I am a herder not a hoarder but a herder
I love bringing people together and I
primary responsible here Boston
College’s to guide and direct and
achieve consensus community with the
Boston College marching men so given
that background and these expectations
that’s what become my life’s work and
music is the medium but I have a sense
that if it weren’t music I find some
other way to try to draw people together
and build a sense of community with that
said I like many of you have been
troubled deeply by what I perceived to
be lots of divisions on all sorts of
different directions within the broader
society today and I picked three themes
that I wanted to discuss with you today
three ways that we kind of bracket
people off or sometimes they self
segregate themselves in ways that we
might be able to break down some of
those silos to achieve consensus the
first is race the second one is defined
along gender and the third broad
category we would like to look at is the
divisions along religion so in trying to
make sense of all of those categories
and how we can sort of hang on to what’s
important to our identity but achieve
that consensus I looked for some common
threads and what I found in most of the
readings in interpreting is that most of
the people who are talking about these
issues are educated in some way or no
that is to say they’ve received in
education how is it possible that today
we still have all of these barriers that
are predicated upon race gender and
religion how have we not moved past that
you would think if we were designing an
education system from scratch one of the
core objectives would be to establish
the sense of equity so come to this sort
of inescapable question that is it
possible that our system of education
and higher education in particular is
actually unintentionally perpetuating
racism gender discrimination and
religious intolerance one of the initial
priorities that we discover when we’re
starting grade school is discernment
it’s a fundamental core building block
of how we learn we discover the
difference between right and wrong good
and bad hutton cold up down and so forth
and we’re rewarded for that what the
ability to identify differences is an
important Court
in how we learn as we go through school
we learn to establish that differences
or identify differences on more nuanced
lines and this is an actual phrase this
is some of you were way too young to
remember this but back in the day my
generation there was this it’s almost
become a meme now and Sesame Street they
would say one of these things is not
like the other one of these things just
doesn’t belong for an adult to look at
it and say it makes perfect sense
there’s three red hats in one super hat
that’s the one that’s the outlier this
one doesn’t belong to a kid
they don’t necessarily they’re not
necessarily able to distinguish yet what
are in em and objects that doesn’t
belong in animate objects like people or
and most of the like we just were
awarded and rewarded by our ability to
pick out the thing that doesn’t belong
and that’s perpetuated again that’s the
thing single out the thing that doesn’t
belong identify thing doesn’t belong on
standardized test you did well enough to
just score high you go to a good college
so as you go through middle school in
high school we have this grappling
ability with like these things that
don’t belong and we’re trying to find
our self our sense of purpose like where
do I belong because as much as we all
want to have our own individual
identities most of us kind of align in
certain categories that can be described
by others we’re a tribal species nobody
really wants to be the outlier that
everybody else ignores we want to be
inclusive we want to be part of
something bigger than ourselves Harvard
University the roots of higher education
in the United States founded in 1636 if
you were to look inside Harvard
University you would find some
interesting characteristics of the
students at 17th century number one
they’re white number two they’re male
number three more likely than not
they’re Puritan so even in the roots of
a system of higher education
we have restrictions based on race
gender and religion
here it is in 2018 382 years later and
we still have institutions of higher
education whose missions are
specifically to serve students of a
specific race gender religion and
there’s all sorts of data out there in
there right that say there are benefits
to an inclusive environment that’s true
and you may even know if somebody says
listen I attended one of those schools
aren’t great that’s probably true as
well that was important but the problem
is we don’t always achieve equity um
students at a critical time in the form
of development and even for the schools
that try to serve all students equally
we have clubs and organizations that are
largely aligned many of them along race
gender and religion as well
now that’s beneficial in providing an
environment for students at a critical
transition their lives many of them
living at home away from home for the
first time trying to find them their
sense of self where they belong their
sense of identity it’s critically
important we have that environment so
they can feel that they’re a part of
something greater than themselves and
it’s also critically important that we
