Citizens in the 21st Century: The Common Good | Monograph

CITIZENS IN THE 21ST CENTURY The Common Good

2014 Speaker Series | Mount Aloysius College

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From the Inaugural Address of President Thomas P. Foley

t Mt Aloysius, where we think the development of values has a place in the curriculum, we believe that education also has a role to play in the march to a more civil society.

Critical thinking, the ability to listen, to analyze, to form ideas and to communicate them—these are all skills fundamental to both education and democracy. And for many, Mt Aloysius is where we learn these skills, »» By providing a safe, respectful environment that allows for opinions to be shared

»» By creating an atmosphere where the holder of an opinion can feel safe »» By teaching critical thinking skills in classes as distinct as cross sectional anatomy and CLS, imaging principles and American History »» By encouraging the dispassionate consideration of complex issues »» By, in effect, giving students a nurturing environment to test their democratic skills.

Mt Aloysius College can be an incubator for democracy where

all the skills are taught, all the behaviors are modeled so that when students become “citizens,” they will have the tools needed to make democracy work. In the end, this notion of citizenship is a question of values, American values, where we listen respectfully, even while we wait for our turn to disagree with vigor.

And that too is part of the Mt Aloysius promise—to produce job-ready, community-ready, technology-ready citizens of the greatest experiment in democracy in the history of the planet.

“In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson smudged out a word and replaced it with the word “citizens.” For more than two centuries, historians wondered what word he had removed in favor of “citizens.” Just three years ago, using modern spectral imaging technology developed for military use, the Library of Congress revealed that the word he obliterated in his early text was “subjects.” Not subjects. Citizens. Not “tell me what to do,” but “let me participate”— perhaps the very essence of our American Revolution.”

Excerpt from President Foley’s Convocation Remarks

CITIZENS IN THE 21ST CENTURY The Common Good 2014 Speaker Series | Mount Aloysius College

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Fall Convocation President Foley introduced this year’s theme and described its origin and importance.

Judge David Klementik of the Somerset County Court of Common Pleas, launched this year’s Speaker Series on Citizenship in the 21st Century: The Common Good when he delivered the 2013 Fall Convocation address.

Constitution Day The 2013 Constitution Day celebration featured an address by Terry Wright, a longtime senior aide to Vice President Joseph Biden. His remarks were entitled, “Citizenship Extended-Public Service from the Nation to the Neighborhood.”

Mercy Week Sr. Marie Michele Donnelly, RSM, of the Religious Studies program at Gwynedd Mercy College and co-director of Mercy Spiritual Ministries presented two lectures on the theme, “The Common Good and our Spiritual Journey.”

MLK Day Address The 2014 MLK Day Address was delivered by Mr. Tony Ross, President & CEO of OIC of America, the national non-profit founded by Civil Rights legend the Rev. Dr. Leon Sullivan. In his remarks, Mr. Ross expanded on Dr. King’s notion of full-citizenship.

Moral Choices Lecture Sr. Mary Ann Dillon, PhD, past President of Mount Aloysius College, addressed this year’s theme of the common good and citizenship as interpreted through the long tradition of Catholic Social Teaching.

Spring Honors Lecture Former Irish Ambassador James A. Sharkey delivered “Citizenship in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective” in historic Alumni Hall. Ambassador Sharkey discussed his personal experiences wrought through a full career served in a number of ambassadorial posts around the world.

2014 Commencement Address Husband and wife David Shribman (Pulitzer Prize winner and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Executive Editor) and Cindy Skrzycki (former Washington Post reporter and senior lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh) delivered the Capstone Address to the yearlong theme of 21st Century Citizenship: the Common Good at the 2014 Commencement exercise.

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Mount Aloysius President Tom Foley Convocation Remarks, fall 2013

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ount Aloysius is fairly unique in the ranks of higher education institutions in that we choose a theme each year and try to coordinate orientation, our Connections curriculum, our speaker’s series and other events around that single idea. Our theme this year is “21st Century Citizenship: The Common Good.” The phrase presents us with at least three separate sub-themes—about the value of citizenship, about the idea of a common good, and about the special challenges of the times in which we live, the 21st century. I want to say just a few words about the connection of this theme to our larger purpose of education.

More than 20 centuries ago, Greek thinkers grappled with the first two of these ideas, citizenship and common good. They argued about the notion of a communal life in the polis, the Greek city-state, and about the conflicts inherent between the wants of the individual and the needs of the community.

Plato and Aristotle led the early debates, taken up in later centuries

by Christian theologians like Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin; by political theorists like Locke and Rousseau, and by early American practitioners like Ben Franklin and Paul Revere.

Perhaps the key architect of the American constitution, Thomas Jefferson, saw a direct link between

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education and citizenship, believing that for full citizenship, all our citizens had to be educated. He went further, opining that in addition to moral education, students should receive academic training, which Jefferson hoped, in the words of one biographer, “would prepare their critical reasoning skills to meet the challenges posed by democracy.”

In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson smudged out a word and replaced it with the word “citizens.” For more than two centuries, historians wondered what word he had removed in favor of “citizens.” Just three years ago, using modern spectral imaging technology developed for military use, the Library of Congress revealed that the word he obliterated in his early text was “subjects.” Not subjects. Citizens.

Not “tell me what to do,” but “let me participate”— perhaps the very essence of our American Revolution.

So citizenship, participating in democracy, is the higher calling, and apparently the founders who endorsed his document felt the same. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis observed two centuries later that “the most important office in our democracy is that of private citizen,” and thus drew a line direct to Jefferson’s distinction between a mere “subject” and a vaunted “citizen.”

One last thought on the connection between citizenship and education. In 1930, Eleanor

Roosevelt penned an essay on “Good Citizenship: The Purpose of Education,” in a magazine called Pictorial Review. In it, she argued that “the true purpose of education is to produce citizens” and she outlined all the ways that an educational system does that— from the simple “acquisition of knowledge” that may help one day to critically analyze an economic issue to the “development of powers of concentration and accuracy which…help analyze a difficult situation.” She also saw a connection to citizenship from “social activities and athletics” that are part of one’s education— she argued that these activities “develop team play, cooperation and thought and consideration for others”—something to do with the common good, one might say.

As we begin this academic year, we applaud the key role played by education in the promotion of the cognitive and moral qualities of citizenship and we recognize that this connection—between education and citizenship—is not something just discovered when we chose this theme. This debate goes back a couple of thousand years, at least to Plato, and was a vigorous part of the debate at the founding of our own citizenstate. At Mt Aloysius, we invite all to participate in this debate during our academic year and we hope to advance the conversation a bit with the speakers who have already agreed to join us on campus: »» A PA Judge (and trustee) who will be introduced in just a minute

»» A long-time counsel to the Vice President of the US who will join us for Constitution Day »» A religious thought-leader, a Mercy sister who will join us for Mercy Week »» A champion of economic and social equality, and CEO of a national organization founded

by Rev. Dr. Leon Sullivan will join us for Martin Luther King Jr. Day »» A former President of this College who will deliver the Moral Choices Lecture »» A four-time European Ambassador who will deliver the Spring Honors Lecture »» A distinguished author/editor and his writer/educator wife will also join us in the Spring semester We have a special treat today, as the first speaker on our year-long theme is someone with a very personal connection to the topic and to the college. Judge David Klementik is a trustee of Mt Aloysius, to be sure. But more than that, he represents in multiple ways the ideals of citizenship—as a community leader, as a veteran, as a philanthropist, and as a citizen-servant in this Commonwealth.

Judge Klementik also understands the very idea of Mt Aloysius—he gets it, as many of you might say—and has brought his very personal commitment to every meeting of our board for over a decade now. And Judge, I have to warn you—these are very educated consumers (on the

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topic of citizenship) sitting in front of you. They began their orientation at Mt Aloysius two weeks ago with a reading and small group discussions on the notion of “the common good” and they began their Connections

classes last week with a book that explores the connection between education and full citizenship.

Welcome Judge Klementik, our maiden speaker on the topic. §

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resident Foley, Members of the Faculty, Trustees, Honored Guests, and Students of Mount Aloysius. Thank you.

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation for the very deep honor that you have conferred upon me to kick off this year’s conversation entitled “21st Century Citizenship: The Common Good.” What President Foley failed to include in his remarks is that I bugged him about focusing on citizenship after observing the tremendous success the college enjoyed in its Civil Discourse

theme last year. In the first instance I consider myself to be a patriot—enthusiastic about our Constitution and the way of life it has defined for our country.

I first of all want to congratulate the students present here for their selection of Mount Aloysius as the institution for the furtherance of their academic studies and cultural development. I add the latter because not only will you receive a sound education, but I know that the administration and faculty are dedicated to the de-

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velopment of productive citizens in protection of our American values and way of life. This is unique. Too many institutions of higher education focus solely on a curriculum to the achievement of a degree rather than the broader goal of personal development as productive members of society. In 1985, then Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, Bill Bennett, stated that … “a democracy depends on schools that help to foster a kind of character which respects the law and respects the value of the individual.” When you go home to your families and friends at Thanksgiving, however, try not to brag too much about the excellence of your decision to join the Mount.

It has become a popular theme of the Saturday night comedians to poke fun at the American people and their apparent lack of engagement as citizens. As we might have seen Jay Leno on the street interviewing passersby: “Who would you say is your favorite American founding father? Answer: “Abraham Lincoln”. Another question might be: “Which branch of government is directed by the President?”

Answer: “The White House.” In a recent street survey outside of a voting poll, only 38% of those questioned could name the three branches of government.

At first blush these answers make us laugh; however, in the context of the role of citizens in a democracy, it’s cause for great concern.

At the beginning of each jury trial term in our court we orient

the prospective jurors as to their service and make for them the following observation: that there are limited opportunities in our system of government where the individual citizen can make a difference: [1] they could run for elected political office or accept administrative appointments to boards and commissions; [2] they can vote in local, state, and federal elections; and, [3] they can serve on a jury and determine what are the true facts of the case.

Recent experiences in citizenship, however, have not been good.

Local elected positions of responsibility in boroughs, townships, and cities go unfulfilled for lack of candidates; voter turnout is low due to voter apathy; and of 200 prospective jurors called for duty, 100 requested to be excused and only 80 of the balance appeared.

Why is this happening? Is it because citizenship is a birthright, and anything given for free was not earned and therefore not high on our list of cherished items? Is it because with over 300 million Americans it is hard to believe that one person can make a difference? Is it because without a draft for military service or mandatory government civil service we don’t have a stake in the game? Is it because lack of personal responsibility is increasingly rewarded by government handouts?

President Foley was wise to point out that the framers of our Constitution drew heavily upon the readings of Plato and Aristotle.

The men who assembled in Philadelphia first for the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and

the Constitution in 1787 were well-read and educated men.

They had reflected on the failure of governance from the top down as they found in the aristocracies of their European homelands.

Their experience in distant governance from England was clearly to be avoided. They had no means of having their voices heard as their personal rights and the wealth of their labors were stripped by the King. After four toilsome months of the Constitutional Convention, the venerable Benjamin Franklin emerged from the Pennsylvania State House.

The Philadelphia assembly of statesmen had wrapped up their work framing a new government and adjourned. Franklin had not walked far when one Mrs. Powell, a citizen anxious to hear about the fruit of their summer labors, accosted him to ask what sort of government he and his fellow delegates had crafted for the American people. “A republic, Madam,” he replied, “if you can keep it.” Franklin’s response is no less important today than it was when uttered, for it still demands that every serious student of the American Heritage consider two fundamental questions: What did the founders mean when they spoke of a “Republic?” And what did a people have to know and do to keep it?

In an article entitled “Educating the “Good” Citizen: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals” authors Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne introduced their piece with the following: “At the level of rhetoric, most educators, policymakers, and

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citizens agree that developing students’ capacities and commitments for effective and democratic citizenship is important. When we get specific about what democracy requires and about what kind of school curricula will best promote it; however, much of that consensus falls away. For some, a commitment to democracy is a promise to protect liberal notions of freedom, while for others democracy is primarily about equality or equality of opportunity. For some, civil society is the key, while for others, free markets are the great hope for democratic society. For some, good citizens

in a democracy volunteer, while for others they take an active part in political processes by voting, protesting, and working on political campaigns.”

What kind of citizen do we need to support an effective democratic society? There are three visions of “citizenship” which are particularly identifiable: the personally responsible citizen; the participatory citizen; and the justice-oriented citizen.

The personally responsible citizen acts responsibly in his community by, for example, picking up litter, giving blood, recycling, volunteering, and staying out of debt.

The personally responsible citizen works and pays taxes, obeys laws, and helps those in need during crisis such as snow storms or floods. The personally responsible citizen contributes to food or clothing drives when asked and volunteers to help those less fortunate whether in a soup kitchen or a senior center. He might contribute time, money, or both to charitable causes.

Both those in the character education movement and many of those who advocate community service would emphasize this individualistic vision of good citizenship. Programs that seek

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to develop personally responsible citizens hope to build character and personal responsibility by emphasizing honesty, integrity, self-discipline, and hard work.

The participatory citizen actively participates in the civic affairs and the social life of the community at local, state and national levels.

Educational programs designed to support the development of

participatory citizens focus on teaching students about how government and other institutions, (for example community-based organizations and churches) work and about the importance of planning and participating in organized efforts to care for those in need.

While the personally responsible citizen would contribute cans of

food for the homeless, the participatory citizen might organize the food drive.

