Remarks by 1957 alumnus Dr.
Thomas A. Fitzgerald, Jr., delivered to his classmates
on the occasion of their 50th reunion, at the Colorado College
Fifty Year Club
Induction Service held in Shove Chapel October 12, 2007.
______________________________________________________________________
President Celeste, Dean Ashley, Lou Kinkel of the Fifty Year Club,
Chaplain Correill, members of the Development Office who helped
us make this weekend possible, classmates, spouses, significant
others, and friends.
Most of us arrived here over 50 years ago in 1953. When we came,
T.V. antennas were becoming a common fixture on the roofs of our
homes, our favorite programs were Studio One, Red Skelton and
your Show of Shows. Dick Button had won the world figure skating
championship and Rocky Marciano was the boxing heavyweight champion
of the world. Dwight David Eisenhower was our president and Richard
Nixon was our vice-president. The best selling book was Hemmingway's,
"The Old Man and the Sea;" the most popular songs were;
“How Much is That Doggie in The Window,” and “Till
I Waltz Again With You." Senator Joe McCarthy had begun his
witch-hunt and Private G. David Shine became the best known soldier
in the country. Thanks to the Italians, skirts got shorter, Bermuda
shorts made a statement, Joseph Stalin and Jim Thorpe died, and
Gary Cooper won an “Oscar” for “High Noon."
The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee on their way to Atlanta,
and the Rosenbergs were executed for treason. Along with all of
this, we came to Colorado College.
The student body at that time was about 1,000 students and about
a third of them were from east of the Mississippi River. Although
40 plus states were represented in the mix, Colorado, Illinois,
and California had the highest representation, and there was about
a 60/40 split between men and women. Tuition was $262.50 a semester,
and room and board ranged from 300 to 400 dollars a semester depending
on the arrangement you had. Students graduating this spring in
'08 will have paid $33,972 for tuition and $7,628 for room and
board. It's difficult to imagine paying that sum of money to sleep
and eat if you lived in Hagerman and ate at Cossitt.
Slocum opened the year we came and Loomis opened the year we left;
and, chapel attendance became voluntary our senior year. It was
a year where no longer our attendance in this place would be recorded
by the Red Lantern or Blue Key members.
We came to Colorado College for multiple reasons, not the least
of which was to receive a liberal arts education. We came from
our own parochial settings of family, school and community. We
came with our own set of beliefs and prejudices. For many of us,
for the first time, we were away from the security of all those
things and what they stood for. Those beliefs we brought with
us, would be questioned and tested at this school. It would be
a part of the learning process.
How simple and uncomplicated the word liberal seemed in 1953.
How sad that this word and its ideals would take on different
connotations in some circles today. Many of you would have seen
professor Tom Cronin’s description of a liberal education
in the C.C. Bulletin last April. He said that the experience of
acquiring this kind of education helps free us from: “complacency,
sentimentality, and parochialism; and, the habits of sloppy reasoning,
careless writing and ethnocentrism.
The C.C. experience offers the freedom to ask critical and fundamental
questions, to grow, to fail and to excel, and perhaps most important,
to cultivate the courage to imagine. Walt Disney was fond of saying,
“I hope I’m always young enough to risk failure.”
We would practice habits of intellectual investigation, athletic
prowess, artistic curiosity and courtship. Some people did come
and “shop” for the spouse in their future. Others
of us came and just hoped we could get a date. We had war veterans
in our class. They had been caught in the Korean conflict, and
came back older and wiser. They were “experienced”
in ways we could only imagine. They had that look of experience
in their eyes, and in the way they looked at things, especially
women. They had the G.I. “bill” which gave them money;
and they seemed well off. They could afford to buy beer and cigarettes
and stingers at the VFW. There was a lot to envy.
Some in our class came knowing what they wanted to be, or to
do with their lives. There was an air of certainty about them.
They already had their eyes on the prize. Yet for most, we were
still working and imagining how this C.C. experience would work
out. For the men in our class, there was not a sense of urgency.
With the draft, we knew where most of us would be spending our
time shortly after graduation. For us, the future would begin
sometime after that. For the women in our class, their future
did have a sense of urgency to it. They needed to get real jobs.
The future comes out of the past, so what we were given to use
in the years ahead, was important. Our teachers were models of
knowing that we could accept or reject. Although Howard Gardner’s
work on multiple intelligences was far in the future, his notions
were present in the exchanges we had in classes, on stages, on
playing fields and in conversations with each other. The college
gave us what we needed in experience, reflective thinking, and
ways of knowing. Many of us found discipline, structure, camaraderie,
and a sense of belonging on this campus. Many of us were the first
in our families to graduate from college. Graduation was a mark
of distinction. What we did with the gifts that we were given,
was up to us.
From an age of certainty and predictability we entered into
a world where change became the dominant consequence of our time.
Perhaps it was the habits we gained here, at the college, that
allowed us to cope in our world that would be filled with wars,
assassinations, issues of civil rights, social change, medical
miracles and where time would begin to be measured in nanoseconds.It
would be in this forum that we would create our own lives and
families and futures. There are life lines and life cycles, periods
of growth and stages of learning and change. C.C. offered us a
platform that allowed us to examine the core beliefs we had and
hold today.
Plato called this enlightenment. We could and did make a difference
in the world we lived in. We could and did help transform our
communities by our actions. We could and did act upon the idea
expressed by the Christophers who say, “It is better to
light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
As we gather here today with a momentary pause in the fast paced
world we live in, how grateful we are to be alive. How fitting
it is to pause in this place and its permanence on this ever changing
campus; to be reminded by the soft crunch of gravel under our
feet as we made our way across the quad of our collective past.
Memories live by their own rules, and often recollections are
triggered by a simple word, a particular taste or smell or a footfall
on a gravel path.
Tomorrow, as we gather with the full membership of Colorado
College at lunch, we may be the object of some curious looks and
wonderment from the younger set: “who are those people with
the medals around their necks? Oh ya, those are the 50 year graduates.”
And with a smile, their conversations will return to the issues
of the day.
“Ave Atque Vale.” That's what the Romans use to
say at moments of significant leaving. Also, “Hail and Farewell,”
or as we would say, “Hello and Good-by.” “Good-by”
is a contraction of “God be with you.” As a class,
this gathering will be a significant leaving, we won't gather
like this again. How fortunate for all of us who gather here to
have membership in this community, the Colorado College Class
of 1957. For all of you, I know that special Irish blessing has
come true:
“The road has risen up to meet you; and the rain has fallen
softly on your fields; and the sun does shine warmly on your backs;
and until we meet again may God hold you gently, ever so gently
in the palm of His hand.”
Thomas A. Fitzgerald