maintain that cultural identity and that
we study our past learn from it advance
it and use it for advocacy if those
needs aren’t being addressed but the
problem is in some cases for some
students they become so deeply and
narrowly drawn into these categories
well by your own choice
or maybe they’re coerced into order they
feel pressured but that you begin to
more narrowly define themselves those
characteristics and that’s dangerous
because in those cases they aren’t able
to see many of the commonalities that
exist with other students it’s not a lot
of supervision that goes that as well so
as students if they do become mired down
and pull down it’s what a good friend
Admiral Ackbar might call a trap for
those students they aren’t able to
interact and engage within the broader
university community and is not
necessarily a mechanism in place to do
that so think about it when we talk
about diversity in our college campus
we’re talking about the admission
statistics the profile of students who
are attending the institution and you
could picture an administrator at a
college university looking out from an
ivory tower window and surveying the
landscape of universities saying look at
this amazing diversity I mean we have
clubs for everyone and on one hand
that’s great but who is coordinating the
efforts of those clubs that’s like
hiring a contractor to build your home
he shows up with a dump truck and the
unload cement and beams and girders and
nails and hammers and windows and he
actually don’t I don’t know we’re not
quite satisfied yet
like all the important pieces are here I
get it these I need all these pieces
they’re super valuable but you haven’t
connected
anything you haven’t built anything and
that isn’t necessarily yet a core
objective of higher education and that’s
really the critical distinction that we
I think we as a society but particularly
on higher education need to address to
advance our students and create a
brighter future for them so how do we do
that there’s two core themes in
education one is dissonance one is
complexity dissonance just like in music
is the sort of unsettled feeling that
moves people from one place to another
we seek a resolution we grapple is
something difficult if it’s a new
concept we we struggle with for a while
and then and we make sense of it and
that creates complexity in our mind and
that complexity stays in our mind and it
fuels the next cycle of dissonance –
complexity dissonance complexity and
over time you achieve higher order
thinking and higher thinking manifests
itself in lots of different ways it
might be critical thinking skills it
might be math or science or logic skills
but it’s also the way we engage with
each other how we treat each other how
we respond to each other how we love
each other so let’s put our theory to
the test we administered a survey – 1882
marching band students at 20 colleges
universities all around the country and
we compared the survey results with six
thousand ninety five non band students
at those same schools and we evaluated
this is the survey that’s administered
to spend over three million students
since 2000 so it’s the most widely
implemented survey of its kind and we
found three interesting areas in
particular three recurring themes first
as engagements diversity the second is
reflective learning in the third is
personal social responsibility
engagement diversity this has to do with
the frequency with which students have
conversations with somebody of a
different race ethnicity culture of
their own or a different political
ideology religion etc and what we find
is that the mark to band students that
we surveyed to a statistically
significant degree indicated greater
engagement with diversity than the non
band students that’s important because
it’s the first ingredient our formula
that’s the dissonance
okay so let’s test it again if we have
business we should start to see some
complexity forming we see that in terms
of reflective learning
collective learning is the frequency
with which students tried to imagine
someone else’s perspective to understand
it better or they tried to reevaluate
their own position they evaluate the
strengths and weaknesses of what they
know or they tried to put it all
together and learn something new about a
subject or a topic they hadn’t thought
of before that’s reflective learning and
again we found the Marchman students to
a statistically significant degree
indicate a greater reflective learning
than the non band students those inner
of themself are important it’s not quite
done there’s a foundation a platform but
it’s just sort of so what or what what
happens from there from there we see
personal social responsibility that
manifests itself in an array of
characteristics the first is developing
a personal code of ethics and values
understanding yourself understanding
someone of a different racial ethnic
background learning effectively on your
own voting in local regional national
elections committing to community
affairs in developing a complex set of
community skills and then finally being
committed to solving complex real world
problems and this is the the crux of why
we send students to college today
regardless of your major your interest
these seven characteristics are the
fundamental outcomes of a higher
