 Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Christine Siegel, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Before we get started with the program, please turn off all electronic devices as a courtesy to all in attendance today. President Nemek, esteemed members of the faculty, staff, and university administrators, students, and most especially, members of the Class of 2021. Welcome to the 15th annual Fall First Year Academic Gathering. Please remain standing for the invocation, which will be offered by the Director of Campus Ministry, Reverend Mark Scalise of the Society of Jesus, and remain standing for the singing of the National Anthem and Fairfield Alma Mater by members of the University Glee Club under the direction of Carol Ann Maxwell Conductor, accompanied by Beth Palmer. Let us pray. Good and gracious God, at the dawn of all things, your spirit of creation breathed order and beauty out of the watery chaos. Your spirit of wisdom taught our holy ancestors to discern your fingertips in the wonders of nature and inspired the prophets to demand justice for the poor and the oppressed. In the fullness of time, your word made flesh gave us an example of self-giving love that unleashes your life-giving spirit and renews the face of the earth. Today, we gather together the Class of 2021 as its members begin their academic careers at Fairfield. During their four years here, may the chaos of uncertainty and fear of the unknown be transformed into blessed order, self-confidence, and hope. May they come to cherish the life of the mind. May they find beauty in clear and forceful arguments and in critical thinking. May they delight in discovering you in the workings of the natural world. May they channel their creative energies into works of music and art and writing and filmmaking. May they discover a passion for justice through their discovery of history and the social sciences and work to make life better for their sisters and brothers at home and around the world. May they stretch their hearts and minds and grow into loving persons who are fully alive and in so doing set the world aflame and give you glory. We ask you these things in your good and holy name. Amen. Thank you, Father Scalise. Thank you, Dr. Maxwell and Ms. Palmer. We gather here today to renew the university, welcome our members, and celebrate new beginnings. Please be seated, sorry. For the Class of 2021, this is an important time in your life and you have chosen well to join the Fairfield University community. As a Jesuit institution, we are committed to educating the whole person, cura personalis, the mind, the body, and spirit. You will have the opportunity to work with amazing faculty, delving into new ways of thinking, developing new ideas, beginning the process of discerning who you will become. You will learn from and with faculty, students, and staff, both in and outside the classroom. New students joining us will discover that we are a warm and welcoming community. Returning students will help make it so, especially as they take up new positions of leadership in the many on-campus clubs and organizations that give vibrancy to our common life. I encourage you to move outside of your comfort zone. Try new experiences. Join a club, a team, or a service organization. All of your experiences, both in and out of the classroom, are part of your education and help you to become men and women in the service of others. Over the next months and years, you will discover that learning takes place not only on campus, but in Fairfield, Bridgeport, New York City, Florence, Madrid, Managua. The entire world is your learning laboratory and within reach, rating to be discovered. Seize these opportunities. Welcome to Fairfield. I am now pleased to invite Karen Pellegrino, Dean of Enrollment, to present the Class of 2021 to the President of Fairfield University, Mark Nemek. On behalf of the Office of Undergraduate Admission, we welcome you to Fairfield University. President Nemek, the Admission Office has been privileged to work with these young men and women throughout the admission process. I am pleased to present them for matriculation into Fairfield University as members of the Class of 2021. I entrust them to your care for the next four years. Thank you, Ms. Pellegrino. As we gather here today to welcome the Class of 2021 to Fairfield, we do so with great respect for the exceptional legacy of your predecessors, great appreciation for the fact that you have chosen to join this community, and great anticipation for all you will bring to the university. On a personal note, I am also a first year and look forward to beginning our respective journeys together. On this journey, I trust you will find quickly, as I already have, that this is a unique institution, animated by exceptional scholarship and academic rigor while embracing the Ignatian obligation to nurture and encourage persons of strong character and true integrity. Our history here is remarkable and our dual emphasis on excellence in all things, coupled with an overarching mission to form men and women for others, positions us going forward to be the model of the modern Jesuit Catholic University. In joining Fairfield, you are partaking in a long-established, time-trusted tradition, which we trust will equip you for a lifetime of learning through an integrated approach which recognizes the importance of cura personalis and seeks to develop your mind, your body, and your spirit. This approach is not only holistic, but also unbounded for all of your experiences, both in and outside of the classroom, a part of your education, as they will offer the opportunity for rigorous inquiry and discernment. With