A third image of a good citizen is, perhaps, the perspective that is least commonly pursued. The justice-oriented citizen is one that calls explicit attention to matters of injustice and to the importance of pursuing social justice goals.

Justice-oriented citizens critically

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assess social, political, and economic structures and consider collective strategies for change that challenges injustice and, when possible, addresses root causes of problems.

In other words, if participatory citizens are organizing the food drive, and personally responsible citizens are donating food, justiceoriented citizens are asking why

people are hungry and acting on what they discover.

The core assumption of the personally responsible citizen is that to solve social problems and improve society, citizens must have good character; they must be honest, responsible, and law-abiding members of the community.

The participatory citizen seeks to solve social problems and

improve society whereby citizens must actively participate and take leadership positions within established systems and community structures. It is the core of the justice-oriented citizen to solve social problems and improve society through citizens’ questioning and changing established systems and structures when they reproduce patterns of injustice over time.

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So how do we, the Mount Aloysius Community, prepare ourselves for 21st Century Citizenship and our role in promoting the Common Good?

I would argue that the interplay of all three visions of citizenship is essential, but they are not without conflict. As a vast majority of school-based service learning and community service programs embrace a vision of citizenship devoid of politics; they often promote service but not democracy. For example, all Americorps members are prohibited from doing anything that engages the political system.

They share an orientation towards volunteerism and charity and away from teaching about social movements, social transformation, and systemic change.

Consider that the message of proponents of personally responsible citizenship: don’t do drugs; show up to school; show up to work; give blood; help others during a flood; treat old people with respect—is a message that the leaders of both China and Syria, as well as leaders of democracies, would argue are desirable traits for people living in a community. But they are not about democratic citizenship.

These personally responsible citizenship programs privilege individual acts of compassion and kindness over social action and the pursuit of social justice.

In the latter area, critical thinking is essential. The questions are complex.

Is the common good furthered by universal health care mandated

and controlled by government or is a system of personal responsibility for one’s own health concerns, allowing a safety net for those who cannot help themselves, preferable. Is the common good furthered by allowing immigrants who entered the United States illegally to be declared legal in a safe harbor to citizenship when other legal immigrants have pursued the path of citizenship by waiting their turn pursuant to previous laws.

Is the common good furthered by a tax system in which 10% of Americans pay 90% of the cost of government? The beauty of being a Convocation Speaker is that I don’t have to answer those questions—just pose them—and allow you recognize that personal acts of responsibility by citizens alone will not answer them.

If we are to enjoy a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and is exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation involving periodically held free elections, it is incumbent upon the people to be at least minimally engaged in the business of government as individuals. At the very least the citizens must be informed as to the social issues which occupy the time and talents of their elected officials. They must seize every opportunity to apprise those elected officials of their wishes regarding the direction of government.

Effective citizenship requires the individual initiative and character of the personally responsible citizen, the active involvement in

civic affairs and the social life of the community of the participatory citizen, and the informed and critical thinking and analysis of the justice-oriented citizen to meet the challenges of the coming years. I strongly believe that our nation is at the edge of a precipice, the fall from which could signal the end of many of our individual freedoms as we know them.

The inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on January 20, 1961 marked the passage of power from one of the oldest

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presidents, Dwight Eisenhower, to the youngest ever elected. In one of the most celebrated inaugural addresses in American history, in the midst of the Cold War, and in the challenge to all nations to join in creating a new endeavor where the strong are just, the weak secure, and the peace preserved, President Kennedy stated the following: “In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Each generation of

Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

I am confident that this entering class of students at Mount Aloysius will act responsibly in their community, will become active members of community organizations, and will critically

assess our nation’s social, political and economic structures in seeking out areas of injustice.

I extend to you my best wishes for success in your academic endeavors and your pursuit of responsible citizenship. Thank you.

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udge David Klementik was raised in Benton, Columbia County, Pa. and entered Pennsylvania State University on a full scholarship through the Naval Reserve Officer’s Training Corps. He graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Mechanics and received a commission in the United States Navy. A naval aviator, he completed two deployments to the Mediterranean. After retiring from active military service, he entered the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pa., and earned the Juris Doctor degree.

He was law clerk for the Honorable Charles Coffroth, Court of Common Pleas of Somerset County prior to establishing the Law Office of Leventry, Haschak, Rodkey and Klementik in Richland Township.

In 1990, Attorney Klementik earned a Master of Law degree from the Dickinson School of Law. In 1995 he retired from the Naval Reserves with the rank of Captain. In 2005, he was elected one of the three judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Somerset County, and currently serves as the Administrative Judge for both the

Civil Division and the Orphans’ Court Division of the Somerset Court.

In addition to his service on the Mount Aloysius College Board of Trustees, Judge Klementik also serves on the boards of Windber Medical Center where he is chairman; the Windber Research Institute; the Somerset County Chamber of Commerce, the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, and the Naval Academy Foundation.

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have to admit that when Tom first raised the subject of my coming to Mt. Aloysius to share some stories and lessons learned from a career in public service, there was a part of me that thought he had taken leave of his senses.

I am certainly honored to be invited here on Constitution Day to share some of my experiences and thoughts on public service as an extension of citizenship. The theme of your Speakers’ Series this year, “21st Century Citizenship: The Common Good”, is an important topic for reflection; a valuable lesson about our history and our heritage; and a challenge to each and every one of us.

I am deeply honored to be a part of it.

But who am I, and what would I have to say that would interest you?

I’ve never been elected to office. I’ve never been on the cover of a magazine;

the last time my picture was in the newspaper was when I was four years old; I’ve never been mistaken for Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, or Justin Timberlake; and there’s certainly no one who envies my bank account.

I guess maybe my Mom thinks I’m special, but basically I’m just a middle-class kid who managed to go to college; was fortunate to stumble into a career I loved; and once that career was over, has had a second career doing some other things I love.

I wouldn’t have traded my life’s experiences, but really, I’m a pretty ordinary guy.

When I raised that with Tom, he said that’s why I needed to come and speak. Your theme is Citizenship, and I could talk about public service as an extension of citizenship.

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In any event, I was honored to be asked, and so yesterday, as I was driving here, I was trying to think about what I might say that you would find interesting or thoughtprovoking. And by the way, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is endless, so I had a lot of time to think.

And just down the highway, I passed some signs for Johnstown, and of course, I thought of the flood. In fact, I remembered that Johnstown has had multiple floods. The most famous was in 1889, but there were also major floods in 1936, and again in 1977.

And I think it was the 1977 flood that gave us the sad story of Father O’Flaherty.

Father O’Flaherty was a priest in one of the local parishes near Johnstown. Very devout. Very pious. Very devoted to his community. And unshakeable in his faith in the Lord.

So when the flood waters began to rise, he was out on the front stoop of the rectory, and a couple of firemen came by in a rowboat, and said, “Hop in, Father.”

And Father O’Flaherty shook his head, and said, “No, thank you.

God will provide.”

And the water continued to rise, and a couple of hours later, Father O’Flaherty was at the second floor window, with the water lapping at the window sill, when another rowboat came by. And one of the fellows in the boat called out, “Come on, Father, we’ll get you to the high ground.”

And he shook his head. “No, No. God will provide.”

And still the waters continued to rise, and as night fell, the good Father was up on the roof, when helicopter appeared overhead, shone its spotlight on him, and lowered a rope ladder.

“Father,” came a voice from the loudspeaker on the helicopter, “climb up the ladder, and we’ll take you to safety.”

But Father O’Flaherty waved them off. “No. No. God will provide.”

“When The Flood game, I was certain that the Heavenly Father would provide for me. And yet, here I am. What happened?”

And St. Peter threw up his hands in exasperation, stared wide-eyed at Father Flaherty, and said: “Well, we sent two rowboats and a helicopter! What did you want!”

And thinking about that story made me reflect upon the fact that public service doesn’t just mean being elected to office.

But the flood waters continued to surge, and not long afterwards, he was swept away into the darkness and the rushing waters.

The firemen in the rowboats and the pilot in the helicopter were every bit as much public servants as the President; The Members of Congress; the Governor; or the Mayor.

The next thing he knew, there was a brilliant, golden glow, and he found himself standing at the Pearly Gates.

Public service comes in many forms; many levels of public notice; and even in many degrees of commitment.

And the gates opened, and there was St. Peter, who warmly smiled, shook his hand, and said, “Father O’Flaherty, we are very glad to have you here with us. Let me just get your paperwork done, and we’ll be right with you.”

Because at its most basic, public service is simply an extension of the Citizenship that each of us is granted – no strings attached – as our birthright.

So Father O’Flaherty took a seat on the most comfortable chair he’d ever sat upon, and St. Peter went back to his desk, and pulled out a pen and began to write on a heavenly scroll.

And when I thought of it that way, I understood why President Foley wanted me to share some of my experiences with you.

After a few minutes, Father O’Flaherty looked up at St. Peter.

“Can I ask you one question?”

When I was very young, I read where some wealthy person – maybe it was one of the Roosevelts or one of the Kennedys – said that those blessed with wealth had a responsibility to engage in public service.

“Certainly.”

And I took that to heart.

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It was years and years before I realized that our family wasn’t wealthy.

the mail. And since I’d been doing that kind of thing for three months, I was offered the job.

I was able to go to American University in part because—unbeknownst to my family—when I was born a very wealthy individual anonymously set up a trust fund for me. We didn’t even know about it until I was about 10 or 12 years old, when a lawyer contacted my parents to tell them about this fund, which I would be able to claim when I was 18 years old, and which ultimately paid for my first year of college.

I’m not going to dwell a whole lot upon every aspect of what turned out to be a 27-year career with Senator Biden, because we’d be here all night. But there were a few lessons I learned which have shaped much of my thinking about public service, and I’d like to share those.

I never met that individual – he passed away in 1989 – but I know that he set up a number of trust funds for young people – all anonymously. I was never able to thank him personally because he never publicly acknowledged his contribution.

For anyone interested in government, I cannot think of a better first job than being a Legislative Correspondent in a Congressional office.

It forces you to educate yourself about the many challenges which face our nation and to understand the complexities involved in seeking solutions to those challenges.

I did, however, feel a responsibility to give back in some way – not financially, because I was never going to have that kind of money – and a career in public service was the route I chose.

It not only forces you to expand your research skills, but provides access to the best research organization in world – The Congressional Research Service – to assist you.

During my last semester at American University, I had an internship in the Washington office of one of my United States Senators. A young Senator named Joe Biden. Two days a week for three months, I ran errands, and helped to answer the mail.

And most importantly, it forces you to sharpen your writing skills.

And as fortune would have it, when I graduated, there was an opening in the office for a Legislative Correspondent, one of the folks who research and answer

In every walk of life – and particularly in the job market—people are looking for folks who can write well. And those folks are more rare than you think.

So if you take one skill away from this mountaintop, let it be the ability to write well. Work at it; find reasons to write, if only for yourself. Challenge yourself to write better, even when you don’t

really need to. It’s a priceless investment in your future.

I answered constituent mail for Joe Biden for two and a half years, plus one more as the Director of Legislative Correspondence, and it taught me some valuable lessons.

The first is that it takes someone a great deal of time and effort to sit down and write a letter to their Member of Congress, someone whom they most likely don’t know personally. It’s a task the folks don’t undertake lightly.

When someone takes the time to share their concerns with a public official, they don’t always expect them to agree.

What they are looking for is some validation that their concerns; their opinions; and their wants and needs matter.

They want to know that their voice is being heard and respected – and the response they receive in the mail validates that. It reinforces the notion that they matter – that they have a seat at the table. They deserve a response commensurate with the effort that they put into their letter.

And I don’t think that there’s a better time than Constitution Day to emphasize that the moment that folks stop believing that – the moment they stop believing that they matter – the foundations of our democracy begin to erode, and this nation is in a world of hurt.

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That letter from a Member of Congress in response to a constituent is worth a whole lot more than the paper it’s written on. It’s part of the glue that holds our Democracy together.

Throughout my 27 years with the Senate, I told anyone who was answering the mail never to discount what someone wrote in a letter, even when at first glance, it might seem ridiculous.

Every Member of Congress, probably every elected official, receives letters from people who seem to have some psychological issues or unbelievable stories.

But I always had a rule when we got that kind of letter.

Read it – slowly and carefully – twice. Then put it down and think for a few minutes: “Is there any possibility that what this person is saying is true?”

Then read it again.

Just because something sounds crazy doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s false.

For example, in the 1950’s, someone may have been writing to their Senator that the United States Army was subjecting some of our soldiers to LSD and other drugs to see what effect it would have on military discipline.

Sounds pretty preposterous, huh?

A letter like that might well have found it’s way to the crazy file.

Well, you know what? The Army was doing just that less

than 150 miles from here, at it’s Edgewood Arsenal down near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

The British were doing it, too.

You can go on the Internet and see videos of soldiers from both countries on LSD. My point is: never dismiss something out of hand. At the very least, think it through. Do some research if you have to.

My 22 years in DC, 18 as the Senator’s Special Assistant, were a front-row seat to budget battles; international crises; controversial Supreme Court nominations; and debates on every subject under the Sun. For the most part, what I saw were Senators and staff members – Republican and Democrat alike – working very hard to find common ground.

I could spend the rest of the evening recounting those stories.

But that’s not why I was asked to speak here on Constitution Day. Instead, I’ll tell one story about a seemingly minor incident.