education that is to say that whether
you want to be an engineer or nurse or
scientist an architect whatever is that
you want to do you should be able to
embody these skills these attributes
these characteristics again we find to a
statistically significant degree the
Marchman students demonstrate or
indicated greater personal social
responsibility than the non marching
band students and that’s not even the
best of it for the statisticians among
us you’ll say well Kay this is
impressive but causation correlation we
don’t know this is what’s fueling all of
this and that’s correct we can’t say for
sure we we don’t know if the mantra mmmm
suspicion causes these results but we do
know there’s a strong correlation and we
took into account as many of the
pre-existing and coexisting
characteristics as we could to try and
piece it apart so we looked at the
students gender race first-generation
status in a CT SAT score we took into
account where the student was already
involved a learning community had
conducted volunteer work conducted
research with a faculty member
student was a varsity athlete whether
the student was in a fraternity or
sorority we even took into account the
students academic major an array of
characteristic try and piece it apart
and say okay what percentage of these or
what factors are contributing to this
end result these desirable
characteristics and what we found was of
all of those individual characteristics
the strongest predictor of students
indicating these personal social
responsibility skills was participation
in the college marching band that’s
important so it begs the obvious
question how does this happen well it’s
a pretty demanding ruling activity we
taught the first item I bring up is to
200 hours in a single semester that’s
significant because that’s as many hours
as a full course load so these students
are spending you can think about all the
courses you take out of the total number
of hours the band students is spending
that many hours together within the
Marchman environment the camp alone is
80 hours of rehearsal time the preseason
camp then the rehearsals and
performances that continue out
throughout the fall semester so it’s
highly demanding it’s out of class
engagement just like a lecture hall
setting it’s valuable you can learn a
lot but you’re not necessarily engaging
with each other right now we’re having a
discussion that’s really sort of
bilateral but it’s not across multiple
realms so the opportunity to have
students come out of their classrooms
and engage with each other freely
Crossing lots of cultural racial gender
ethnic lines religious lines and
discovering each other is incredibly
valuable its educationally purposeful
there are tasks and requirements at the
end of it that are occurring at a high
tolerance the precision for those of you
are musicians or for those who have done
anything with the kind of tight
tolerances of navigating 180 people in a
fixed space moving around making music
performing dance is difficult so it’s a
high intensity task and guess what it’s
also the most public of any on the
university campus
if you perform at the marching band more
of your peers and community members will
see you perform in that single day than
most of your other students will have
seen perform in the four years that
they’re at a university it’s also under
the supervision of carrying in a ten of
mentis my students would dispute this
however there are many other staff
members within our program who are
attendants the needs of students and
it’s more than just that rehearsal time
we spend together rehearsal ends were
walking back with students at Hall we
make ourselves available I have this
thing with our students and I invite you
as well if anybody
some thoughts falling to talk to
community have tea with me there’s no
better way to learn about someone else
than just sit down and move the
descriptors tractions and have a
conversation to try and understand when
I go and then this is a recurring theme
in the literature the blend of challenge
and support that is to say that it’s
difficult but it’s attainable the
support that staff structure matters we
need both of those in equal tandem it’s
easy to sort of settle into something
that’s that’s comfortable for you but
that’s not the purpose of higher
education the whole point of higher
education is to come outside your
comfort zone David was just talking
about that the whole purpose is to come
outside your comfort zone and the
Marchman provides that format okay so
more significantly and the last sort of
question I have is why does this matter
well it matters for a couple reasons
firstly if you have a student who’s
going to college he or she should be in
the mantra man that’s the first thing
okay and they’re welcome to join our
band as well but the second reason it
matters is we can use this as a template
this is not this is not original or new
in many ways this is just a sort of
construct of putting lots of pieces
together and just happens to be almost a
perfect storm of productivity in terms
of student development but this is a
formula that can work and be applied in
different settings but what you need to
have is shared values so it’s a
community with shared values despite all
of the differences an earned sense of
identity and this is a big one too we’re