this in mind, I encourage you to push yourself and push your peers to be your best and take advantage of all this institution has to offer. Welcome to Fairfield. We are thrilled to have you as part of our family. Thank you, President Nemeck. I am now pleased to welcome Cara Gibbons, President of the Fairfield University Student Association to offer her welcome to the class of 2021 and to lead the class in the recitation of the University Honor Code. Hi, everyone. My name is Cara Gibbons, and I am the Fairfield University Student Association FUSA President. I would like to personally welcome you, the class of 2021, to Fairfield University, the place where you are so incredibly lucky to call home for the next four years. You are just beginning this new and exciting journey during which you will make the choices and meet the people who will change your life beyond your time at Fairfield. Congrats. You survived your first day of class as a college student. I'm sure you notice by now that you are no longer sitting in class for eight hours a day or are surrounded by familiar faces that you grew up with. You are immersed in a completely new environment academically and socially, but it is important to keep in mind that you all have unique upbringings, qualities, talents, and stories to share. While this may seem daunting, it is a truly meaningful experience and I challenge you all to take every opportunity you have to learn from each other and grow together during the next four years. Sitting in your seats in the fall of 2014, I remember thinking, wow, I have four whole years here. How lucky am I? I thought I had all the time in the world. Today, I completed my last first day at college and boy, did those three years fly by. I wish more than anything that I could be sitting in your seat today. With that being said, I strongly encourage you to get out there and make every day count to really make your market fair for university in your own special way. There are countless ways to get involved on campus and the resources to help make your time at Fairfield the most fulfilling and successful, it can be our boundless. Professors really do want to get to know their students, so don't be shy. Take advantage of our close-knit community and go to office hours to introduce yourself. If you feel like you are really missing sports in your life post high school, intramural and club sports are so much fun and a great way to stay competitive and active. If you sing in the shower and want to take your hidden talent center stage or really already know you're the real ZL, go out and join the Glee Club. I've learned that there is really something for everyone here and if we don't have it, you can create it. Whatever avenue is right for you, you will build relationships with many different people. Your circle will evolve and expand, but most importantly, it will allow you to enhance your individual, perspectives, mindsets and experiences. This is not something to overlook or take lightly. Each and every one of you has so much to offer and hold the power to really make a difference amongst your peers. As you all know, going to college is a huge adjustment and while I can't promise it will be easy, I can promise you that it will be rewarding and worthwhile experience of all. This summer, I was asked to read All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fogum. At first, I was skeptical of the title because if that was true, why are we all paying astronomical amounts of dollars to attend college? But after reading the book, I was able to grasp the deeper meaning. In kindergarten, we learn the overarching rules and morals of life is in the most basic sense. And as we age, we begin to understand what originally appeared as simple guidelines in a more complex and compelling manner. Fogum states, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. This sediment really stuck with me. Class of 2021, I know you do not know each other yet, but I do know you have equally unique and significant attributes. By embarking on this experience as one unit and sticking together throughout it, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. Over the next four years, challenge yourselves to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Step out of your everyday norm and find out what your true passions are. Surround yourselves with those who bring out the best in you. Challenge you. Think about how you want to fill your day on campus. And of course, how you want to spend them after Fairfield. While navigating the trials and tribulations at Fairfield over these next four years, remember class of 2021. You have all made a conscious decision to be a part of something bigger than yourselves. Not only are you a member of the class of 2021, but the entire Fairfield University community. With that being said, remember to raise each other up throughout these next four years and make every moment count. So with that being said, will the members of the class of 2021 please stand and join me in reciting the university honor code, which can be found on the back of the program. I understand that any violation of academic integrity wounds the entire community and undermines the trust upon with the discovery and communication of knowledge depends. Therefore, as a member of the Fairfield University community, I hereby pledge to uphold and maintain these standards of economic honesty and integrity. Thank you class of 2021 and welcome to Fairfield. Thank you, Kara. It is now my privilege to introduce our academic gathering speaker. Here at Fairfield, we are committed to fostering a strong sense of community. We're learning establishes the foundation for your future, friendships