB3HP LaserJet 8100 Series PCL 5eHP LaserJet 8100 Series PCL 5eXX",HP LaserJet 8100 Series PCL 5e0\ ƣQp1 Pd9BT H|F+!ajF*\.ҀPj5K'RK'JG#iҍ/L(F ,ꐩ6mK kCjrz`Q!CNTPk#kJZ#պ>*v!d0n\n; lf8n5lK6ƴ8D"esx⧂1uw;#lC!nϧjv{٭")l;0\.`atqL05_;VJעOk]'[D4D}[f6l^_fZW7 EF] %U] zR9tAdt_Vxq`7y6&PaDC-UTڡ2 acy$pDFauAԀ#tSAg9 afO^ Rѱ $Fcz*Wzo[EQ7 Xk5x zU\io~N t$4V Fa1 8rp⚛W`8D"[垹GfVC{+ 83*&#ʊKmzT gʐ8ٗER83 M4'=QB~KT⦄p)qgk;(^g /@Ì5Ү"j 1C*v!d0n\n; lf8n5lK6ƴ8D"esx⧂1uw;#lC!nϧjv{٭")l;0\.`atqL05_;VJעOk]'[D4D}[f6l^_fZW7 EF] %U] zR9tAdt_Vxq`7y6&PaDC-UTڡ2 acy$pDFauAԀ#tSAg9 afO^ Rѱ $Fcz*Wzo[EQ7 Xk5x zU\io~N t$4V Fa1 8rp⚛W`8D"[垹GfVC{+ 83*&#ʊKmzT gʐ8ٗER83 M4'=QB~KT⦄p)qgk;(^g /@Ì5Ү"j 1C _PID_GUIDAN{9305AFE1-7DAC-11D8-BF1E-00104B73B901}  !"#%&'()*+,-.012345689:;<=>ARoot Entry FM@k6C1TableGHGHxGLGxG$WordDocumentYd[GG.)FSummaryInformation(G@,GG<@ LG/GDocumentSummaryInformationpead8&1_30817_0_13194_172_CompObj5&bodyPart=3&filename=&wnload=1&Yjr=ObjectPoolx&MsgId=3767_1582208_@k6@k607742_3564614555&bodyPart=3&filename=&wnload=1&YY=19382&order=  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q