born in this planet with certain set of
characteristics that we’re going to
remain with us most of us for the rest
of our lives give or take and there’s
some some fluidity but some but for the
most part if you’re still defining
yourself by those characteristics at 22
years of age when you graduate from
college there’s a problem like your
education system has failed you if
you’re still defining yourself solely by
birth characteristics at 22
you haven’t fulfilled your obligation
education hasn’t fulfilled its
obligation to you the third is a sense
of community the sense of coming
together you have shared priorities
shared resources a limited amount of
time to do something constructive when
we start to see as ourselves as global
citizens we we tend to care more about
each other because we have shared
interests it’s in my interest for you to
be successful because our success
depends on all of us being successful
collaborative achievement this is coming
to first
to define themselves in different ways
and then in band to find new ways for
example I might come from whatever
background but when I came into band I’m
a trumpet player and I’m a trumpet
player next to this trumpet player and
this trumpet player in this trumpet
player and they may have other
characteristics but because our work is
all about this and our responsibilities
along this realm I’ve got to learn very
quickly to mitigate some of those
differences and in the process I do find
a sense of commonality and I do find a
sense of mutual shared values and then
the last one perhaps the most
significant in all its preparation for
for engaged citizenship I mentioned
those seven personal social
responsibility characteristics and I
really do believe those are the
fundamental core objectives of higher
education if we are truly committed to
those ideals if we are truly committed
to achieving equity respect within the
broader community and has to happen
within the realm of higher education
higher education is not about knowledge
acquisition if I were interested solely
and learning something new I’d watch TED
Talks all day right I would I’d watch
Khan Academy I’d go to Coursera and edex
there’s lots of online resources for me
to learn stuff very quickly at my at my
own pace and my own timeline it’s not
the point the point of higher education
is to come together in a community to
discover those shared values and it is
my assertion believes that higher
education may be our last best hope to
prepare students for engage citizenship
in an increasingly diverse democracy
this is just one model that might help
us get there thank you for listening [Applause]
I love bringing people together and I
primary responsible here Boston
College’s to guide and direct and
achieve consensus community with the
Boston College marching men so given
that background and these expectations
that’s what become my life’s work and
music is the medium but I have a sense
that if it weren’t music I find some
other way to try to draw people together
and build a sense of community with that
said I like many of you have been
troubled deeply by what I perceived to
be lots of divisions on all sorts of
different directions within the broader
society today and I picked three themes
that I wanted to discuss with you today
three ways that we kind of bracket
people off or sometimes they self
segregate themselves in ways that we
might be able to break down some of
those silos to achieve consensus the
first is race the second one is defined
along gender and the third broad
category we would like to look at is the
divisions along religion so in trying to
make sense of all of those categories
and how we can sort of hang on to what’s
important to our identity but achieve
that consensus I looked for some common
threads and what I found in most of the
readings in interpreting is that most of
the people who are talking about these
issues are educated in some way or no
that is to say they’ve received in
education how is it possible that today
we still have all of these barriers that
are predicated upon race gender and
religion how have we not moved past that
you would think if we were designing an
education system from scratch one of the
core objectives would be to establish
the sense of equity so come to this sort
of inescapable question that is it
possible that our system of education
and higher education in particular is
actually unintentionally perpetuating
racism gender discrimination and
religious intolerance one of the initial
priorities that we discover when we’re
starting grade school is discernment
it’s a fundamental core building block
of how we learn we discover the
difference between right and wrong good
and bad hutton cold up down and so forth
and we’re rewarded for that what the
ability to identify differences is an
important Court
in how we learn as we go through school
we learn to establish that differences
or identify differences on more nuanced
lines and this is an actual phrase this
is some of you were way too young to
remember this but back in the day my
generation there was this it’s almost
become a meme now and Sesame Street they
would say one of these things is not
like the other one of these things just
doesn’t belong for an adult to look at
it and say it makes perfect sense