are profound and experiences are long lasting. Our undergraduate and graduate students will become your friends and your support system and our rich academic community provides the opportunity to turn your interests into careers that will serve others. As you begin your time at Fairfield, we are pleased that Dr. Paul Lakeland, Professor of Religious Studies and that Aloysius P. Kelly, Chair of Catholic Studies will further explore our commitment to you. Dr. Lakeland did his first undergraduate degree in England in philosophy and a second at Oxford University in English language and literature. After completing a Bachelor of Divinity degree at London University, he came to the US to pursue doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, completing a dissertation on 19th century German philosopher D. G. W. F. Heigl. He took up a position at Fairfield in 1981 and has served terms as Chair of the Religious Studies Department and as Director of the Honors Program. Currently, he holds the Aloysius P. Kelly S. J. Chair of Catholic Studies and is the founding director of Fairfield Center for Catholic Studies. In 2005, he was named the Alpha Sigma Nu Teacher of the Year and in 2013 was introduced as an honorary member into the National Honor Society, Phi Beta Kappa. As he said at the time, Phi Beta Kappa is a wonderful organization devoted to promoting excellence in the liberal arts. This is something to which I too have been committed throughout my life and I am honored to be invited into membership. This is one of the high points of my academic career. The author of 10 books and editor of two, his most recent work is The Wounded Angel, Fiction and the Religious Imagination. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Lakeland. Thank you all. I think I probably speak for my, I know I speak for all my colleagues on the faculty when I tell you that I am so happy to see you all here today. It's only a few months since we said goodbye to the class of 2017 who left an indelible mark on Fairfield. And now we welcome you, you who will in your turn change the face of Fairfield in your own way. You will change it and as you do so, you will be changed yourselves. You see, you're entering into a four year long conversation with the whole community and the close friends you will make with your teachers and mentors and yes with your cells. In choosing to come to Fairfield, you have not just selected a lovely campus, a friendly community, and a great location for internships. You have entered a school that stands in a particular tradition that has a set of unwavering convictions about the purpose of education, the nature of the good life and the responsibility that we all have as citizens of the world. Our world is full of joy and full of pain. Our nation today is torn by hatred and yet somehow refreshed by love and hope for an end to all that damages and hurts our earthly home. In the first instance, we are all here to learn, to develop intellectual and professional skills, to enlarge our imaginations and expand our sense of what is possible. But what is all this for if it is not to ally ourselves with the love and hope that is the only viable future for each of us individually and for the whole human race together? To what end do we learn if not to heal our world? To what end do we acquire knowledge if not to transmute it into true wisdom? You are all different. Over the next four years, you will refine that difference while you will also grow closer together. You will graduate as accountants and engineers, historians and nurses, philosophers and chemists. But more important than these vocational differences, you will enter the next stage of your lives as Fairfield graduates. Here is the unity behind the difference, and this is what I want to talk about here for a few minutes. It is grounded in the twin Jesuit values of intellect and compassion, or in the language I'm using here today in the liberal arts and in the practice of mercy. This is what makes a Fairfield graduate, a blend of knowledge and virtue of intellect and compassion, of a sophisticated critical grasp of the world in which we live and a firm sense of who we are and how we take up the lifelong task of living meaningfully in this world. St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, makes this quite clear in one of the central moments of the handbook known as the spiritual exercises. He invites you to stand on a high place and look down upon the world to see the good and the evil going on all over the world and all the people busy about it, some on the side of light and some on the side of darkness. He asks you to take a long, slow, thorough look at the world as a place in which the nourishment of all that is truly human struggles against the forces that would belittle the truly human, make us narrower and much less than we are meant to be. And then he invites you to put yourself into the picture. Where will you stand in the world as you have seen it laid out before you? What is your place? On which side will you struggle and for what? This meditation on the two standards as Ignatius calls it is intended by him as a key point in the spiritual exercises. But it has always also seemed to me to contain the two central insights of the genius of Jesuit education. Know the world and know yourself. In the end, the value of a Fairfield education is demonstrated in the character of our graduates, in who they are and how they live meaningfully in the world. But you don't get to that point without the hard work of learning about the world, at first at least in the classroom. The first moment of St. Ignatius' meditation is really a call to study in order to perceive