maroonmusings BY D R . DAV I D TAY LOR Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Pirates “Arrr” Educational: The Three Rs of an Academic Community
to getting to know you. Join an athletic team, a student organization, or a choir, and make new friends. Take time to turn your acquaintances into trusted friendships. Each person you get to know can help you in your life. Each can help you grow. Each can answer questions for you or be a resource for things you may need. Tell them when things make you happy and life is going well. Lean on them when you need them in times of stress or discomfort. These relationships will keep you engaged in our academic community, and will be more rewarding as time passes. REWARDS: We all love rewards, and some of our rewards in life come for free. It is not the free rewards or chance rewards that I want to talk about. For me, the rewards that are earned are the ones worth
“The rewards that are earned are the ones worth working for.”
Dr. David Taylor delivers the Opening Convocation Address on Aug. 28 in the C. Homer Bast Center.
Dr. David Taylor, assistant professor of mathematics, cleverly incorporated a bit of pirate speak into his 2012 Opening Convocation Address — and many words of wisdom. The following is an excerpt of his address, directed at the incoming freshman class.
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n honor of the International Talk Like a Pirate Day on Sept. 19, I thought we could talk about how pirates can be educational. What single word comes to mind from common pirate speak? “Arrr.” I want to talk to you about three Rs that are romanticized in popular pirate culture: relationships, rewards, and responsibility — three Rs that will serve as the basis for your time here in our academic community. RELATIONSHIPS: Get to know your professors; they look forward
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working for. You are here to learn. You are here to earn your reward for your studies here at the college — your degree. Go to class. Read your books. Engage in discussion. Each of these activities will be rewarding to you and provide you with the knowledge, background and skills necessary to succeed here. Do your homework. Study for tests. Proofread your papers. Use your time here to earn a good grade in your classes. Let those “A’s” be your reward for your dutiful classwork. After your four years, you will have earned your diploma, a reward itself, but the bigger reward you will have earned is your liberal arts education. We are about freedom with purpose. Freedom from “reliance upon received opinion.” Freedom from “entrapment within the conventions of our present place and time.” Freedom from “isolation within ourselves” and from “purposelessness.” Your reward, your liberal arts edu-
cation, will train your skills of “critical thought, sound research, and informed and reasoned debate” to allow you to form and support your own opinions. Your reward will give you a wider perspective that will let you comprehend our own legacies, the breadth of human history and the variety of human cultures. Your reward will deliver you into a world community of learners and sharers. A world of discovery and collaboration. With this reward comes the responsibility to continue the lessons of freedom with purpose throughout your lives. RESPONSIBILITIES: Of the three Rs, this is the most important. As you grow older, you naturally take on more responsibilities and have people and tasks that depend on you. Finishing a specific paper, organizing a campus event for your club, or meeting a friend for dinner are all responsibilities. But I want to talk about the larger responsibilities over the next few years. Namely, be responsible to yourself and to your professors. Take charge of your own learning. Keep yourself occupied. Ask for help when you need it. Do your homework. (If you think your professors give you homework because we love assigning, collecting and grading homework, become a teacher yourself and you will soon see that is simply not true.) Offer answers to questions that your instructors pose. Communicate with your professors. Take all of this advice together and remember to be responsible in your relationships with yourself and your professors. Let me mention one more “R” that is important to all of us: Roanoke. May your four years here be filled with friendships, fun, and, yes, finals. May your four years be filled with moments of greatness and memories that long last. May those four years also be filled with responsibilities, relationships, rewards, and many more Rs that find themselves within you. Welcome to Roanoke College. RC Roanoke College Magazine