there’s three red hats in one super hat
that’s the one that’s the outlier this
one doesn’t belong to a kid
they don’t necessarily they’re not
necessarily able to distinguish yet what
are in em and objects that doesn’t
belong in animate objects like people or
and most of the like we just were
awarded and rewarded by our ability to
pick out the thing that doesn’t belong
and that’s perpetuated again that’s the
thing single out the thing that doesn’t
belong identify thing doesn’t belong on
standardized test you did well enough to
just score high you go to a good college
so as you go through middle school in
high school we have this grappling
ability with like these things that
don’t belong and we’re trying to find
our self our sense of purpose like where
do I belong because as much as we all
want to have our own individual
identities most of us kind of align in
certain categories that can be described
by others we’re a tribal species nobody
really wants to be the outlier that
everybody else ignores we want to be
inclusive we want to be part of
something bigger than ourselves Harvard
University the roots of higher education
in the United States founded in 1636 if
you were to look inside Harvard
University you would find some
interesting characteristics of the
students at 17th century number one
they’re white number two they’re male
number three more likely than not
they’re Puritan so even in the roots of
a system of higher education
we have restrictions based on race
gender and religion
here it is in 2018 382 years later and
we still have institutions of higher
education whose missions are
specifically to serve students of a
specific race gender religion and
there’s all sorts of data out there in
there right that say there are benefits
to an inclusive environment that’s true
and you may even know if somebody says
listen I attended one of those schools
aren’t great that’s probably true as
well that was important but the problem
is we don’t always achieve equity um
students at a critical time in the form
of development and even for the schools
that try to serve all students equally
we have clubs and organizations that are
largely aligned many of them along race
gender and religion as well
now that’s beneficial in providing an
environment for students at a critical
transition their lives many of them
living at home away from home for the
first time trying to find them their
sense of self where they belong their
sense of identity it’s critically
important we have that environment so
they can feel that they’re a part of
something greater than themselves and
it’s also critically important that we
maintain that cultural identity and that
we study our past learn from it advance
it and use it for advocacy if those
needs aren’t being addressed but the
problem is in some cases for some
students they become so deeply and
narrowly drawn into these categories
well by your own choice
or maybe they’re coerced into order they
feel pressured but that you begin to
more narrowly define themselves those
characteristics and that’s dangerous
because in those cases they aren’t able
to see many of the commonalities that
exist with other students it’s not a lot
of supervision that goes that as well so
as students if they do become mired down
and pull down it’s what a good friend
Admiral Ackbar might call a trap for
those students they aren’t able to
interact and engage within the broader
university community and is not
necessarily a mechanism in place to do
that so think about it when we talk
about diversity in our college campus
we’re talking about the admission
statistics the profile of students who
are attending the institution and you
could picture an administrator at a
college university looking out from an
ivory tower window and surveying the
landscape of universities saying look at
this amazing diversity I mean we have
clubs for everyone and on one hand
that’s great but who is coordinating the
efforts of those clubs that’s like
hiring a contractor to build your home
he shows up with a dump truck and the
unload cement and beams and girders and
nails and hammers and windows and he
actually don’t I don’t know we’re not
quite satisfied yet
like all the important pieces are here I
get it these I need all these pieces
they’re super valuable but you haven’t
connected
anything you haven’t built anything and
that isn’t necessarily yet a core
objective of higher education and that’s
really the critical distinction that we
I think we as a society but particularly
on higher education need to address to
advance our students and create a
brighter future for them so how do we do
that there’s two core themes in
education one is dissonance one is
complexity dissonance just like in music
is the sort of unsettled feeling that
moves people from one place to another
we seek a resolution we grapple is
something difficult if it’s a new
concept we we struggle with for a while
and then and we make sense of it and
that creates complexity in our mind and
that complexity stays in our mind and it
fuels the next cycle of dissonance –
complexity dissonance complexity and
over time you achieve higher order
thinking and higher thinking manifests
itself in lots of different ways it
might be critical thinking skills it
might be math or science or logic skills
but it’s also the way we engage with