the true nature of the world. Yes, of course, a lot of this is book learning and the classroom only carries us so far. But what we learn there is an indispensable foundation for what follows. So the fact that Jesuit education or the preferred Jesuit term formation is about becoming more and more fully the persons we are meant to be makes it more important, not less, that we pay attention to this world. Of course, all that we study in school contributes to that understanding, but it is the responsibility of the liberal arts in particular to focus on helping us grasp what it is to be a human being in this world. This is why it is one of the marks of a Fairfield education that we, all of us, nurses and engineers and accountants and physicists are grounded in the liberal arts. Here we acquire the intellectual skills we need. We become disciplined readers and thinkers who do not take short cuts and can distinguish between truth and fake news. Math and languages grow our brains in interesting ways. Philosophy deepens our capacity to reflect. History, the study of religion and the social sciences help us to grasp our global social responsibility and literature and the arts stretch our imaginations. As your Fairfield career unfolds and you become proficient in one field of inquiry, if you become chemists or painters, if you specialize in communications or marketing, whatever professional direction you move in, the knowledge of the world that the liberal arts leads us into is more, not less important. The liberal arts liberate us from willful blindness or sheer ignorance. They make us free. As the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum puts it, and I'm quoting her here, an education is truly fitted for freedom only if it is such as to produce free citizens. Citizens who are free not because of wealth or birth, but because they can call their minds their own. And a quote, freedom of thought and expression are hallmarks of a liberal education, no less so when it takes place in a Jesuit and Catholic university. There is a difference, however, in being educated at a Jesuit and Catholic university. And I want to suggest to you that it has to do with a particular understanding of mercy. This is what Ignatius was getting at in the second step of his two standards meditation, where the knowledge we have acquired has to be put to work in the world. Mercy helps us to see what to do with our critical and sophisticated grasp of what our world is really like. To make this clear, I want to describe two kinds of mercy and then tell you a gospel story. Stay with me, it won't take long. So mercy can be two related but quite distinct things. First, mercy can mean withholding or somehow easing up on the punishment or suffering someone actually deserves. When a person is convicted of a crime and extenuating circumstances lead the judge to impose only a light sentence, this is mercy. And when you go easy on a friend who has deeply offended you, this is also the same kind of mercy. This is mercy as leniency. When we do something to alleviate the suffering of another person who has done no wrong and doesn't deserve the suffering he or she is undergoing, we are practicing mercy. This is another and perhaps more important understanding of mercy. This is mercy as healing and it works in surprising ways. So let's look for a moment at this second kind of mercy and what it entails with the help of a story. The biblical story of the Good Samaritan is one that I hope many of you know, one that Jesus told to help his followers answer the question, who is my neighbor? This man, this Samaritan is a stranger and an outcast, a heretic whom the good people of first century Judea despised, who comes to the aid of someone who has been robbed and left for dead. Respectable religious leaders have passed by on the other side, but the Samaritan who has no responsibility for this person goes out of his way to help, providing aid and finances to assure the other's recovery. The man left for dead does not deserve the suffering and the Samaritan has no responsibility to act to help him. The Samaritan acts in this compassionate way because, well, because this is the kind of person he is. He would have done the same for someone else and perhaps had done so many times before. So this single act of mercy displays not simply a merciful act, but the practice of someone who is consistently merciful. It shows one instance of how the virtue of mercy could be at work in healing the world. But the story has a deeper message. A great French philosopher of the 1930s, Simon V, explains that in the Samaritans act of mercy, a relationship is established between him and the one he helps. There is some kind of gift exchange going on because while it is obvious that the wounded man is restored to his life through the Samaritans intervention, it is less obvious, but still true, that the humanity of the provider is also enriched by this exchange. In the exchange between the one who needs help and the one who provides it, both gain and in a strange way, both are simultaneously the one in need and the one who meets that need. Both come away from this encounter nourished and strengthened psychically as well as physically. Both are more, not less than they were. Even if, as the story seems to imply, there is no ongoing relationship between the two. We need the attitude or virtue of mercy to accompany the deeper understanding of self and world that the liberal arts have led us into. But how do we acquire this virtue? Mere knowledge is not in itself virtue. No, we have to turn to the broader context of Fairfield University as a community that goes beyond the classroom walls, where our interactions