Senator Biden never kept a residence in Washington. He took the train home to Delaware almost every night, and usually if he missed the last train, he slept on a cot in the Senate Gym. But there was one night when he said that the Senate was going to be in session late, but he really wanted to get home because he had a family commitment early the next morning. Would I mind driving him home late that night?

So, around 10:30, I was waiting at the bottom of the Senate steps for the Senate to finish for the night,

and there was this family standing there (this was before September 11th, when the public was allowed to do that). It was a husband and wife, and two young children, just watching the comings and goings.

After a while, it became clear to me that what this family really wanted was for the kids to meet a Senator. Not even a particular Senator. Any Senator.

And I don’t know what Joe Biden used to do after the Senate finished, but every night it seemed like he was always the last one to come out.

When he finally did, I could tell that he was bone-tired. I knew he’d be asleep in the car before we even got out of DC. And he had his big, heavy briefcase with him, so I walked up the Senate steps to take the briefcase, and I whispered, “See this family by the bottom of the steps. I think they just want to meet a Senator.”

And he spent 20 minutes with them. Found out where they were from; what they had seen in Washington; asked the kids about what they were studying in school. I have no doubt that those kids will remember it the rest of their lives.

And my point in telling this story – the reason I remember what seems to be such a small incident – is not to show that Vice President Biden is a nice guy – although he is – but that it’s important that folks – particularly kids – recognize that government belongs to them. That elected

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officials – well-known or not – should not be thought of as unapproachable figures, but as fellow Americans who have chosen to serve the public and who are there to listen.

Does every elected official adhere to that concept? No. But every responsible elected official should never let it get too far from his or her mind.

In early 2004, Senator Biden asked if I would be willing to move back to Delaware. Without getting into all the reasons why, he felt that he needed me more back home.

I had always known that eventually I would return to Delaware, and even though I still loved Washington and it broke my heart to leave, I could see that it really did make sense for my boss; for our office; and for

myself. So I returned to work out of Biden’s Wilmington office.

Back in Wilmington, I added an additional duty, which was to represent the Senator at a number of community meetings in the northern Delaware area where I had grown up.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the doorway to what would eventually lead to my second career in public service.

The first thing you have to understand about Delaware is that it’s a really small state.

To illustrate: On the way here yesterday, I stopped in Harrisburg to have lunch.

From the time I left Harrisburg, it was 140.8 miles here to Mt. Aloysius. It took me two hours and seven minutes.

To drive from Claymont, at the northern tip of Delaware, to

Delmar, at the state’s southern boundary—the entire length of Delaware – is only 108.7 miles, and, the last time I made that drive, it took only an hour and 55 minutes.

And at one point, Delaware is only 12 miles across, although at its widest, down south in Sussex County, it’s much bigger – 30 miles wide.

Only Rhode Island is smaller.

But they have over a hundred thousand more people.

Five states have fewer people, but they’re a lot bigger. People live hundreds of miles away from each other. Delawareans are all neighbors.

One result of all this is that Delawareans expect a great deal of personal attention from their elected officials. They’re used to seeing their elected officials often in the grocery store, or at the high school football game where the Congressman’s son plays, let alone at public events . They expect that if they invite the Senator to a neighborhood civic meeting, that either the Senator or someone from his office will come.

Now, this is no criticism of Senator Casey or Senator Toomey, but that wouldn’t happen very often in a big state like Pennsylvania. And no one would expect it to.

In Delaware, they expect you to come.

At the same time – and this I found to be very much in contrast

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to Washington – folks are so profoundly grateful that when you show up that they treat you like the King of Siam. And really, all I did was listen, and once in a while promise to find out some information for them.

I remember a meeting one October, I was at a meeting in Claymont. This fellow showed up with a complaint about something, and he made some comment about “How come I only see somebody from Biden’s office show up at election time.”

And everyone else in the room jumped all over him, saying, “No, Terry’s here every month. You’re the one who’s here for the first time!”

And that’s when I knew that I was doing my job. And that my being there was important.

At local meetings, I would give my cell phone number to constituents. And sometimes people from other offices would ask why I did that.

Well, those folks paid for that cell phone. And not one of them ever complained about my having it.

Now, that’s far easier to do in a small state like Delaware. It wouldn’t be as realistic in a state like Pennsylvania. But those principles apply to all public officials; whether they’re United States Senators, State Legislators, or members of the Cresson Borough Council.

Public service is an acknowledgement that every individual’s

concern – and every citizen’s voice – matters. And respecting those concerns and listening to those voices are as much a part of our democracy as any Constitutional Article or Amendment.

President Foley will tell you that when he joined Senator Biden’s staff the first thing Biden said to him was to always remember that – whatever exciting things were going on in DC – Delaware always came first. For me, that was an easy priority. Because Delaware was always home.

One morning early in the summer of 2008, Senator Biden and I were alone in the car, and he said that he needed a favor, and no one – not even most of the staff – was to know. The Obama campaign had asked for some personal background information because Biden was on the “Long List” of potential running mates.

For the next two months, I collected those records, and about once a week, I would take a discreet trip down to a law firm in DC to turn them over to the Obama campaign.

Well before that August Saturday when Senator Obama announced his choice, I believed that Senator Biden would be the Democratic nominee for Vice President, and that the Obama-Biden ticket would be elected.

On Election Day morning, I went to vote at the local firehouse, and when I saw the line of people wrapped around the block, I dead certain of it.

Although it had been with mixed feelings four years before that I had returned to Delaware – I had even kept my apartment in DC – there were a number of reasons, both personal and professional, that I wanted to stay in Delaware.

And so, at 50 years old, I made the decision to retire from the United States Senate, an institution I loved, and still love.

But at 50, I wasn’t ready to sit in a rocking chair all day. Senator Biden’s successor, Senator Ted Kaufman, asked if I’d like to stay and work for him, and from a financial standpoint, that would have been a good thing to do, but once you’ve made up your mind to retire, it’s hard to change.

In that case, Senator Kaufman said, “Let me give you some advice. Go home and make a list of things you’d like to do starting on Day One of your retirement.

Do it while you’re still working, so that you won’t wake up on the first day of retirement, and think, “Now what do I do.”

Senator Biden, resigned from the Senate on January 15, 2009, and under Senate rules I stayed on for 60 days to close out his Senate office. My retirement became effective on March 16th.

I actually have a funny story about that. At 20 minutes after seven that morning, my cell phone rang, and I groggily picked it up, and heard a familiar voice say: “Terry, its Joe. Listen, I know you’re retired, but I need a favor.

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I’m in Philadelphia, getting ready to board a train to Washington, but I need to get some papers to someone in Delaware. Would you be able to meet me at the train platform in Wilmington, and deliver them for me?”

So, the first thing I did on the first day of my retirement was to deliver some papers for the Vice President of the United States.

On the “What I Want to Do in Retirement” list that Senator Kaufman had suggested I put together, was one favor I wanted to ask of Senator Kaufman himself.

As you may be aware, Members of Congress are responsible for nominating young men and women for admission to the four Service Academies: The United States Military Academy at West Point; The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis; The United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs; and the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York.

But generally, the Members of Congress don’t make the selections themselves. Instead, each one puts together an Academy Selection Board – made up of publicly-minded citizens, all volunteers – to interview each candidate and make recommendations for nomination.

I asked Senator Kaufman to serve on his Academy Selection Board.

And after Senator Kaufman retired in 2010, I spoke with

Delaware’s newly-elected Congressman, John Carney, about serving on his Academy Selection Board.

And the reason I do that is because, while I can see what’s on their resume, I want to know what is inside of them.

Anyone who believes that today’s young people aren’t living up to the standards of previous generations needs to meet some of the young men and women who apply to our nation’s service academies.

All one of them have great resumes. Based on resumes alone, every one of them could get into any of the academies.

They have accomplished more by the age of 17 than many of us will accomplish in a lifetime. They make me feel like a slug.

I am not only proud of these young people; I admire them.

They are the cream of our crop.

With their intellect, skills, and their inner drive – they can pretty much write their own ticket to college and beyond.

Yet what they seek to do, is to serve their country.

Much as I admire these kids, I have a reputation as a very tough interviewer. I look at their resumes, and as impressed as I always am, I don’t ask them right away to tell me about their remarkable accomplishments.

Instead, I ask them about the most difficult challenges they’ve ever faced – and how they reacted; about the times that they’ve failed, or come close to failing – and how they handled it; and about those occasions when their self-confidence was shattered – and what they did to re-build it.

I want to get a feel for their ability to search within themselves, and rise to challenges. Because their first few days, weeks, and months at a military academy will be an incredible challenge—I can promise them that – and I want to nominate men and women who will succeed.

More importantly, I want men and women who will keep their head in a time of crisis.

Because if they don’t – and I tell them this – if they don’t make it, we don’t get to replace them; Delaware has lost a spot at the Academy for that year, and another qualified kid from Delaware lost an opportunity to go. That’s only happened once in the last four years, but it still bothers me that a qualified Delaware kid didn’t get to go because we made a misjudgment and nominated someone who couldn’t make it.

More importantly, down the road, I don’t want to see a young soldier or sailor killed because his commanding officer lost their cool.

Last year we had 41 applications, and I would say that 38 of them would have made fine cadets or midshipmen.

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But most of them won’t get in, because we have so few slots to fill. And that’s heartbreaking, both to the applicants and to our board members. It’s the only part of the process I don’t like.

Of those 41 applicants that we had for this year’s freshman class, we managed to get 16 in, which we considered a tremendous accomplishment. Most years it’s closer to 12.

of information. Names and dates; proclamations and treaties.

No problem. Students can memorize these pieces of information – and they will pass the tests.

Unfortunately, it also places History in the dry dust-bin of the past; something written long ago on faded parchment, and irrelevant to our lives today.

I never served in the military.

And while I can’t say that I have regretted that, I have always felt that there was something more that I might have done for my country. Serving on the Academy Selection Boards has allowed me to fill that void. It’s a contribution that will pay dividends for years to come.

History – our Heritage—needs to be taught as a vital part of who we are; the values we hold; and the manner in which we choose to guide our society.

Shortly after I retired, Delaware’s Governor, Jack Markell, appointed me to the Delaware Heritage Commission, a state commission which promotes the study of Delaware’s history.

In 1682, the deed that William Penn received from the Duke of York in England included language that not only created the arc that is Delaware’s northern boundary, but stated that the arc continued across the Delaware River to the low-water mark on the New Jersey shore.

I’ve been an enthusiastic student of American History since I was a small child.

And I’m always disappointed when students tell me that history is their least favorite subject in school – something I hear fairly often.

And when I ask why, it usually comes down to the way that History is too often taught.

The easy way to teach history is to make students memorize pieces

Let me give one quick example in which history that is well over 300 years old has a practical effect upon public policy today.

Three times; in 1877, 1934, and 2008, New Jersey has sued in federal court to gain control of some portion of the Delaware River. Three times, New Jersey has lost.

In the most recent case, in 2008, New Jersey wanted to give an energy company a license to build a pier into the Delaware River to unload liquid natural gas from tankers off Claymont, in northern Delaware.

Well, in the 1970’s Delaware passed legislation called the Coastal Zone Act, which prohibited new industry off the Delaware coastline. Under that law, a pier wasn’t permitted, even though it would come from the New Jersey side of the river.

New Jersey sued in federal court, and in 2008, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that said that because of the deed which William Penn received 326 years before, Delaware had every right to ban that pier from the Delaware River.

That was a prime example of history as a living aspect of public policy as it affects our lives today.

And history needs to be taught that way.

The Delaware Heritage Commission is a volunteer citizen’s commission designed to bring history alive, not just in the halls of academia, but to all Delawareans.

We publish books about people and events in Delaware that have helped to mold our state. And we make sure that the books aren’t simply a laundry list of someone’s accomplishments, but the story of the individuals’ lives; the times in which they lived; the conditions and events which motivated them; and the challenges which they met and overcame.

The Heritage Commission supports small local museums and historical societies which often don’t have the resources to share the excellent work they do with large audiences. Because

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history doesn’t just happen in big cities or on great battlefields, and it doesn’t just happen to the well-to-do and famous.

In Delaware, History isn’t just about the DuPonts. History happens in small towns; and farming communities; and places like Bowers Beach, where there is a tiny museum dedicated to the history of piracy on the Delaware Bay. Or on Hickman Row, a small African-American neighborhood that was established by the steel mill to house their African-American workers.

The Heritage Commission assists these small local organizations who have a piece of Delaware’s

heritage to share, but lack the resources to do so.

Sometimes The Heritage Commission puts on programs of our own to demonstrate Delaware’s rich history.

For example, at my second meeting as a Commission Member back in 2009, I mentioned that the 150th anniversary of the Civil War was coming up, and that “maybe we should do something about that.”

Well, I should have known from my years in government just to keep my mouth shut. Because everyone thought that was a great idea, and why didn’t I be in charge of that. The next thing I knew, I

was Chairman of the Commission’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Planning Group.

Two years ago, to commemorate the beginning of the War in 1861, we put on a program which featured re-enactors and Living Historians as actual Delawareans caught up in the events of those tumultuous days.

Delaware was a slave state that stayed loyal to the Union, but some individual Delawareans went south to fight for the Confederacy, and on the home front, the debate continued throughout the War. Each of our Living Historians – soldier and civilian; abolitionist

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and Confederate sympathizer— provided a different perspective on the beginning of the Civil War in Delaware.

And when it was all over, the best compliment I got was from a woman who works for the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, who said, “That program really made me think about some things I hadn’t thought about before.”

