Spring 2008 Initiation Ceremony

Remarks by Dr. Veronica Makowsky
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education & Regional Campus Administration

February 28, 2008

Congratulations! The freshman year can be difficult at worst and challenging at best, and you have succeeded! I am very proud of you, and I know your family and friends are even more proud than I am.

To prepare for these remarks, I wanted to know more about Alpha Lambda Delta, so I went to the website and read about the history. One snippet on the Alpha Lambda Delta site got me hooked, and I kept thinking about it.

Back in 1924, according to the website, “At the first meeting of the chapter, Florence Finn, president of the society, presented a passage from Plato’s Republic in which Socrates asks the question, “Will they hold torches and pass them to one another...?”.  I wanted to know why Florence Finn had chosen that particular passage from all of literature and philosophy to quote on the auspicious occasion of the society’s first meeting. I could find nothing more about Florence Finn herself by Googling, so I was left to my own devices and needed to consider carefully the few clues the website provides.

The question that your first President quoted back in 1924 comes from The Republic by Plato, which some of you have already read and studied. The Republic is Plato’s attempt to describe the ideal state. It contains the famous parable of the cave in which people who always lived in a cave thought the shadows that they saw were the reality from the outside, not the actual objects that produced the shadow, and they were very resistant to accepting the truth. In other words, Plato pointing out how we too often blindly follow custom because it makes us more comfortable; it seems better, initially anyway, to stay in the dark, so we resist truth-tellers and either push them away or give them a hard time.

The main character in Plato’s Republic is Socrates, who was Plato’s teacher. Socrates was a truth-teller, one who points out that shadows are illusions, not the reality behind the illusions. Socrates was not universally loved for his habit of trying to make people think for themselves and see reality. In particular, he was accused of corrupting the morals of young people when he helped them discover truths that the state of Athens would prefer that they did not recognize. In fact, Socrates made the Athenian leadership so uncomfortable that he was condemned to drink the poison hemlock as a form of execution.

 I am sure that many of you have heard the phrase, “the Socratic method” as applied to teaching, a term that derives from Socrates’ persistence in asking young people a series of hard questions which could lead them to discover truths. This is roughly the method some of your teachers follow when they don’t lecture but instead ask a series of questions to try to get you to discover the main point for yourselves.

You have all heard the famous maxim, “Know thyself,” and Socrates is the source. He believed that we are all capable of recognizing the truth if we are willing to step beyond the comfort zone of our illusions and identify our biases. Socrates felt that the best teachers helped their pupils to know themselves by the kinds of questioning we now call the Socratic method.

Thus far, then, we can speculate that you’re the first President of Alpha Lambda Delta wanted you members to be good citizens who were capable of founding an ideal republic. She may have wanted to form these good citizens by having young people like you taught by outstanding teachers who sometimes made students uncomfortable by asking questions that forced them to look for truth within themselves by confronting their own prejudices, to “Know thyself.”

Florence Finn, though, selected a specific line from Plato’s Republic, and from what I have just explained about Socrates, I think that it is very appropriate that she chose a question, not a statement: “Will they hold torches and pass them to one another?”  Actually, of course, this is two questions, not one.

The first question is: “Will they hold a torch?” A torch signifies both light and heat. We need the light, just as the people in Plato’s cave needed sunlight, in order to see the truth. The heat from the torch indicates the passion, the emotional fervor that is needed to persist in the quest for the truth. To know yourself you need light and heat, reason and emotion.  

Notice also that the question is not: Will they have a torch, but whether they will hold one, pointing to the need for tenacity and resilience in truth-seeking and how difficult it is to keep confronting the uncomfortable things we find out when we know ourselves.

The second question, though, is “will they pass them [the torches] to one another?” This query indicates a duty that goes beyond the self to awakening a passion for truth in others and to consider the future as well as the present moment, much as Socrates did himself. He was not content to merely know himself in the moment but wanted to help his pupils to know themselves and create a better future, the one Plato, Socrates’ pupil, sought by writing The Republic.

Now, neither I nor Florence Finn would want you to meet Socrates’ tragic end in your search for truth, but your first President clearly picked a quotation that is particularly applicable to the members of Alpha Lambda Delta. 

You are excellent students who have profited from some thought-provoking teachers who have made you discover truths for yourselves. I hope that you will continue to take courses from professors like that. I don’t want you to stop in your comfort zones, but pursue questions until you find the answers, no matter how difficult the quest or dispiriting the answers. Try something new and challenging that take you beyond your comfort zone: do undergraduate research, study abroad, take a class that will challenge you. Leave UConn a different and better person, a wiser, not just an older version of the person who entered as a freshman.

But, with Florence Finn, I am asking you to look beyond yourselves to what you can do for others. Look at all the programs we have here at UConn for peer mentoring in which you can help your fellow students. Check out community outreach programs that will provide you opportunities to help others beyond this campus. Consider some of our study abroad programs that are actually designed as international service learning.

So while I congratulate you heartily today, I join Florence Finn in pointing out an uncomfortable truth. With privilege comes responsibility. While you have earned the privilege of membership in Alpha Lambda Delta, you should recognize that this privilege comes with the responsibility of giving back to your communities, whether on or beyond the campus. I want you to be able to answer the question question, “Will they hold torches and pass them to one another?” with a resounding “Yes!”

Thank you and Congratulations!