with one another and the face we present to the wider world testify to the same instinct the Samaritan showed. Teaching and learning occur inside and outside the classroom. This is why it is so important for the culture of the university to match the values it proclaims. We should not be in the position of learning about the evils of racism in the classroom and then encountering racism within our Fairfield community still less expressing racist views ourselves. There's something wrong if we have come to understand how wealth and privilege carry enormous responsibility. But our university does not see how these convictions have consequences for the way we take up the challenges of the wider community or we ourselves fall into the same trap. I think we learned the lesson those of us who have been here long enough, the lesson that our students of 20 years ago proclaimed on a banner they waved in the face of university leadership. Practice the values you teach us to live by. Fairfield strives to be a deeply anti-racist community and one where we understand our responsibilities to the world beyond our gates. We hope and expect all the community to respect and absorb these commitments. The face of the needy one in front of us and which of us is not needy in some way is our entry into grasping the neediness of the world and accepting our responsibility for it. That is our responsibility for some of the world's neediness and our responsibility to reach out to that neediness knowing that when we do this, we become better persons ourselves. Maybe we even heal some of our own needs. As a Jesuit and Catholic university, Fairfield is called to model the kind of society in which we would all like to live. Fairfield is far from perfect. But we know that the direction in which we must move is towards recognizing the full humanity of all those around us as a step towards a life committed to a vision of global equality and universal human dignity. So the way we treat one another, the way we speak of one another, especially of those who are somehow different from us, is either a building block towards a better world or a vote for destruction. As Ignatius would say, you are either standing under the flag of the Lord or under that of Satan. Jesus chose a Samaritan to make the point that we can all learn from one another and especially from those we might be inclined not to take seriously. Transfer the lesson of the gift exchange to Fairfield today. The person of color has much to teach the possessor of white privilege. And sometimes the opposite is true. In the exchange between the two, perhaps understanding and yes, even love may begin to flourish. We are gay and straight here at Fairfield, black and brown and yellow and white, rich and poor, not always a distinction we make, but an important one, men and women. We have transgendered people in our community. We are Christians and Buddhists and Jews, Muslims, Hindus and people of no religion at all. About 50 of us are at Fairfield under former President Obama's DACA program for so-called dreamers, at least for now. Some of us are people suffering under various forms of addiction and some of us are ill physically or mentally. But as the story of the good Samaritan shows, the practice of mercy transcends all these differences. Modeling a just society in this way is even more important today because we're at a particularly challenging moment in our nation's history, one marked by extraordinary polarizations driven by a mixture of fear and even hatred, where religious, racial and political differences often lead to hate speech and violence. It may seem a little bit ridiculous to suggest that studying the liberal arts will help to heal our society, but a true grasp of our world's character requires factual knowledge, good analytical skills and sound judgment. Ignorance breeds fear and knowledge dispels it. I'm reminded of some of the words of the romantic poet Reiner Maria Rilke in a collection of his letters to a young poet where he wrote the following. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. So Mercy, as I have described it, requires the courage to be vulnerable, the kind of courage that carried Dorothy Day through a lifetime of engagement with the urban poor. If you read the piece we sent you that she wrote, you will know that day was no simple do-gooder. She saw the connections between desperate poverty and homelessness on the one hand and a society driven by greed on the other. You may find it shocking when she says, our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system. But I hope you see the wisdom of her conviction, and these are her words again, the greatest challenge of the day is how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us. I have suggested that our way at this stage of life here in the incubator that is a college education is to study hard so as to truly know the world and to practice the virtue of mercy towards one another, especially to the dragons in our lives. It's a simple equation, learning plus virtue equals wisdom. I want to end my words to you here today with some thoughts again from Dorothy Day. Day didn't invent the phrase, think globally, act locally, but she would certainly agree. Here is what she said, this is slightly longer but it's worth it, this is Dorothy Day. What we would like to do is change the world, make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of workers, the poor, of the destitute, the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words, we can to a certain extent change the world. We can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend. That's Dorothy Day. I think I can speak for all of us here at