Many of you know that I used to run track. Some of my most vivid memories from my days as an athlete in college are of people standing on the sidelines, watching the race and cheering as the runners went by. I remember being proud, proud that l had the ability and opportunity and the wherewithal to participate and exercise my talents.
At Cal State
Dominguez Hills, you and
I share that same special opportunity to exercise our talents and take part
in our campus community. Seizing that opportunity to take part is very much
on my mind these days at the beginning of a new academic year.
I know that not everybody is comfortable with that. Some people are shy because they’re afraid of not measuring up. I understand. I am reminded of my own experiences. There was a boy in my school that I wanted to be friends with. I had seen him on the playground, tossing the football, hitting the baseball. He was a good athlete and I wanted to know him, but I thought that he didn’t want to know me. Well, my mother took me aside. "Have you ever said anything to him about playing catch with you?" she asked. "Have you given him an opportunity to get to know you?"
I took her suggestion and you can guess what happened. When I finally stopped by his house, I found out he had wanted to play with me too but had been too shy to ask. We became good friends, teammates; and we still keep in touch.
I learned from
that to step forward because if you don’t take a risk, you can’t
win. And, in this adventure of higher learning, in our academic
community, it is especially important that we learn to reach out as colleagues
if we are to be successful.
At this most diverse public university in the West, we must advance together. I know we are proud of our diversity, but diversity by itself is not enough. We are better for it only if we allow our rich diversity — ages, races, cultures, faiths, philosophies, and politics - our menu of life experiences, our catalogue of expertise, personalities, and interests, to teach us. Only then can we learn and grow as students, faculty, and staff.
At the start of this year, as we convene our committees, our working groups, our advisory boards, I suggest we do two things at Dominguez Hills: I suggest we open our circle and ask more of you to join us. And, I suggest those of you who feel left out to please ask to be let in so that all of us together can build together and can make a difference together.
What if we do not reach out and extend our hand? What if we do not grasp the hand that is extended to us? What if we do not avail ourselves to learn from each other? What if we do not seize each opportunity to help teach each other?
"What if" is the subject of a fascinating book that I came across not long ago. The authors are historians who examined what might have happened if people had remained silent and chose not to step in when they did. The authors examined battles, wars, social movements and campaigns. They asked, what if we had not fought Nazism and fascism, slavery and Apartheid?
Let me ask you: What if we don’t fight cancer and AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease? What if we aren’t advocates for our children and our senior citizens? Where does that leave us, and what does that say about our society?
And, in the same way, where does it leave us, and what does it say about our university, if we choose to do nothing about the issues critical to us in education, about producing more and better teachers, and reducing class sizes, and opportunities for persons of color? What if we do nothing to build achievement? What if we do nothing through shared governance? What if we do nothing to learn from our diversity?
Look what happens when people strive. Look at the "Minorities in Biomedical Research Support" program. Look at "Bridges to the Baccalaureate" degree program. Look at the "Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research" [USTAR] program and the partnership between CSUDH Theatre Arts and Compton High School and their Visual Arts Performing Academy. These efforts to boost the number of minorities in research, medicine and the arts are successful because people cared to step forward and make a difference.
Look at our teacher preparation programs that reach out to students in our communities, like the Stuart Foundation program, or retrain industry professionals to make a difference in classrooms, like "Mastering Algebra Takes Heroes." And look at the community partnerships that help people in the communities we serve. All these different programs are successful because people stepped forward and said, "Let me." Programs and institutions are only as successful as the people that staff them and run them.
Every one can make a difference and every one must try. Have you ever wondered what might have happened if Rosa Parks had stayed standing? If Cesar Chavez had quit his fast when his stomach cramped? If John F. Kennedy had agreed not to run when the party elders told him it wasn’t his turn?
Greatness comes to people who dare to be great. Greatness comes to individuals who say, "Let me. I can do it." Greatness comes to institutions when the circle opens and says, "Please help. We need you."
This is our time. Every day brings opportunities to make a difference. You can step up in the classroom, in the laboratory, on the hardwood, on the playing field, and make a difference. I want to tell you that the tragedy is not in trying and falling short. The tragedy is not to try at all. You can stand on the sidelines, or you can join the race.
