Dr. 科罗纳多年度教育家演讲

Dr. Richard Coronado delivered a moving speech as the outgoing Educator of the Year at the 2012 Honors Banquet on April 25, 2012. 以下是他的演讲全文:

I have been asked to make a few comments on the enterprise of college teaching. I recently pulled out the press release and was reminded that I received this honor for “commitment to academic excellence and living out the principles of Catholic social thought.” I will say a few words about each of these points.

For me a key component of a commitment to academic excellence is to have high expectations of students. Expectations, however, don’t appear in a vacuum. They appear in community, for us, the community of a classroom.

上课需要时间, it takes time for people to get to know each other, 建立信任需要时间. It takes time to develop a real community of scholarship and learning where expectations of excellence can develop and be fulfilled.

As I tried to recall stories of academic excellence, 我一直在想我们在系里的谈话, Dr. 哈里斯和我，现在加入的是. 年轻的. We talk regularly in the department about how students are growing in their ability to use economic theory, 他们是如何变得强大的, 更成熟的思想家, 然后我们看到他们走向事业, 研究生院, 法学院和其他研究生工作. They have clearly been a part of the pursuit of excellence.

I thought of one particular student who wanted to do a Discovery Project comparing libertarian economics and Catholic social thought. The project took months and in the end he had written eleven or so versions of the paper before he presented it. 演讲非常精彩. 事实上，博士. White of the Theology Department still reminds me about the talk. This student also gave the talk at a meeting of the Missouri Valley Economics Association meetings in Memphis, 而不是学生论文, but with the faculty papers and it was well received. 后来他自告奋勇, 我开玩笑地希望, 下面的评论:“嗯, 现在我知道什么是卓越了. Not that I’ll ever do that again, but at least I know what it means.” He went on to graduate from KU law school and has a fine career in the law.

But, although we have other such stories, I was drawn back to a much different kind of story. It is the story of a student in one of the principles of economics classes. 她第一次考试得了F. I meet with everyone who gets a D or F on the first two tests and she said that she had expected the low grade. She didn’t understand the material well and had heard my tests were hard. 因此，我们制定了一些步骤, 花更多的时间在材料上, 做一些练习题, work out problems and see me along the way for help.

On the next test she earned a grade in the low 60s. Well, we kept meeting and working at it throughout the semester. 随着时间的推移, I could see the depth of her determination; her work showed that she was spending even more time with the material. 到第三次测试时, it was clear that she was giving it everything she had … and the test still did not make it to a C. To make a long and somewhat arduous story short, she did finally earn a C on the tests and she made it through the course. She could discuss the concepts of the course at a C level. 就像我以前那个更有才华的学生, this time it was I who learned what excellent work consists of.

直到今天，我仍被这种努力所鼓舞. And all this from someone who would never be invited to tonight’s banquet honoring academic excellence. I learned from her that excellence consists of a sustained unremitting effort to give it your best at all times, even in the face of what seems like overwhelming odds.

The same impulse to know and love that drives academic life also propels us in economics here at B.C. to study and teach the body of Catholic social thought. Early on in my tenure here, some students and I formed the Hunger Coalition. We adopted from the start Mother Teresa as the patron of the Hunger Coalition. 用她的话来说:

“You need a pure heart in order to be able to see and to touch others; to become the love and compassion of God today. Start with your own family; find the poor next to you. If you can find the human need in your own family, 你可以在隔壁找到它, 然后在城市的更远的地方. 你认识你的邻居吗? 你知道他们的痛苦吗? Maybe there is a blind man for whom you can read the newspaper. Maybe there is someone who needs you to shop for them in the market. Start with small things and do the small things with great love.

I appeal to you to come and find the poor right in your midst, next door, in your city. It is so easy to think of the poor outside your area and forget to see those nearby. Ask God for the grace to find the poor so you can help.

My prayer for you is that you be open to the grace of God and allow God to use you to be His love, 成为他在当今世界的怜悯.”

We are called to use our talents to build community across social lines and barriers. 最近, we are reminded by Pope Benedict of our vocation to share our talents with the poor of the world. 所有人类社区, 他告诉我们, must be filled with the spirit of gratuity – by this he means the free gift of self, especially in a world of exploding inequalities. We all share a vocation to help meet the urgent needs of the people of the world. In the economy of charity to which we are all called, in which we are called to give not only what we have, 但我们是谁, 我们必须努力发展我们的才能. 在我们现在的学生和老师的角色, we are called to the pursuit of excellence in education as we prepare to live our lives of family, 工人, 公民, 也是国际社会的一员.

谢谢您的关注.

里克Coronado