each other how we treat each other how
we respond to each other how we love
each other so let’s put our theory to
the test we administered a survey – 1882
marching band students at 20 colleges
universities all around the country and
we compared the survey results with six
thousand ninety five non band students
at those same schools and we evaluated
this is the survey that’s administered
to spend over three million students
since 2000 so it’s the most widely
implemented survey of its kind and we
found three interesting areas in
particular three recurring themes first
as engagements diversity the second is
reflective learning in the third is
personal social responsibility
engagement diversity this has to do with
the frequency with which students have
conversations with somebody of a
different race ethnicity culture of
their own or a different political
ideology religion etc and what we find
is that the mark to band students that
we surveyed to a statistically
significant degree indicated greater
engagement with diversity than the non
band students that’s important because
it’s the first ingredient our formula
that’s the dissonance
okay so let’s test it again if we have
business we should start to see some
complexity forming we see that in terms
of reflective learning
collective learning is the frequency
with which students tried to imagine
someone else’s perspective to understand
it better or they tried to reevaluate
their own position they evaluate the
strengths and weaknesses of what they
know or they tried to put it all
together and learn something new about a
subject or a topic they hadn’t thought
of before that’s reflective learning and
again we found the Marchman students to
a statistically significant degree
indicate a greater reflective learning
than the non band students those inner
of themself are important it’s not quite
done there’s a foundation a platform but
it’s just sort of so what or what what
happens from there from there we see
personal social responsibility that
manifests itself in an array of
characteristics the first is developing
a personal code of ethics and values
understanding yourself understanding
someone of a different racial ethnic
background learning effectively on your
own voting in local regional national
elections committing to community
affairs in developing a complex set of
community skills and then finally being
committed to solving complex real world
problems and this is the the crux of why
we send students to college today
regardless of your major your interest
these seven characteristics are the
fundamental outcomes of a higher
education that is to say that whether
you want to be an engineer or nurse or
scientist an architect whatever is that
you want to do you should be able to
embody these skills these attributes
these characteristics again we find to a
statistically significant degree the
Marchman students demonstrate or
indicated greater personal social
responsibility than the non marching
band students and that’s not even the
best of it for the statisticians among
us you’ll say well Kay this is
impressive but causation correlation we
don’t know this is what’s fueling all of
this and that’s correct we can’t say for
sure we we don’t know if the mantra mmmm
suspicion causes these results but we do
know there’s a strong correlation and we
took into account as many of the
pre-existing and coexisting
characteristics as we could to try and
piece it apart so we looked at the
students gender race first-generation
status in a CT SAT score we took into
account where the student was already
involved a learning community had
conducted volunteer work conducted
research with a faculty member
student was a varsity athlete whether
the student was in a fraternity or
sorority we even took into account the
students academic major an array of
characteristic try and piece it apart
and say okay what percentage of these or
what factors are contributing to this
end result these desirable
characteristics and what we found was of
all of those individual characteristics
the strongest predictor of students
indicating these personal social
responsibility skills was participation
in the college marching band that’s
important so it begs the obvious
question how does this happen well it’s
a pretty demanding ruling activity we
taught the first item I bring up is to
200 hours in a single semester that’s
significant because that’s as many hours
as a full course load so these students
are spending you can think about all the
courses you take out of the total number
of hours the band students is spending
that many hours together within the
Marchman environment the camp alone is
80 hours of rehearsal time the preseason
camp then the rehearsals and
performances that continue out
throughout the fall semester so it’s
highly demanding it’s out of class
engagement just like a lecture hall
setting it’s valuable you can learn a
lot but you’re not necessarily engaging
with each other right now we’re having a
discussion that’s really sort of
bilateral but it’s not across multiple
realms so the opportunity to have
students come out of their classrooms
and engage with each other freely
Crossing lots of cultural racial gender
ethnic lines religious lines and
discovering each other is incredibly
valuable its educationally purposeful