And that – is how the Delaware Heritage Commission views our mission. To bring our State’s history alive to all Delawareans.

It has been an ideal way in which to combine my love of history with my commitment to public

service. And maybe, just maybe, to influence the way that History is taught.

Early in 2011, my county councilman, a fellow named John Cartier, approached me to ask a favor.

After the 2010 Census, New Castle County’s 12 county council districts had to be redistricted in light of population shifts. In most legislative bodies across this country, redistricting is the biggest battle of each decade; because it’s about balance of power, both in terms of partisanship and geography. For the legislators themselves, it can also be about keeping their jobs.

It’s a little bit like making sausage.

No one enjoys the process.

New Castle County appoints a Redistricting Commission to give the process a certain degree of independence. Each County Councilperson – the 12 district councilmen plus the Council President – appoints one representative to the Commission, and John Cartier asked me to be his representative.

John wanted me to look out for his interests as the Commission worked its way through the process.

But beyond that, I had two priorities. I was going to be fair – and I wasn’t going to be partisan.

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Right off the bat, there was some subtle talk about redistricting one of the two Republicans out of his district.

I wanted no part of that.

The first thing I did was to meet privately with the Chairman of the Redistricting Commission, a fellow named Ted Blunt, a former President of the Wilmington City Council and who, like me, is a Democrat. When I mentioned what I had caught wind of he agreed that this Redistricting Commission wasn’t going to play partisan games.

I went to work on a draft of a plan that would prevent that particular councilman – or any of the other councilpersons – from being redistricted out of his district.

Ted Blunt added his support, and that quashed any partisan attempt aimed at any of the Republican council members.

It’s always easy to be fair. On the other hand, when it comes to redistricting, a politician’s first priority is what’s good for them.

The two don’t always go hand-inhand.

I found, however, that as long as you were consistently fair, and that you listened to their concerns, they would accept what you did. There’s a County Councilman named Bill Powers, who’s a blunt-spoken farmer from the southern part of New Castle County. When we were beginning to circulate the first draft of the Redistricting plan, a guy named Jim Boyle, who was the Council staff person assigned

to work with us, told me, “Now, Bill Powers is going to hit the roof when he sees this. Just let him explode, and when he’s finished, talk with him.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

He blew up; we went to his office; and he pointed to the map and said, “You’re taking these three good neighborhoods out of my district, and you’re putting in this one – it was called Bayberry – and that would be a bad district for me.”

So, I looked at the map, pointed to one of the three neighborhoods the draft plan had taken away from him, and said, “Okay, you want to keep this neighborhood.”

“Well, I probably don’t have to keep that one.”

So I pointed to the next neighborhood to the south. “But you want to keep this.”

“Well, I could probably get by without it.”

So, I pointed to the third neighborhood – a place called Brennan Estates. “But you want to keep Brennan Estates.”

“You can?” His whole attitude changed.

“Sure.”

And with that, Bill Powers became the Redistricting Plan’s biggest supporter on the County Council. Because he saw that I had listened; I had taken his concerns into account; and I was trying to be fair.

And I was reminded of something I had learned when I was working for the Senate. Sometimes the hardest question for policymakers to get an answer to is: “What... do... you... want?”

Anytime that you are asking for a public official’s support, the most important thing to articulate is the specific answer to that question.

“What... do... you... want?”

Bill Powers was specific about what changes he wanted in the redistricting plan, and he got most of it. Because both sides listened.

“Yes, dammit. I need to keep Brennan Estates. It’s important.”

When people see that you’re being straight with them; that you’re listening to their concerns; and that you are trying to be fair, they will generally react positively.

“So, you want to keep Brennan Estates, but you don’t want Bayberry.”

But you have to be able to tell them – as specifically as possible – just what it is that you want

“That’s right.”

There was another instance during the redistricting process when that didn’t occur.

Well, the populations of Brennan Estates and Bayberry were about equal, so I said, “Okay, we can do that.”

There is a small community called Christiana which had been split

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up among three different Council Districts, and someone suggested that we put all of Christiana into the same district. It seemed like a good idea, so we did that.

Weeks later, at the final meeting where citizens were asked for their comments before the final vote, one person in the audience was opposed to the Redistricting Plan because she was opposed to putting all of Christiana into one district. But she had never come to one of the public meetings where we solicited input.

After the vote, I went up to her and said, “I wish you had come to the public hearings where we discussed this, because the only suggestion we heard was to put Christiana all into one district, so that’s what we did.”

In the end, was our Redistricting Plan perfect? No. There was neighborhood that should logically have gone into one district, but we put it in another because one councilman just kept insisting that he wanted to keep that neighborhood, so we finally relented, even though we could have passed the plan over his objections.

But that’s part of the give and take of our democratic system.

In the end, our Redistricting Plan passed, and the Council’s attorney made my day when she said that she had thought she’d have to spend two years in court trying to get a redistricting plan approved.

But we had managed to avoid all

of that – it passed unanimously – because people perceived that the process had been fair.

Even one of the major Republican bloggers in the state praised the overwhelmingly Democratic Redistricting Commission for being fair.

Public service doesn’t just mean government service.

I mentioned the meetings where I represented Senator Biden at meetings in Claymont, right across the Delaware river from where New Jersey wanted to permit the liquid natural gas pier I talked about earlier. It’s only a few miles from where I live.

There was a fellow named Dan Harkins, who used to attend those meetings. Dan had grown up in Claymont; moved away to become a college professor in the South; returned to care for his parents when they became elderly and ill; and gotten involved in local civic activities.

And Dan had this idea for a community organization, not just for Claymont, but for all of the communities along the Delaware River between Wilmington and the Pennsylvania border. It’s part of an area called Brandywine Hundred.

In May of 2009, Dan and I met for dinner at a local restaurant and talked about his idea; sketching out a basic structure for the organization, and he kind of liked it, so he said, “let’s follow up on this.”

He also said, “By the way, I have to go to the hospital tomorrow for some tests on this cough that won’t go away.

Four months later, he was dead of lung cancer.

And I thought, “Well, that’s the end of that idea.”

But Dan had no living family, and in his will, Dan had left about half of his estate, somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000, to set up the organization we had talked about. And so, the Eastern Brandywine Hundred Coordinating Council – EB100 for short – was born.

Because I was the only one who had spoken with Dan about this organization, I felt a moral obligation to see it through.

Along with some of Dan’s friends, we incorporated EB100 as a non-profit organization; recruited a Board of Directors from throughout the various communities in the area; and drafted bylaws, a Mission Statement, and strict financial guidelines for the organization.

In 2011, I was elected the First Chairman of EB100, a position I still hold.

Eastern Brandywine Hundred is an eclectic mix of varying communities, ranging from white collar suburbs to blue-collar Claymont; from the small middleclass town of Bellefonte, to a series of apartment complexes on the outskirts of the City of Wilmington. Gordon Heights, where I live, is an old middle-

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class suburban neighborhood, and my backyard looks out on a beautiful woods. But 200 yards away on the other side of those woods is Edgemoor Gardens, a run-down neighborhood where drug dealers can be found on the street corners, and where it’s not unusual to hear gunshots at night.

Eastern Brandywine Hundred is an area with many assets; a great deal of history; and a lot of challenges. In terms of what the communities in the area need, one size most certainly does not fit all.

We took all of that into consideration as we were putting EB100 together, and in the end, the proceeds from the Harkins Estate will be placed in an investment account. The earnings from that account will be used to fund small grants for local history and community planning.

The grants will only be made for projects with some permanency.

The example I use is that if the Town of Bellefonte asked us for money for their town picnic, we wouldn’t give it to them; because the picnic would come and go; the money would be gone; and at the end of the day there would be nothing to show for it.

But if Bellefonte asked for money to fund the publication of a book commemorating the town’s centennial, which is coming up in 2015, we would certainly consider that. Or if Bellefonte asked us to fund a study of how to improve storm water drainage in the town; or if they asked us for financial assistance to build a

handicapped ramp for their town hall, we would consider those as well, because those projects would produce something which would still be around long after the money had been spent.

A portion of each year’s earnings will remain in the investment account, so that the fund will continue to grow each year.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention, did a pretty good job in designing a governmental structure that balances power; balances states rights versus the need for a strong central government; and protects individual liberties. Twentyseven amendments over the past 226 years have strengthened that structure and balance.

When I talk about EB100 to the area’s elected officials, I tell them that while most non-profit organizations are looking to government and other agencies for funding, EB100 will have money to give away – even in some cases to local government.

But at the end of the day – and this is where Franklin was challenging Mrs.Powell – our democracy only works if individual Americans are willing to play a part in public life.

I consider EB100 to be every bit as much public service as my career in the Senate; the Academy Selection Board; the Redistricting Commission; or the Delaware Heritage Commission.

A few years back, Michael Kammen, a Pulitzer Prizewinning historian, wrote a book about the Constitution’s role as a symbol in American life. It is titled, “A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture.” Kammen makes the case that throughout history, the Constitution has been both revered and misunderstood.

And he’s right.

By now, some of you may be wondering, “What does all of this have to do with Constitution Day?” In his Convocation address here a couple of weeks ago, Judge Klementik told a story that I love.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the delegates were emerging from Independence Hall, and a local woman named Mrs. Powell stopped Benjamin Franklin to ask, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic— or a monarchy?”

Franklin replied, “A republic, Madam – if you can keep it.”

“A Republic – if you can keep it.”

The Constitution is a lot of things.

But the Constitution is not a machine that will go of itself.

Nor, at its most basic, is the Constitution a symbol.

The flag is a symbol. It stands for what it stands for – all by itself.

The Constitution is a blueprint.

It is a design. But it requires a commitment by the people to make that design work.

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When you get right down to it, our government really requires very little of us: It requires us to pay our taxes.

It requires young men between the ages of 18 and 25 to register for the Draft— but it hasn’t actually drafted anyone in 40 years.

And once in a while, it requires that we serve on a jury to make our system of justice work.

Beyond that, there really isn’t a high price for citizenship.

In fact, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights actually tell government what it can’t make us do.

It can’t tell us what to say or write – or what not to say and write.

It can’t tell us how – or to whom – to pray.

It can’t tell us how to vote. In fact, it can’t even make us exercise the fundamental right to vote at all.

And it for sure can’t tell us that we must engage in public service.

Public service is completely optional. It is an extension of citizenship, but if you choose not participate at all, that’s okay. And no one will think less of you.

But if you don’t, who will?

The great thing about America is that America is a place where you can write your own story.

My story – by choice – centers on a commitment to public service; a commitment that has taken many forms; brought great challenges; and given me much reward.

But that’s my story. I’m not asking that it be everyone’s story.

The world needs people who do the things that I can’t: like treat the illness of a sick child; or run a business that employs hundreds of people; or invent a machine that makes life better; or turn a hundred acres of dirt into food for thousands; or even hit a curve ball for a home run.

But like I said earlier, public service comes in many forms; many levels of public notice; and many different levels of commitment.

What I am hoping is that as Mt. Aloysius focuses this year on the topic of “The Common Good; Citizenship in the 21st Century,” you will give some thought to how the story that you write might include extending that citizenship for the common good.

If my experiences have taught me anything, it’s that there are a lot of ways to do that.

At the very least, go out and vote. Not just for President and Congress, but your local elections as well, because all of those elections are important to your lives; the lives of your neighbors; and someday perhaps, the lives of your children.

I have been around political candidates and elected officials for 40 years, and I can honestly

tell you that I have never met a candidate for public office – be they Democrat, Republican, or Mugwump – who didn’t have at least one good idea. Citizenship gives you the right to choose which of those ideas you’d like to see come to fruition. Make those choices.

Beyond that, I’m hopeful that at some point each of you will be confronted with the opportunity to use your skills and talents on behalf of The Common Good.

And I am hopeful that you will seize that opportunity.

It doesn’t have to be something that will make the newspaper headlines.

It doesn’t have to interfere with your plans to make a million dollars; care for sick kids; run the family farm; or raise a family.

It might even be something that you enjoy a lot.

But seize that opportunity.

Because we need you.

Thank you very much.

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The Mount Aloysius College Constitution Day Speaker for 2013— Mr. Terry Wright—served as an exceptional addition to the staff of then Senator and now US Vice President Joe Biden. He spent his career out of the political limelight; opting instead to apply his talents behind the scenes in research, administrative rigor and liaison work. He is a much trusted man of enormous principle and talent. In his decision to retire he continues to give back to his community in many ways and remains active and very engaged.

Mr. Wright stayed with Senator Biden for 27 years, encompassing a career that included virtually every aspect of Biden’s Senate tenure.

Wright’s years in Washington immersed him in virtually every major public policy debate from the 1980s through the first decade of the 21st Century.

Terry Wright believes that public service is part of the price we pay for living in a free society.

In 2004, Wright returned to Delaware representing Senator Biden at community meetings around the state. He made the decision to retire from the Senate after the successful 2008 election but continues to serve Vice President Biden, organizing his Senate Papers as they are turned over to the University of Delaware Library.

Wright was named by former Senator Ted Kaufman, Biden’s successor in the Senate, to Kaufman’s Service Academy Selection Committee, which interviews and nominates candidates seeking admission to The United States Military Academy at West Point; The United States Air Force Academy; The United States Naval Academy and the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Upon Senator Kaufman’s retirement, Delaware Congressman John Carney re-appointed him to the same role.

