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New York Times op-ed columnist and author David Brooks will deliver the keynote address at the 12th Annual First Year Academic Convocation on Thursday, Sept. 10, an event that marks the arrival of the Class of 2019.
Brooks’ 7 p.m. speech will follow “First Flight,” the procession of freshmen to Conte Forum from Linden Lane, where members of the University’s Jesuit community, faculty and administration offer a blessing and challenge BC’s newest students to answer the call of Society of Jesus founder St. Ignatius of Loyola to “set the world aflame.”
Rev. Joseph Marchese, director of the Office of the First Year Experience, said the annual tradition – replete with torches and a fire pit – offers a special introduction to the University and its Jesuit, Catholic intellectual tradition.
“I still feel a great deal of emotion as I see students begin the procession towards the burning cauldron,” said Fr. Marchese, who will step down from his position this year. “I feel I am part of a history of education in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition that informed me as an undergraduate and that is very much alive here in the 21st century at Boston College.”
Brooks’ most recent book, The Road to Character, was selected as the book all incoming freshmen are given at summer orientation sessions and asked to read. Books like The Road to Character are selected to unite new students in conversation, welcome them to their academic studies and initiate their growth as men and women for others, Fr. Marchese said.
The Road to Character focuses on people who lead lives with humility and moral depth. Brooks explores how some of the great men and women in history have struck a balance between attaining material success and living by core virtues – such as kindness, bravery, honesty and faithfulness.
“I like this book because [Brooks] delineates two conceptions of human living today that are in many ways in tension with each other,” said Fr. Marchese. “This tension is complicated by a lack of faith, not only in God, but in many of the voices attempting to speak about character. Brooks, in both his personal journey through creating this book and in the lives he presents to us, helps us to explore that and understand why education within the humanities is vital to the education of young men and women today.”
Brooks, who appears regularly on the PBS “News Hour” and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” has said he undertook the book, in part, because he saw something in others that he didn’t see often enough in himself.
“About once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light,” Brooks has written in a note about the book. “These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. You often catch them looking after other people, and as they do so their laugh is easy and musical, their spirit is infused with gratitude. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all.”
Today’s technology-driven society, he added, has lost touch with these types of persons – and the lessons they can teach.
“We live in a culture that focuses on external success,” he wrote. “We live in a fast, distracted culture. We’ve lost some of the vocabulary other generations had to describe the inner confrontation with weakness that produces good character. I am hoping this book can help people better understand their own inner lives, their own moral adventures and their own roads to character.”
Brooks follows a line-up of prominent authors who have addressed First Year Convocation, including President Barack Obama – then a US senator – 2008 Republican presidential candidate US Sen. John McCain, National Book Award-winning novelist Colum McCann and best-selling novelist Ann Patchett.
For more information about First Year Academic Convocation, see www.bc.edu/offices/fye/conversations.html.