Remarks of President Garvey
Freshman Convocation
Upper Church, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Sept. 14, 2016

I am delighted to welcome you to the Convocation for the Class of 2020.  Let me say a special word of thanks to Dr. Hartmann and the staff of our First Year Experience who planned this event, to Provost Abela, and to Dr. Dominguez, who will offer remarks in a few moments. Thanks also to our administrators, deans, and faculty members here today to help welcome the Class of 2020.  Finally welcome Class of 2020 we’re very glad you’re here.

Each year I look forward to greeting the incoming class at this convocation.  It is my last chance to say a few words before you set off on this four-year journey as a Catholic University student.

You’ve now been on campus for nearly three weeks. I hope you’re starting to feel at home. You have probably figured out where your classes meet, where the library is, and where the Pryz is.  It’s a lot to take in.   But that’s one of the principle reasons you have come to The Catholic University of America: To take in the thought of philosophers and poets, theologians and scientists, your professors and your classmates. How do you do this well?

Over the summer you were asked to read a CUA Primer, In a Sense All Things.  One of the excerpts you read was by the philosopher, Josef Pieper from a book called Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation.

Our capacity to really see the world, Pieper said, is in decline. Pieper describes tourists in New York who can’t see the city for themselves. “I am always amazed,” he observed “at hearing almost without exception rather generalized statements and pronouncements that are plainly the common fare of travel guides.”

But nobody seems to notice the small details that characterize the city. They don’t see, for example, the “stone-hewn chess tables [outside NYU], placed in Washington Square by a caring city administration for the Italian chess enthusiasts,” because no one told them to look at them.

Pieper’s experience as a tourist in New York can teach us something about the academic vocation. When we grow accustomed to being told what to look at, it becomes harder to notice anything else. You can go to a museum and read all of the signs without seeing any of the art. The same thing can happen with our studies. When we spend all of our time taking in the theories and ideas of others we can forget to figure out what we ourselves think. You can know what Aristotle, Kant, and John Stuart Mill all say about ethics without ever asking which you think is true and why.

Pieper points out that if we want to really see reality for ourselves, we have to be more than observers. We need to be creators: “The mere attempt,” Pieper says, “to create an artistic form, compels the artist to take a fresh look at the visible reality. It requires authentic and personal observation.”

This is true in study as well. To grasp an argument or theory or work of literature for yourself, you need to do more than learn what others have said or written about it (although that is a good place to start). You need to make your own contribution to the conversation—even if it’s just a note jotted in the margin of a book. Doing so will force you to ask if and how this or that theory conforms to your experience. It will compel you to trace out the theoretical and practical consequences of an idea. The creative act of formulating your own view or proposition will help you to absorb the arguments and theories of others.

This will make you a better student now. It will also help prepare you for what comes next. The academic vocation is not a game you win by racking up the highest GPA. The goal is not to become a winning contestant on “Jeopardy.”  The goal is to discover truth, truths that can guide both your professional pursuits and truths that can show you how to live well.

God bless you, and I wish you a very happy, successful first year.