In 2011, he was appointed to serve on New Castle County, Delaware’s County Council Redistricting Commission, bringing them in compliance with the principle of “one person, one vote” in light of the demographic changes reflected in the 2010 Census. Terry Wright was one of the principal architects of the Commission’s redistricting plan. He shepherded the plan to unanimous bipartisan approval from both the Redistricting Commission and the New Castle County Council.

And when a civic-minded friend with a passion for history and a love of his community passed away and left a portion of his estate for local civic purposes; Mr. Wright created a non-profit organization he named the Eastern Brandywine Hundred Coordinating Council – EB100 for short – to fund grants for local history and community planning in northern Delaware.

He currently serves as EB100’s first Chairman.

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hen Sister Helen Marie invited me to speak with you this week, she informed me that the campus-wide theme for this academic year is “Common Good: Citizens in the 21st Century”. So together we decided that my topic should be “Common Good and Spirituality”.

Let me begin with a sweeping generalization – unless we as individuals examine and break open the concept of spirituality, recognize it in ourselves and choose to live out of it, there will

be no such reality as the Common Good in our time.

Having made such a bold statement, I better have something to back it up. So what is spirituality and why do I consider it so essential to the Common Good? You can find a multitude of definitions for spirituality. I am going to share two of my favorites with you.

The first is from “The Holy Longing,” a book written by Ron Rolheiser. He defines one’s spirituality in one instance as the “life energy” with which one is endowed at birth. He believes

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that every human person has been gifted with this life energy.

Rolheiser contends that it is then up to the individual to determine how that energy will be used in one’s lifetime: what choices one makes, what values one holds, what lifestyle, career and commitments one pursues. It may be directed toward self or toward others. It may or may not be associated with faith. Think of the movie “Soul Surfer.”

So here is my first question to you: How aware are you of your life energy? How do you experience it? How does it manifest itself and toward what are you directing it? And how has that been working out for you?

The second definition of spirituality is from Spirituality for Dummies by Sharon Janis. Janis sees spirituality as definitely connected to faith (not necessarily religion – distinguish).

Janis defines spirituality as the wellspring of divinity that pulsates, dances and flows as the source and essence of every soul. Spirituality relates to one’s personal search to find greater meaning and purpose in one’s existence. It means looking beyond outer appearances to the deeper significance and soul of everyone and everything. Some elements of this faith-based spirituality are: Love and respect for God, love and respect for yourself, and love and respect for every other person and aspect of creation.

How does that definition resonate with you? Can you own any or all of its elements? And if you do

own them, what can others expect from you?

Let me explain my reason for asking that last question. People often claim to espouse a particular theology or spirituality in the public forum. At the same time, privately they may have a few qualifiers or reservations about their public statement. Above and beyond that, if we were to follow such folks around for an entire week, we might learn that they never put the publically stated tenets into action. If our spirituality is to be genuine, there should be no discrepancy between our public, private and operative beliefs and actions. It should be a matter of integrity and identity.

What we say and what others see and experience of us are the same.

We are the real deal. (Manuel?)

If that challenge to spiritual integration – to being the real deal – seems challenging, I would like to add another level of consideration. What depth of understanding and commitment can be expected of anyone connected to an institution that claims its legacy to be that of Mercy? What would that spirituality look like?

In order to answer that question adequately, let me share what Mercy means to me. I believe Mercy means cutting a person the break they don’t deserve. It is more kindness than we anticipate.

I assume you have all been recipients of such a break or such kindness at sometime in your lives – at least I hope you have.

And I invite you just to pause a moment to remember what that experience was like for you.

I would like to suggest that if we have received Mercy and we truly comprehend what it means, we have been invited to extend that Mercy to others.

Catherine McAuley knew that and it is what prompted her to proclaim that Mercy was the principal path marked out for us by God for our salvation. To Catherine that meant treating each person with the dignity bestowed on him/her by their Divine Creator. This conviction led her hen to claim that the Works of Mercy were the business of her life – and in turn, the lives of all those who would inherit her legacy. That would be all of us. If we truly understand this legacy, we have become “Stewards of Mercy.” A steward is a person to which something has been entrusted. This “something” does not belong to the steward but is held in trust for the benefit of all those who might benefit from the gift. The steward is in relationship with both the bestower of the gift and the recipient of the gift and is thus accountable to both.

I am suggesting that if we claim our role as stewards of mercy, we are responsible to bring that legacy to bear on everyone and everything we encounter as citizens of the world in 2013.

Of course Catherine McAuley did not invent the Works of Mercy.

She learned them from Jesus and made them the foundation of the Mercy way of life. Catherine’s focus was Chapter 25 in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus passes judgment on his sons and daughters.

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It is clear from this Gospel passage that we will ultimately be judged by how well we made the Works of Mercy the business of our lives. It is an invitation to become merciful persons who choose to be in service to our brothers and sisters. And, may I suggest, that as persons who have been blessed in multiple ways, but especially with the privilege and empowerment of Catholic Higher Education, we are challenged not just to some generic concept of service, but to work in deed and in truth for the common good of all.

And what would that look like – a throng of merciful persons encountering the realities of 2013 in order to work for, and promote the common good? How will we act in the face of gun-violence, the use of chemical weapons, the lack of access to health care in America, and the cutting of food stamps for the hungry people of Pennsylvania when we know that there really is enough food in the world for everyone if only people would make the choices necessary to share it?

How will we deal with the racism that is alive and well and living everywhere? Will we address the abuse and degradation of Earth which has also been entrusted to us as stewards? These are the questions before us – and many, many more. If we really are spiritual persons, true stewards of mercy, we can not pretend that we don’t know about these realities.

And once we know we are responsible. That is why ignorance is bliss.

So where to start then in considering our call to work for the Common Good? I would like to suggest that one starting point would be the Key Principles of Catholic Social Teaching, which are based on the gospel message and the example of Jesus.

The first of these is recognizing the inherent dignity of each person, just as Catherine McAuley did. Human dignity can only be realized and protected in the context of relationships with the wider society where interpersonal flourishing can occur. (Isn’t that a wonderful term?) But for a true and healthy community to be achieved, human rights must be protected and moral responsibilities met. (I teach moral theology) This is where Mercy hospitality creates a safe and welcoming place for all – no one is excluded!

But we know there are exclusions in the human community. Moral theologian Stanley Hauerwaus echoes Catholic Social Teaching when he states: “A basic moral test of society is how it treats its most vulnerable members.” And who are the most vulnerable in your sphere of influence? Who are the poor and marginalized? Who do we leave out?

The question that nations, governments, private and public institutions should be asking is how their decisions are going to effect these vulnerable ones. And if the question is not being asked at that level will you or I raise the question? Where? When? How often?

Our tradition tells us that the obligation to evaluate social and economic activity from the viewpoint of the poor and powerless arises from the radical command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. The option for the poor must be an essential part of society’s effort to achieve the common good – a goal that is so tough to achieve in a culture where individualism prevails.

The common good requires inclusion and participation on the part of every person in the society to which they belong – otherwise they can be treated as non-persons, as invisible – and then they can be ignored. Have you ever felt excluded, invisible? What was that like for you? Why would we ever do that to someone else?

This carries over into the treatment of workers and their right to a just wage, safe working environment and adequate health care – and that should not be our concern just here in the US. Does it matter to you how the persons who built your iPhone in China are treated? Or closer to home, how well fast-food workers are able to live on a less than just wage? How far do we extend our concern for the common good?

Pope John Paul II called us to live in solidarity with all people and in doing so to promote peace based on mutual trust between peoples and nations.

This solidarity involves collaboration and binding agreements.

As Americans, how well do you think we are doing on that front?

It can be very difficult to achieve such goals when power structures

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do not assume their responsibility to promote human dignity, protect human rights and build the common good.

So where does that leave us, here on this mountain in PA? What can we really do? The challenge can appear overwhelming, which is why many folks just throw up their hands and walk away.

The answer is to find some likeminded and like-hearted merciful persons and join forces to move forward. One person can make a difference.

There is hope out there. One of my biggest sources of hope at the moment is Pope Francis.

He is not naïve. He sees clearly the divisions, wars, exploitation, abuse and oppression in our world. But what does he bring to those harsh realities? Have you been listening and watching? He is a man whose public, private and operative theologies are one and the same. His message to us is simple (not easy). He reminds us that we have received God’s love and mercy, which is stronger than sin and evil. That love and mercy is now ours to share with our brothers and sisters and our fragile earth. Francis calls it “mercy-ing” – don’t you love it?

Catherine McAuley would be so pleased!

So can we do it? Will we do it set about “mercy-ing” our world?

How much can we achieve?

Maybe that is not ours to judge.

But here is something of which I am sure. If we can bring about this coming together of merciful persons to attend to the needs of our sisters and brothers and

our fragile planet; if we can connect the rich to the poor, the healthy to the sick, the powerful to the weak, the influential to those of no consequence – we will have done the work of God on earth and we will have contributed mightily to advancing the common good.

And when we finally arrive before of face of Jesus at the end of our life’s journey, he will recognize in us the good and faithful stewards who recognized him in all the faces and places that were in need of his mercy. He will consider our generous mercy-ing as the ultimate accountability for the gifts with which we have been so richly blessed and he will welcome us home with great joy and deep gratitude.

Let the mercy-ing continue!

Let the mercy-ing begin!

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ister Marie Michele Donnelly, RSM Holds a Master’s degree in Theology from Villanova University with a Continuing Education Certificate from Jesuit Weston School of Theology.

An adjunct professor in Religious Studies at Gwynedd-Mercy College, Sister Marie Michele also teaches in the Church Ministry Institute for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. She is a frequent presenter for parents, school faculties and parish groups throughout the Tri-State area. Sister gives retreats to groups of adults, both lay and religious, around the United States. She is a frequent keynote speaker for educational and health care organization meetings around the country.

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ello Mt. Aloysius!!! It is great to be back in the Altoona/Johnstown area.

I have many fond memories from my visits as United Way of Pennsylvania President.

It is important for any speaker to know his or her audience and I know that I am in Steeler’s Country!!

In full disclosure, I am a Philadelphia Eagles Fan!!

First and foremost, I want to thank President Foley for his gracious invitation and hospitality. It has been a real pleasure to meet members of the Mt. Aloysius community last night and throughout the day.

As you may know, I had the honor of serving as Vice President under President Foley during

our time at United Way of Pennsylvania over a decade ago.

I have taken and utilized many lessons that I learned from President Foley during my tenure not only as his successor as United Way of Pennsylvania President but now also as President of Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America also known as OIC. Tom, I am grateful for your friendship not only today but for nearly two decades. I look forward to many more years of friendship with you, your lovely wife Michelle and the entire Foley Clan.

It is my privilege to serve as one of the Keynote speakers in Mt. Aloysius’ year-long examination of Citizenship in the 21st Century: The Common Good.

In my view, it is a brilliant idea that Mt. Aloysius as a college community encompassing students,

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faculty, staff and alumni chooses a theme annually and coordinates student orientation, first-year seminars, the speakers’ series and other events around that single idea.

This yearlong format certainly is a “living” representation of Citizenship in the 21st Century.

It should come as no surprise that Mt. Aloysius would engage on the topic of “Citizenship” when one considers the College’s mission which is: “To respond to individual and community needs with quality programs of education in the tradition of the Religious Sisters of Mercy.”

This institution was founded on the belief that human persons rely on one another for life and well-being and the importance of community to each individual requires attention to the common good.

In preparation for today’s conversation, I read President Foley’s op-ed in honor of Constitution Day which articulated the importance of Citizenship in the 21st Century.

In the piece, President Foley notes that debates about the role and parameters of citizenship began in ancient times, when Greek philosophers struggled with the inherent tensions between the ideas of individual concerns and the common good.

The op-ed also tells us that Thomas Jefferson smudged out a single word in early drafts of the

Constitution and replaced it with the word “citizens.”

closer to Dr. King’s vision of a beloved community.

The word that Jefferson removed from the early text was “subjects.”

It should come as no surprise that that word would be removed as individuals living under a monarchy are by definition subjects of a King or Queen.

Our dialogue today is timely in that the King Holiday is the only federal holiday coordinated by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) whose mission is to “support the American culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility.”

Jefferson’s concept of American democracy is based on the principles of life, liberty and justice for all.

One of the points that I believe President Foley’s op-ed makes is that the debate over the role of citizenship in society is timeless and ever evolving.

We live in the age of Google, Facebook, cell phones and Ipads.

Yet, we still are contemplating the meaning of issues such as citizenship that thought leaders like Aristotle, Plato and Thomas Jefferson debated centuries ago.

Today’s gathering in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is another example of the timelessness of the ongoing conversation around the meaning of Citizenship in the 21st Century.

While he was born in 1929, many of the lessons that Dr. King taught us are still relevant today. As a result, it is most appropriate that we convene on the day after the official MLK Day of Service.

The national MLK Day of Service is designed to empower individuals, strengthen communities, bridge barriers, create solutions to social problems, and move us

With this context, I want to take a few moments to outline a few reasons why highlighting Citizenship on the King Holiday demonstrates the enduring power of this concept.

Earlier in my remarks, I referenced Thomas Jefferson who eloquently articulated the values of citizenship and democracy, yet Jefferson was a slave owner.

What does it say about the power of the idea of Citizenship that we assemble today in honor of a descendant of slaves and share croppers?

What does it say about the power of the idea of Citizenship, when Martin Luther King, Jr.—a son of segregation and Jim Crow – could still hope and yes even dream of a better society!