Fairfield welcoming you today into our academic community, our community of mercy, that this is our hope for you. Our world and our lives may be full of what appear to us as dragons. Maybe some of you are even already wondering about your professor or your roommate or your RA. Our national and global leaders certainly give most of us pause for thought. But a little more love and mercy can turn at least some of them into princesses. Thank you for listening. I would now like to introduce Adam Murphy to present the class gift. Dear class of 2021, first I would like to welcome you to Fairfield University. By choosing to attend this institution you have begun a four-year life-changing journey that will open your mind to new and powerful wisdom and will drive you closer to achieving your dreams. In your decision to attend Fairfield, where you will connect with your community, gain new experiences, possess great knowledge, inform lifelong friendships, you have already accepted a gift far greater than any object we can give you. The class of 2021 gift is a key chain resembling an owl and on the back is a Latin phrase, sapiencia es potencia, meaning wisdom is power. And on the back as well as a set of antlers. And I imagine that now many of you are thinking, what even is this? An owl with a phrase that hasn't been spoken in thousands of years? Really, why couldn't I get stag bucks? And yes, I hear you. But while that may seem like a more practical gift, hear me out. This owl has a meaning to it that stag bucks will never have. This owl is a symbol of the wisdom that you will gain through your Fairfield education. But this owl is not only a symbol of wisdom, as there are many ways that we can all individually relate to this beautiful bird. Maybe you'll discover that you too are nocturnal and you get your most work done at night. Or maybe over these next four years, you may develop into a person and a student who soars through their time at Fairfield, just like an owl soaring through the skies. Who knows, I just will have to wait and see. For those of you who are unable to join Dr. Lakeland and some of your fellow classmates a few weeks ago, we had some spectacular discussions during our webinar series about the importance of mercy and a liberal arts education. And I wanted to share with you this quote by Dr. Martha Nussbaum that Dr. Lakeland used. This tradition, talking about the liberal arts, is not just about the passive assimilation of facts and cultural traditions, but about challenging the mind to become active, competent, and thoughtfully critical in a complex world. This speaks clearly about the educational journey on which you are about to embark. I assure you, you will not find yourself simply taking notes or listening blankly to a professor in your courses here at Fairfield, and the NSLs around you can surely agree. Each and every class you take is going to make you think and is going to make you learn. The student you are now will not be the same student as is ones that sit in these chairs four years from now at graduation. You will all learn, as Dr. Nussbaum says, to be active and to think critically, characteristics that this world really needs, not just how to regurgitate answers on a test, but how to critically think, problem solve, and to grow. Your classes taken here will provide you with the wisdom that will thoroughly prepare you for your futures. And very importantly, I can also tell you this, if you take a second and look at the back of your owl, there's that set of antlers. And can anyone guess why? Because that's the mark of Fairfield. And if you look around, stags all over campus and all over the world are also showing off those antlers. And over the next four years and beyond, you too will begin to leave your mark wherever you go. What you take away from these next four years will prepare you to show off those antlers wherever you go next and to show you truly that you are able to soar just like that owl simply because you have shoes in Fairfield. Thank you all and go stags. Thank you, Adam. I would now like to invite the rector of the Fairfield Jesuit community, Reverend Michael Tunney of the Society of Jesus, to the podium to pronounce the benediction. Students, faculty, and friends, we pause in recognition of our presence before our God who is always with us. How fortunate that at Fairfield University, all of us, brand new first years, upper class students and veteran faculty learners alike can strengthen our capacities for critical thinking, for careful reading, for logical and persuasive writing, for articulate speech, and for stretching our moral imagination. Why? So that we too can grow like our Jesuit educated predecessors grew in wisdom, in character, authority and compassion for our world. Oh, God, right here on the cusp of Fairfield, class of 21's academic launch, hear our prayers as you look upon us and walk alongside us. You once filled Robert Bellarmine, our Jesuit University's patron saint with wisdom and goodness. Grant us too all that we pray for and all we desire to achieve. Oh God, may our thoughts, our words, our deeds always give you glory. Amen. Thank you, Father Tunney. Before we bring this academic gathering to a close, I wanna express thanks to the members of the Academic Gathering Committee and the staff of the offices of the Dean of Students and Director of Student Engagement for this inspiring academic gathering which celebrates the beginning of the intellectual, spiritual and cultural journey for the class of 2021 and the university community. This university-wide academic gathering is now officially concluded. Please remain in your seats until the platform party has recessed. Thank you.