Celebrating 125 Years B
irthdays are common; everybody has one! But few of us have the opportunity to participate in the 125th birthday of anyone or anything. And we are all fortunate to have participated in the year-long 125th birthday party we threw for Gonzaga University this year. Gonzaga seeks to surround its students with a talented and dedicated faculty, with staff members who seek work at Gonzaga because they believe in our Mission, with an educational experience that transcends the classroom and blends curriculum, student life and campus ministry into a holistic experience, and with a community of supporters who give generously to make this experience possible for you. We have also celebrated this, our birthday year, by connecting Gonzaga to the larger world, through the presence on our campus of national and international luminaries. Individuals such as these not only provide hope for all of us, but they embody and demonstrate the importance of life-long learning and the truth that one individual can indeed change the world. We are convinced that you, our graduates, are individually and collectively what Jesuit education intentionally desires of itself: persons who are not just the sum total of their skills and abilities, but people with values and the courage to live out those values. Our anniversary year made it easy to focus on our history and present reality, and the many significant contributions people (such as you!) have made to our institutional “DNA.� If Gonzaga has fulfilled its commitment, your experiences have made obvious that we are a community that cares for its members. While we question many things at Gonzaga, we have never wavered in our belief of the importance of your education, nor our determination to prepare you for the future before you: a future in which the knowledge, the values, the skills and the attitudes of mind and heart that you take away with you will be important and make a real difference in other people’s lives. Yearbooks are memory-holders; they serve as reminders of moments in our past that we might otherwise lose, but they are also markers in time that will, years from now, help us all to understand who we were and who we have become. May your time at Gonzaga and may this historic year of 2012-2013 always be a special part of who you are. May God continue to bless you, and may the Holy Spirit always be with you.
Thayne M. McCulloh, D.Phil. President
Historic photos courtesy of Gonzaga University Archives