Citizenship was more powerful than the unimaginable horrors of segregation and Jim Crow.

In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Dr. King described the plight of his times. I paraphrase him here: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.

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Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.”

But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; When you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children; When you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; When your first name becomes the “n-word,” your middle name becomes “boy” (no matter how old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; Then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.

Yet, the idea of citizenship allows Dr. King to hope and dream in the face of these awful circumstances.

In his 1962 “Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address,” Dr King said, “If our nation had done nothing more in its whole history than to create just two documents, its contribution to civilization would be imperishable.

“The first of these documents is the Declaration of Independence and the other is that which we are here to honor tonight, the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Dr. King further states in the speech. “All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.”

Dr. King life’s journey would ensure that America lived up to the lofty aspirations that were espoused by our founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson.

As he said in the “Mountaintop” speech, “All we say to America is, be true to what you said on paper.”

As citizens in the 21st Century, our collective responsibility is to work toward a nation that reflects Dr. King’s vision of a beloved community in a constantly changing world.

While he would be 85 years old, if he were with us today, it is important that we remember that Dr. King was a young man.

Dr. King was only 26 which is not much older than many of the students here at Mt. Aloysius when he emerged onto the national stage after the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, and only 39 when he was tragically taken from his family and the world on April 4, 1968.

These facts bring me to the next reason why it is important to

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discuss the idea of Citizenship in the 21st Century on the King Holiday – young people.

Young people change the world.

Young people your time is now!

Dr. King once said, “Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.”

Young people change the world.

Your time is now!

Another reason to think about citizenship on the MLK Holiday is that it provides an opportunity to lift up the heroes and heroines – past and present – that a make a positive difference in society.

-Fannie Lou Hamer—who was instrumental in organizing the Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

I could name so many more.

However, I want to tell you about another shining example of citizenship. A citizenship example that is still relevant in 2014.

Again I say “Young people change the world. Your time is now!”

One of Dr. King’s most famous quotes is, “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve!”

According to Dr. King, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”

I am reminded of so many women who have exemplified the concept of Citizenship throughout our nation’s history:

I submit to you that nearly every revolution in politics, religion, technology and other areas of life is rooted in the genius and activism of young people.

-Rosa Parks who ignited the Civil Rights Movement by standing her ground in the face of discrimination on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955;

Rev. Leon Howard Sullivan was the longtime pastor of Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia, a civil rights leader and social activist who focused on the creation of job training opportunities for the poor.

Dr. King was young!

-Viola Liuzzo—a civil rights activist who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama; and

In addition, he was an influential leader in the anti-Apartheid movement which eventually won the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were young when they created Apple and Microsoft!

He was born seven years prior to Dr. King in West Virginia and became known as the “Lion of Zion.”

Rev. Sullivan was a young leader who became a Baptist minister at age 18.

At the age of just 36, Rev. Sullivan organized a boycott of various Philadelphia businesses that discriminated against African Americans in hiring.

The program became known as “Selective Patronage.”

The Selective Patronage Program produced thousands of jobs for African Americans in Philadelphia. The New York Times featured the program with a front-page story, and later, Fortune Magazine

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brought the program to the greater public.

Young people change the world!

In 1962, Dr. King brought Rev. Sullivan to Atlanta to meet with local ministers about replicating the Selective Patronage Program.

As a result of this exchange, Operation Breadbasket was created by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In 1964, Rev. Sullivan founded Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC) in an abandoned jail house in North Philadelphia.

The OIC program targeted individuals with little hope and few employment prospects. The program offered job training and instruction in life skills and then helped place graduates into jobs.

The OIC movement quickly spread around the nation with 44 affiliated programs in 22 states and the District of Columbia.

Throughout our history, OIC has served over two million disadvantaged and under-skilled people across America.

In 1971, Rev. Sullivan joined the Board of Directors of General Motors and became the first African-American on the board of a Fortune 500 corporation.

One of the things that I love about Rev. Sullivan is his sense of citizenship extended beyond America to the world.

In 1977, he developed a code of conduct for companies operating in South Africa called the Sullivan

Principles, as an alternative to complete disinvestment from the country.

President Foley asked me to share my personal story regarding the role of citizenship in my life.

The impact of the Sullivan Principles extended beyond South Africa and eventually became the model for the MacBride Principles.

My story begins just outside Chester, Pennsylvania born to a single mother.

Written by Nobel Laureate Seán MacBride, these nine fair employment principles serve as a corporate code of conduct for American companies doing business in Northern Ireland.

In addition, these principles have become the Congressional standard for all US aid and economic dealings with Northern Ireland.

President Foley spent several years working for peace in Northern Ireland early in his career and can speak to Rev. Sullivan’s impact on the Peace Process in Northern Ireland.

In 1997, Dr. Sullivan created the Global Sullivan Principles of Social Responsibility to further expand human rights and economic development to all communities.

Two years later, the Global Sullivan Principles were issued at the United Nations. This expanded code calls for multinational companies to take an active role in the advancement of human rights and social justice.

I am honored and humbled to stand on Rev. Sullivan’s shoulders today as the leader of OIC of America.

My mother never attended college and at one point in her life was on public assistance. Three years later, my younger brother was born. We are a blended family as my brother and I have different fathers.

What do most people think the chances of success are for children born into these circumstances today? You can imagine what most people thought about my family’s prospects in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

My mother was able to get training and secure employment at the BP Oil Refinery in Marcus Hook.

This position allowed her to buy a home and the resources to support my education and the education of my brother.

It is the ever evolving definition of citizenship that allowed my mother to improve her quality of life and change the trajectory of her children’s lives.

Let’s return to Jefferson and the founding fathers for a moment.

The Declaration of Independence talks about “all men being created equal.” Fortunately, many Americans fought to expand this concept of citizenship to mean “All men and women are created equal.”

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Without that change in the meaning of citizenship to include women, my mother would never have had the opportunity to work in a traditionally male job at an oil refinery in the 1970s and 1980s.

The definition of citizenship is always evolving. At one point in this nation’s history, African Americans were considered threefifths of a person.

I am so grateful for individuals like Dr. King, Rev. Sullivan and so many others who fought to expand the meaning of citizenship to include people of color.

I am thankful for people who stood up for justice and the principles of complete humanity and full citizenship.

Without that change in the meaning of citizenship to include people of color, my mother never

would have had the opportunity to work at BP and improve her station in life.

In my view, it is precisely the constantly evolving nature of citizenship that has allowed me to pursue my goals, dreams and aspirations.

The constantly evolving nature of citizenship is how a first generation college graduate and eldest son of a single mother rises to become President of OIC of America and serve as a successor to one of the greatest civil rights leaders in American history.

Citizenship is why I have always been driven by a need to advance the common good. I first recognized this need as a summer college intern at a major corporation in Philadelphia.

I was miserable.

I don’t have anything against Corporate America. Maybe it was the company but it just did not feel like I was made for corporate life.

My professional journey from the Pennsylvania General Assembly, to United Way to OIC, has been about improving lives and advancing the common good.

Today, Dr. King would challenge us to not exclusively reflect on the past if he were with us. I believe that he would charge us to use this occasion to develop solutions to the pressing issues and challenges of our times.

In the final years of his life, Dr. King expanded his focus from solely civil rights to include poverty.

In one of his last major speeches before his assassination, Dr. King said:

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“We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty.”

Unfortunately, Dr. King’s focus on economics is still relevant as our nation continues to struggle with unemployment, poverty and related issues.

We live in a nation with a persistently high unemployment rate.

Yet, there are approximately 3 million jobs that go unfilled.

Today, more than 46 million Americans live in poverty.

OIC addresses the specific needs of subgroups of the unemployed, underemployed and underskilled, including people with barriers to employment, with less than desirable backgrounds, high school drop outs, teen parents and other challenges.

The OIC national network offers a range of human development

supports which serve to diminish the impact of personal and social barriers, as well as a host of complex risk factors.

This year the OIC Movement celebrates its 50th anniversary and we look forward to many more years of serving communities across America.

We are making a statement about Citizenship in the 21st Century by renewing our commitment to Rev. Sullivan’s vision and to Dr. King’s dream.

We make this statement not just through service to the public but also by supporting policies and frameworks which strategically integrate the work of community based organizations such as OIC with educational, economic development and employer stakeholders.

In our view, this alignment would better serve the needs of local economies as well as a range of jobseekers.

Poverty is not a partisan issue.

The OIC Network stands ready to work with all Americans of good will to realize Dr. King’s vision of a beloved community.

Finally, I believe that Dr. King would give us one last charge. It is a call to action that he made in his famous Mountaintop Speech.

He said: “Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.”

Dr. King was recalling the story of the Good Samaritan. In the parable some people worried

“What will happen to me if I help the man in need?” And the Samaritan worried, “What will happen to him if I don’t help this man in need?”

Dangerous and unselfishness – two words that are not usually associated with each other.

Let us to strive live in a state of “dangerous unselfishness” that promotes Citizenship in the 21st Century.

Thank you.

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Anthony (Tony) Ross is President & Chief Executive Officer of OIC of America. OICA, founded in 1964 by the late Rev. Leon Sullivan, is a national non-profit network of employment and training programs helping the disadvantaged realize their true potential. Through its 44 affiliated programs in 20 states and the District of Columbia, the OIC today serves over 2.5 million disadvantaged and under-skilled people. The OICA serves as a catalyst to its affiliates in a number of areas: helping to establish and maintain workforce development technologies, supporting capacity and system-building endeavors, expanding partnerships and collaborations, and promoting organizational growth through professional development.

Prior to joining OICA, Mr. Ross served first as Vice President (appointed by then United Way of Pennsylvania President Tom Foley) and then President (succeeding Mt Aloysius’ Foley) of the United Way of Pennsylvania, providing strategic leadership to the 65 organizations of the United Way’s Pennsylvania network. In that role, he led the

United Way’s efforts to improve the quality of life in communities across the Commonwealth through advocacy, initiatives and partnerships. During his tenure, Mr. Ross led key initiatives including the Pennsylvania Fund for Workforce Solutions—a program to increase opportunities for lower-skilled workers; a prescription assistance program for over 330,000 Pennsylvanians; and administration of disaster relief funds and the AmeriCorps VISTA program— that provided over $2 million in staff capacity to local United Way chapters. Thanks to his leadership, the United Way of Pennsylvania is regarded as a leading voice on human service and social issues in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Ross is a highly respected voice on policy matters in government and media circles and has testified on numerous occasions in both Harrisburg and Washington on non-profit policy issues and on matters relating to charitable giving. In 2011, he represented United Way of Pennsylvania at the White House Community Leaders Briefing Series.

Mr. Ross began his career with the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives, serving in a variety of progressively responsible capacities including, Information Specialist, Research Analyst and Executive Director. He has served on several state commissions including the Pennsylvania Stimulus Oversight Commission, the Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission and the Auditor General Transition Committee. Mr. Ross was named one of Central PA’s most influential “Movers and Shapers” by Harrisburg Magazine, and was recognized as one of the “Ten Rising Leaders in State Government” by the Harrisburg Patriot‐News.

A native of the Philadelphia area, Mr. Ross is a 1991 graduate of Franklin & Marshall College, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Government. He is a past president of Franklin & Marshall’s Black Student Union, and currently serves on the college’s AfricanAmerican Alumni Council.

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Journey to the Kingdom of God: From Individualism & Tribalism to Neighborliness and the Common Good Sister Mary Ann Dillon Moral Choices Lecture April 8, 2014 Mount Aloysius College

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ood Evening! It is a great pleasure to be with you this evening, to experience your warm welcome, to hear your stories, to walk again on this beloved campus! Thank you all for your very kind welcome and for coming out this lovely evening.

You will forgive me for speculating about your motivations – whether you came out of a sense of curiosity (is she still really real), or duty (after all she WAS the president), or kindness (this is Lent) or, maybe even an interest in what I might have to say. Of course one of the fundamental assumptions of those who study moral theology and moral reasoning is that no one of us is ever moved to act as a result of a single motivation. So regardless of what combination of motives brought you here this evening, I hope that – to some modest degree – I will meet your expectations, contribute to your reflections and perhaps even stimulate your imagination about the applicability of this construct - The Common Good - to the many dilemmas in which we are each and all immersed. In brief, it is an honor for me to offer the annual Spring Moral Choices Lecture here at Mount Aloysius College.

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In advance of my coming, President Foley sent me a list of impressive speakers who have visited or are soon to come to the campus this academic year to talk with faculty and students about the myriad ways in which the notion of The Common Good/The Common Weal is embraced or ignored in our world today. From what I can discern, their knowledge and expertise, far wider than my own, come primarily from reflection upon their experiences within the public arena. In contrast, I speak this evening as one who has studied and continues to study theology and ethics, albeit more frequently than not in their applied forms.

In my current “day job” I am a student of the incredibly

complicated world of health care, beleaguered with both serious organizational and clinical ethical challenges, some of which can be construed in terms of the tension between the perceived rights of the individual person and the importance of a “common good.”

As a practical example, let me describe two extremes: on the one hand, there is a movement to provide greater access to primary care especially for those who have been uninsured while, on the other hand, there is the emergence of what is euphemistically called “boutique medicine.” In case you have not yet encountered that concept, it is basically an arrangement between a physician and his/ her clients wherein the client, in addition to health care insurance, pays the physician a flat fee (say $15,000/year) and for that fee gets

immediate and preferred access to the physician, has his/her cell phone number, gets preferential treatment for an appointment, has the opportunity for longer “conversations” during a visit to the office, is first in line for tests, etc…. You can easily imagine why both patients and physicians might like such an arrangement. These two movements are obviously extremes but they provide a snapshot of the macroethical dilemma.