there are tasks and requirements at the
end of it that are occurring at a high
tolerance the precision for those of you
are musicians or for those who have done
anything with the kind of tight
tolerances of navigating 180 people in a
fixed space moving around making music
performing dance is difficult so it’s a
high intensity task and guess what it’s
also the most public of any on the
university campus
if you perform at the marching band more
of your peers and community members will
see you perform in that single day than
most of your other students will have
seen perform in the four years that
they’re at a university it’s also under
the supervision of carrying in a ten of
mentis my students would dispute this
however there are many other staff
members within our program who are
attendants the needs of students and
it’s more than just that rehearsal time
we spend together rehearsal ends were
walking back with students at Hall we
make ourselves available I have this
thing with our students and I invite you
as well if anybody
some thoughts falling to talk to
community have tea with me there’s no
better way to learn about someone else
than just sit down and move the
descriptors tractions and have a
conversation to try and understand when
I go and then this is a recurring theme
in the literature the blend of challenge
and support that is to say that it’s
difficult but it’s attainable the
support that staff structure matters we
need both of those in equal tandem it’s
easy to sort of settle into something
that’s that’s comfortable for you but
that’s not the purpose of higher
education the whole point of higher
education is to come outside your
comfort zone David was just talking
about that the whole purpose is to come
outside your comfort zone and the
Marchman provides that format okay so
more significantly and the last sort of
question I have is why does this matter
well it matters for a couple reasons
firstly if you have a student who’s
going to college he or she should be in
the mantra man that’s the first thing
okay and they’re welcome to join our
band as well but the second reason it
matters is we can use this as a template
this is not this is not original or new
in many ways this is just a sort of
construct of putting lots of pieces
together and just happens to be almost a
perfect storm of productivity in terms
of student development but this is a
formula that can work and be applied in
different settings but what you need to
have is shared values so it’s a
community with shared values despite all
of the differences an earned sense of
identity and this is a big one too we’re
born in this planet with certain set of
characteristics that we’re going to
remain with us most of us for the rest
of our lives give or take and there’s
some some fluidity but some but for the
most part if you’re still defining
yourself by those characteristics at 22
years of age when you graduate from
college there’s a problem like your
education system has failed you if
you’re still defining yourself solely by
birth characteristics at 22
you haven’t fulfilled your obligation
education hasn’t fulfilled its
obligation to you the third is a sense
of community the sense of coming
together you have shared priorities
shared resources a limited amount of
time to do something constructive when
we start to see as ourselves as global
citizens we we tend to care more about
each other because we have shared
interests it’s in my interest for you to
be successful because our success
depends on all of us being successful
collaborative achievement this is coming
to first
to define themselves in different ways
and then in band to find new ways for
example I might come from whatever
background but when I came into band I’m
a trumpet player and I’m a trumpet
player next to this trumpet player and
this trumpet player in this trumpet
player and they may have other
characteristics but because our work is
all about this and our responsibilities
along this realm I’ve got to learn very
quickly to mitigate some of those
differences and in the process I do find
a sense of commonality and I do find a
sense of mutual shared values and then
the last one perhaps the most
significant in all its preparation for
for engaged citizenship I mentioned
those seven personal social
responsibility characteristics and I
really do believe those are the
fundamental core objectives of higher
education if we are truly committed to
those ideals if we are truly committed
to achieving equity respect within the
broader community and has to happen
within the realm of higher education
higher education is not about knowledge
acquisition if I were interested solely
and learning something new I’d watch TED
Talks all day right I would I’d watch
Khan Academy I’d go to Coursera and edex
there’s lots of online resources for me
to learn stuff very quickly at my at my
own pace and my own timeline it’s not
the point the point of higher education
is to come together in a community to
discover those shared values and it is
my assertion believes that higher
education may be our last best hope to
prepare students for engage citizenship
in an increasingly diverse democracy
this is just one model that might help
us get there thank you for listening [Applause]
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