In fact beneath the current multilayered, often political, public dispute about both the economics and the practice of health care delivery, one can discern the strains of a perennial debate about the very nature of the human person, of society and of the relationship between the two.

I would like to suggest that the

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social ethical theory embedded in the concept of the common good offers a means to begin to imagine how to resolve both the theoretical questions as well as the very practical problems which arise when those differences remain unresolved. Allow me to explain.

First, I will lay the groundwork by sketching, ever so briefly, the theological roots of this concept and outlining some of the contemporary dilemmas to which it might be applied. Secondly, I’d like to reflect with you on two formative stories from the JudeaChristian world that inform the meaning of the common good from a faith-based perspective.

And finally I look forward to engaging with you on what all of this might mean in your/our experience.

To begin I want to acknowledge the great body of theological and pastoral writing dubbed Catholic Social Teaching, within which the notion of the common good is situated. In fact, Catholic Social Teaching is nothing more than a dynamic, systematic reflection on the fundamental values embedded in our shared faith as these values are applied to the complex societal problems of our world.

Catholic Social Teaching, or the Catholic Social Tradition as it is sometimes called, with its many intertwined values, rests upon two substantial pillars: the dignity of the human person and the common good.

In a nutshell, these are the foundation for the broad and sometimes intricate network of ethical principles and derivative rules that comprise Catholic Ethical Thinking. (I hasten to add that this body of ethical thought is not unique to Catholic [with a capital C] ethical theory but, at the same time, the development of this thought over centuries has occurred substantially within the Catholic intellectual tradition and the magisterium.)

One can easily

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see that it is the interplay between emphasis on the dignity of the human person and the importance of the common good which is the source of both creative solutions and serious tensions.

Think for a moment about the challenge of simultaneously espousing both of these values in contemporary Western thought where claims rooted in convictions about the dignity of the person often appear to trod upon the needs of the community, particularly with respect to the distribution of resources.

At what point do the needs and desires of particular persons trump the needs of a larger group? What are the variables that play into these situations?

How big is the universe within which we attempt to resolve such dilemmas: is it a city, a state, a nation, the world? When we call upon the common good, whose common good are we talking about? On the other hand, when do decisions, defended through reference to the common good, in fact trample upon the dignity of persons - or upon the dignity of certain groups of persons? At face value, it would seem that these two foundational principles – respect for the dignity of each person and concern for the common good - are mutually exclusive?

Within Catholic Social Teaching however, these foundational principles, the dignity of the human person and the importance of the common good, are not mutually exclusive; in fact

they are integral to one another.

The basic framework for ethical reflection on social dilemmas requires an understanding of the interplay between the principles of the dignity of the human person and the importance of the common good. Neither can be canceled out by the other. For those responsible for decisionmaking for the community/the Commonwealth/ the nation/ our world, doing what is right requires a capacity to honor both principles.

In the American culture and ethos, it is often assumed that respecting the dignity of each human person is assured by guaranteeing rights. Catholic Social Teaching also references “basic human rights:” to food, water, clothing and shelter; to education, employment, the right to have a family and the right to practice one’s religious faith.”

In our democracy, we espouse certain civil and political rights as are memorialized in the Bill of Rights of the Constitutions. Anecdotally, ‘rights talk’ sometimes deteriorates into superficial claims such as the right to a parking space (forget the fire lane), the right to an “A” (after all, I paid for this course), the right to use this dorm room as I please (I came first) and on and on and on. (But these claims have never been made on this campus.)

Even a novice knows that rights claims and counter claims have shaped case history in the courts of our land since its inception.

When one’s rights arguably clash with those of another, wherein is the solution? For sure, we know

that an emphasis on “rights” without a corresponding accent upon responsibilities can in fact denigrate the dignity of persons.

It is likewise obvious that rights talk outside of a context that is framed by assumptions about the common good is doomed to failure.

At the heart of common good theory is the conviction that the human person is inherently social and, therefore, that all human persons have a natural right and a commensurate responsibility to participate in the life of society. Non-participation is both a violation of the dignity of the individual person and a weakening of the common good - ultimately diminishing the well-being of every member.

Thus, providing for the least advantaged in society is a responsibility to the common good.

Consider another set of dilemmas faced in business and industry today around the question of salary and wages. Currently there is a growing debate in this country about the minimum wage, tied to the value-based concept of a living wage. Played out on a global stage, these arguments become even more complex. What is the right relationship between profit taking and the wages of those helping to create the profit? What is the acceptable multiple by which the CEO’s salary may exceed that of his/her lowest paid workers?

Under what circumstances does the common good require that the rights of a few be limited to meet the needs of the many?

When does the claim of the

67 Below, at left - Sr. Mary Ann Dillon receives flowers from Board of Trustees Chairman Daniel Rullo and President Tom Foley following her Moral Choices lecture in historic Alumni Hall. Below right - Sr. Mary Ann renews acquaintances with faculty members Dr. Marilyn Roseman; Dr. Paul Farcus and Dr. Don Talbot. Dr. David Haschak is in the background.

common good become an excuse for ignoring the dignity of certain persons or groups wherever they may live or work on this globe?

Should economic supply chains also become value chains?

In attempting to grapple with these economic dilemmas and related societal questions, the concept of the common good is being expanded, even as it is applied. For example, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales recently offered this description of the common good to political leaders in Great Britain: Public authorities have the common good as their prime responsibility. The common good stands in opposition to the good of rulers or of a ruling

(or any other) class. It implies that every individual, no matter how high or low, has a duty to share in promoting the welfare of the community as well as a right to benefit from that welfare. “Common” implies “all-inclusive”: the common good cannot exclude or exempt any section of the population.

If any section of the population is in fact excluded from participation in the life of the community, even at a minimal level, then it is a contradiction to the common good and calls for rectification. (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Common Good and the Catholic Church’s Social Teaching as quoted in Jim Wallis, “On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics

Hasn’t Learned about Serving the Common Good,” p. 282.)

In his Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis weighs in on the importance of the common good as well: “The dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good are concerns which ought to shape all economic policies. At times however they seem to be a mere addendum imported from without in order to fill out a political discourse lacking in perspectives or plans for true and integral development.”

He continues, “Business is a vocation, and a noble vocation, provided that those engaged in it see themselves challenged by a greater meaning in life; this

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will enable them truly to serve the common good by striving to increase the goods of this world and to make them more accessible to all.”

Sometimes discussion about the common good and the dignity of each person is placed within a political rubric where emphasis on the common good is perceived to be a “liberal” interest while an emphasis on the individual is assumed to be the concern of the “conservatives.” But, as the evangelical writer, Jim Wallis notes, “…the common good requires us to be both personally responsible and socially just.” (Wallis, p. 158) He goes on to say, “Individuals making good, moral, virtuous, noble and courageous personal choices are absolutely essential to the well-being of society and the outcome of history.” (Wallis, p. 160) At the same time, “being responsible for oneself and even one’s family isn’t enough. There is also our ‘neighbor,’ and even other neighbors we don’t think of as such…” (Wallis, p. 163) In a world sensitive to the common good, both conservative and liberal insights and commitments are necessary for us to exist.

Enough on that for the moment, but shortly I will return to the centrality of “neighbor” and to the really big question which was once posed to Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?”

Let us turn now to the Scriptural wisdom beneath these philosophical/ethical descriptions about the common good and its corollary, the dignity of the human person, to two stories which add color and dimension to these “thick”

ethical principles. You know both of these stories well; they have been told over and over and, as in the case of all great stories, listening to them again holds the possibility of gaining yet another insight into their meaning. The thing about stories is that they engage us in a way that no explication of theory, no matter how brilliant, can do. They are the seeds for our own imaginations of how things might be in our time and place.

The first story is from the Hebrew Scriptures and the second from the Gospel of Luke. They are both what we call “paradigmatic” stories, that is, each tells a tale about an historical event but, at the same time, has the power to illumine our own lives. In fact these stories are full of meaning about what is happening in our own lives and that is the reason they draw us in. I invite you to listen as I rehearse these stories and attempt to tease out some meaning from them to enlighten the notion of the common good.

»»Story I: “ from tribalism to community.”

In retelling this story, I want to acknowledge the creative work of an eminent scholar and author, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who, in my judgment, has brilliantly developed this paradigm I am about to unfold.

The Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) is, in large part, the story of the Exodus. We know

it well: a group of foreigners residing in Egypt grumble and complain to their God and their reluctant leader about their unfortunate and unhappy fate in a land where they are virtually slaves, so that finally (you know the details – frogs and locusts, unleavened bread manna, flocks and herds) Moses leads them out on an unknown path with a pretty vague promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. They were, you recall, a collection from 12 different tribes and, in addition, “a crowd of mixed ancestry also went up with them…” (Ex. 12:38) United primarily in their misery and common enemy, this motley crowd was not yet a community nor, from what we can tell, were they committed to a common good.

They were hardly on their way when, surprise, this collection of separate tribes and “others” began to grumble again, “Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we set beside our flesh pots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine.” (Ex. 16:3) It got so bad that God himself had to put in a personal appearance, complete with peels of thunder and lightning, trumpet blasts and a smoking mountain. Through Moses God offered them the promise of protection IF they kept a covenant, a covenant that had significant social requirements: providing a Sabbath for every person once a week, honoring and caring for one’s elders, one’s neighbors, telling

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the truth in social and economic circles, not taking what does not rightly belong to another, and so on. The tribes accepted the covenant (read a set of rules for the common good) with enthusiasm, proclaiming, “All that the Lord has said we will heed and do.” (Ex. 24:7) But within 40 days they were at it again, this time constructing an idol – something else to focus on – abandoning faith in the covenantal vision of a common people, protected by a merciful God. This time however God tells Moses to get them to build something together; this project, building together a Dwelling for God-in-their-midst, will make them a people. Listen again to this paradigmatic tale, “… everyone, as his heart suggested and his spirit prompted, brought a contribution to the Lord for the construction of the meeting tent…. Both the men and the women, all as their hearts prompted brought brooches, earrings, rings, necklaces and various other articles. Everyone who could presented an article of

gold….Everyone who happened to have violet yarn, fine linen or goat hair or rams’ skins brought them…. The princes brought onyx stones and other gems.” (Ex. 35) As the story is chronicled in Exodus, the people gave up so many of their personal treasures that there was more than was needed. The last five chapters of Exodus describe in minute detail this major construction project to which all contributed, whether craftsmen or spinners, or laborers. The culmination of the story: “Then the cloud covered the meeting tent, and the glory of the Lord filled the Dwelling.” (Ex. 40:34) One might argue that it was in this common project, in building this house TOGETHER, that they became one community.

In this common project, the Israelites were able, for the first time, to give and not simply receive. It allowed for an integrated diversity in which each could and did contribute to the common good. Working together on a common project, infused

by God’s inspiration, allowed the disparate wanderers to let go of their private holdings, their tribal identities, become a community and embrace the social covenant earlier outlined in the Ten Commandments, the earliest Biblical road map toward a common good.

This paradigmatic story suggests that the home we build together, the society we construct, the globe we protect, God’s tent, will be wide enough for all if all exercise responsibility for constructing it. Both the action of building it together and the society formed will honor the dignity of each person and create an environment in which the common good may flourish. On the other hand, imagine society, not as a common home we build together, but as one large hotel where each guest (or group) pays his/her fee and lives separately (or conversely cannot gain entrance at all). In that, if in the hotel each does what she/he wants, coming and going, without disturbing the others or even having to notice them, we will neither be able to imagine nor construct a common Members of the Mount Aloysius College Board of Trustees enjoyed a special dinner and reception with Sr. Mary Ann prior to her delivery of the 2014 Spring Moral Choices Lecture. From left are: Judge David Klementik; Chairman Daniel Rullo, Esq.; Ann Benzel, Sr. Mary Ann; Mr. Joseph Sheetz and President Tom Foley.

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good. From this paradigm, it is easy enough to tease out cues for the construction of an ethic based on the common good in arenas ranging from the environment to education, from distribution of resources to respect for diversity.

»»Story II: “Who is my neighbor?”

know the rest. The hero of the story is an unnamed Samaritan traveler who went beyond the requirements of the law, beyond the expectations of society, maybe even beyond common sense because, to use Luke’s words, “he was moved with compassion at the sight.” He did not say to himself, “My job is at the end of the road. I can’t get involved with the mess by the side of the road.”

In the first segment of this presentation I hinted that this question is pivotal to understanding the common good in the 21st Century. Again, you know the story from Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 10. Actually it is a story within a story. The inner story is about a man making a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho, a reputedly dangerous road – windy, without street lights or highway patrol.

Not surprisingly the hiker “fell victim to robbers.” And you

But it is the outer story, which is of immediate interest here.

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan because he was goaded by the query of a scholar of the law: “Who is my neighbor?”

That incredibly simple question, first presented by someone who “wished to justify himself ” before Jesus, has been repeated in a myriad of personal, national and international ethical dilemmas even to this day. Notice that, after telling the story of the travelers,

Jesus reversed the question on the scholar: “Which of these, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” The lawyer was trapped – “The one who treated him with mercy.” Then comes the ethical command: “GO AND DO LIKEWISE.” Herein lies the substance of the common good and the way to the Kingdom of God: being a neighbor to those who are in need. In the 21st Century the neighborhood is as small as the blocks around our homes and as expansive as the seven continents.

It requires crossing barriers - cultural, economic, racial, religious, regional and tribal - to find our neighbors “by the side of the road.”

The ethic of care and compassion applies to interpersonal relationships, to protecting the rights of the most vulnerable, to the provision of health care, to a just economic system, to care for the environment, to right relationships among nations and across religious boundaries and more.

An ethic grounded in the twin principles of respect for the dignity of each person and provision for the common good requires that persons, civic organizations, corporations, educational entities, churches, states and nations put their figurative hands into their figurative pockets and shell out “the two silver coins” to ensure that healing happens in every dimension. For of such is the Kingdom of God. Thank you. §

From left, Sr. Guiseppe DaBella, RSM, and Sr. Benedict Joseph Watters, RSM welcome Sr. Mary Ann Dillon back to The Mount.

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Reflections on Sr. Mary Ann Dillon, RSM Delivered as Introductory Remarks by Mount Aloysius President Tom Foley Sister Mary Ann Dillon, RSM is an accomplished academic. Her doctorate was earned in Systematic Theology from Duquesne. Her thesis explored, “The Common Good in Catholic/Christian Tradition.”

Before coming to Mount Aloysius, she was dean of general education at Saint Francis University where she also served as assistant professor of philosophy and religious studies. She was a member of the Advisory Board of their Ethics Institute, developing and teaching courses in health care ethics—required of all undergraduates in health-related majors.

Sr. Mary Ann now serves as Senior Vice President of Mission and Sponsorship at Mercy Health System in southeastern Pennsylvania. She is responsible for all of that system’s clinical and organizational ethics education, programs and processes. She is clearly an intellectual leader on the very idea of the Common Good.

Sister Mary Ann is also a leader on the ground regarding the idea of 21st Century Citizenship. In a profound extension of Mercy ideals, Sister Mary Ann inaugurated the position of Vice-President for Mission Integration at Mount Aloysius, and recruited Sister Helen Marie Burns to fill it. Helen Marie was an especially wise appointment—by my count, in addition to the Moral Choices series, she has organized 16 biannual ecumenical lectures, roughly 10 annual in-school retreats, eight Mercy Week lectures, seven Summer Scripture Institutes and two Thomas Merton seminars. That’s all in addition to her day job, where she teaches, mentors (colleagues and staff members alike), tutors (Mercy Scholars, honors students and whoever comes to her door), and lastly keeps me in line—some days her toughest assignment.

This very Moral Choices Lecture—now in its eighth year—is just one example of initiatives implemented during their time together at the College.

We can truly characterize Sister Mary Ann’s service to this institution as a best practice of “21st Citizenship: The Common Good.” She served Mount Aloysius College as President for 13 years. In that time she moved this College to an entirely new level. Enrollment increased by 47 percent, tripled the number of residential students,

increased the number of baccalaureate programs and of student activities and clubs, and managed the College’s transition to NCAA Division III athletics.

Sister Mary Ann oversaw the introduction of the College’s first master’s degree programs, dramatically improved its financial position and brought us into the 21st century in technology.

Sister Mary Ann, working closely with Sister Ginny Bertschi, engineered the formulation and execution of a transformational Campus Master Plan. During their tenure here together, and following that plan almost to the letter, these two Mercy dynamos oversaw: »» the construction of a new dormitory and a science classroom building; »» a 40% expansion of Cosgrave Student Center; »» remodeling of the third floor nursing wing; »» the funding and founding of our nursing simulation labs; »» the general beautification of the grounds (including the brick-framed entrance to the college and the funding of the brick walkway), and; »» so many other improvements which protect the many architectural highlights of Old Main while integrating the modern college campus that is Mount Aloysius today.

These two legendary leaders—who followed a litany of other names whose very histories rhyme with Mount Aloysius—also led the way to the first remodeling of Alumni Hall in almost 100 years, completed the college’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign to help support all this work, and left a legacy of dramatically expanded academic opportunities, institutionalized Mercy values and a campus footprint 41% larger than when they arrived. I am out of breath just describing all that work.

It is my honor to present to you a thought leader, a practical implementer and a walking best practice of 21st Century Citizenship: The Common Good, Sister Mary Ann Dillon.

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am deeply honoured to have the opportunity to spend time with you in Mount Aloysius College and to renew my friendship with your President Tom Foley. I have known Tom Foley since my years in Washington DC in the nineteen eighties when we were both closely involved in a congressional organisation called The Friends of Ireland, set up by Tip O’Neill and Teddy Kennedy to support the peace movement in Ireland. In those days we called him young Tom Foley-and we still call him young Tom Foley-to distinguish him from Tom Foley senior, the former Congressman and Speaker of the House of Representatives. I confess I have long been an admirer of young Tom Foley. Although he will be mad at me for saying so, I often thought it a remarkable act of courage for a young man from Philadelphia in the nineteen seventies to take himself off, as he did, to the distant and war-divided streets of Belfast to spend two years and join the often thankless job of spreading the gospel of peace and reconciliation.

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I thank him again for that brave initiative, an outstanding expression of engaged citizenship in the service of the common good.

I should also say that I am also an admirer of Sister Catherine McAuley. About ten minutes from where I live there is a statue of Sister Catherine with arms outstretched in welcome, inviting the poor of Dublin into her home, the House of Mercy in Baggot Street.

Catherine McAuley was an extraordinary woman. Her personal service on behalf of the poor and sick in nineteenth century Ireland is a story of selfless and even saintly dedication. Equally impressive was her inspiration and god-given energy in creating an international movement of good will and Christian charity.

Within barely two decades of the launch of their mother house in Dublin, the Sisters of Mercy were well established all over Ireland, including in my own city, Derry, and had foundations in England , Scotland, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Pennsylvania was from the start a special region of concern for the Sisters in health, education and care of the poor.

Impressively-and most poignantly as a visit to the little graveyard outside will show -the origins of your own college reach right back to this early flowering of zeal and compassion Given all of this inspiring leadership, I fully understand why the concept of the common good is such a compelling one within this college and I am honoured to be asked by your President

to make a presentation on this theme and the theme of citizenship and its challenges in the twenty-first century. In doing so, I hope you will forgive me if I introduce you to some of my own Irish heroes who have shown real courage as citizens of Ireland and of the world; the Nobel laureate John Hume, former Irish President Mary Robinson and the poet Seamus Heaney. You will also see that I give special place to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the essential direction finder for guiding us towards the common good and in our search for a more engaged citizenship.

In preparing for this lecture, I tried to see to what extent there has been at the level of statecraft a rallying around something like a common-sense view of the common good, e.g. the idea that it is the duty of government, among other things, to protect the welfare of the most vulnerable, the sick, the elderly and the homeless in society. No such luck! Just as there is nothing common about common sense, so there is nothing common place about the common good. Despite an extensive and even exhilarating debate about the common good over two millennia, we still have not come up with a single view of what it entails, far less how we can achieve it.

Certainly, the concept has a distinguished and antique pedigree reaching back to the age of Plato and Aristotle and encompassing en route the great medieval thinkers, Augustine and Aquinas.

In its modern manifestation,

it finds early and eloquent expression in the preamble to the American constitution-the reference to “the general welfare”but after that, debates about fairness and equality in society, certainly within nineteenth century liberal philosophy, have often triggered counter claims of conflict with individual rights and freedoms. Here in the United States, the debate has been further complicated by concerns about federalism and states’ rights, the constraints on government in imposing taxation and, in this same context, the prioritisation of self-reliance and volunteerism.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the sum of good government is, “a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and which shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned.”

This limited view of government, reflecting the contemporary preoccupations of a generation engaged in thwarting colonial despotism and resisting unfair taxation over two hundred years ago, has become permanently embedded in the American political landscape ever since.

Within the Catholic social tradition, above all since the landmark encyclical “De Rerum Novarum” of Leo XIII in 1891, there has been a broadly consensual and dynamic approach to the common good as a natural end of good government. “De Rerum

Welcoming Ambassador James A. Sharkey, from left, are: Mount Aloysius College President Tom Foley; Ambassador Sharkey; and James Lamb, president of the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh and the City’s Honorary Consul of Ireland.

Novarum,” with its recognition of workers’ rights and its equally strong defence of property, set the scene for progressive Catholic political thinking which over time evolved into the Christian Democratic movement which is still very influential across Europe. Its most fulsome elaboration has been in the writings of the great thomistic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, who sees no room for conflict between the common good and human freedoms, given the natural

symmetry between our role as individual human beings and as members a larger interdependent society. Although Maritain’s approach is grounded in a spiritual and religious view of man’s destiny, it finds parallel expression in more functionalist and secular European political philosophies such as social democracy which emphasize above all the duty of government in building social cohesion.

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When I first came to Washington in 1980 issues of fairness, individual freedom and the role of government within society were the stuff of everyday political debate. In my first weeks in America I attended the Democratic Convention in New York in 1980 where I heard Edward Kennedy make his famous and very moving concession speech in which he advanced the values of compassion and social equality as being at the very heart of the

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American democratic achievement. For Kennedy this was “a dream that will never die.” I also encountered the equally famous statement of Ronald Reagan, made during his inaugural address, which was to become the defining theme of his presidency: “in the present crisis government is no solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

Reagan even elevated his concern to the level of a scientific rule. He said, “I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited.

There is a clear cause and effect here as neat and predictable as the laws of science. As government expands, liberty contracts.”

Reagan also joked that “the most terrifying words in the English language are - I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

For all my years in Washington, there was a constant political tug-of-war between the radical populist individualism of Ronald Regan and the idealism and inclusiveness of the New Deal and Great Society generation championed by House Speaker, Tip O’Neill. A conservative and a populist, Ronald Regan was an undoubted paradox. Like speaker O’Neill, he came of age during the Great Depression and had known real hardship. He was a strong admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt but by the early sixties he had become the most powerful and the most persuasive advocate for American conservatism. Tip O’Neill called Ronald Reagan the acting President. Like O’Neill, Reagan was Irish American and, apparently, after work hours they

shared the odd joke together.

This undoubtedly helped build compromise and O’Neill in this way was able to protect many needy Americans against the full onslaught of the conservative crusade. Of course, they both shared an interest in Ireland and Ronald Reagan was the first American President to visit the Irish Embassy in Washington officially on St Patrick’s Day. My initial assumption was that it could be hard to trump Ronald Reagan’s conservatism. Not so!

Once I called by appointment on a congressman from Georgia on a day when the House and Senate were celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of President Roosevelt’s inauguration. I was surprised that he was not attending the celebrations and asked him why.

He told that he was not going to celebrate the life and achievement of FDR because Roosevelt in his view was a communist. To say the least I was somewhat taken aback.

Later I was assured that the congressman, though a very decent individual, was highly personal and unrepresentative in his views.

In following more recent political debates in the United States, I have often wondered to what extent these views would still be regarded as unrepresentative.

From a European perspective, there is no way, of course, that the moderate social reforms of the New Deal could be regarded as communist or subversive of human liberty. That is not to say that a heightened state of political alert is not a natural or worthy response whenever there is even the slightest hint of totalitarian-

ism, communist or otherwise.

Without the assurance and underpinning of democracy and respect for the inviolability of the human person, the exercise of nation building and social reconstruction can degenerate into dictatorship, as the nightmares of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia have brutally shown. That said, there are in today’s world other sinister, insidious and destabilising threats to democracy and human rights which we must also guard against.

When I was in Washington in the 1980s, I had hardly heard of the ‘objectivist’ theories of Ayn Rand. Now I am told that in the United States some of her books are outsold only by the Bible.

Left unchecked, these, contemporary manifestations of the cult of the absolute self-the excessive adulation of celebrity, the unencumbered pursuit of wealth and the denigration of social conscience-are also corrosive of human dignity and solidarity.

We have seen as a recent example how the unregulated pursuit of wealth helped to create the banking crisis which in Europe and America left us badly battered and which we have been able to contain only by massive taxpayer intervention.

In the year 2007 the top tier of managers in the leading international financial institutions were paid between 15 and 25 million dollars per year in total income, more than five hundred times the average annual wage in countries like Ireland, Britain, Germany and the United States. The justification was that these huge salaries were merited because of the

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unique banking skills of the individuals concerned and their gift, above all, for risk management.

The financial collapse over which they presided makes nonsense of this claim and should teach us care and prudence. Even now it is not clear that the lessons have been learnt. Rather, the massive concentration of wealth among a very few people, nationally and transnationally, continues to grow at such an alarming rate that the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland - sometimes called a rich man’s club-identified it this year as one of the main challenges to the present global order.

There are other related problems and dangers.

Corruption and criminality. These can and do subvert democratic institutions and pervert the course of justice. In Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America corruption has been a running plague and the poor of these countries have borne the heaviest burden. However, it has been a plague which all of us in the West have also helped to spread in our scramble for scarce resources and special favours. In Russia,

it has complicated and delayed democratic progression and in Ukraine it has undermined the trust of ordinary citizens in public officials and is an important element in the present crisis.

Of course, we do not have to be fans of the Sopranos to know that corruption and criminality can exist everywhere in our societies, even in the fashionable and leafy suburbs of Washington, Dublin, Brussels and London.

We have had in our own time in democratic societies to contend with other threats. As the terrible events of 9/11 have shown, international terrorism is a formidable challenge and vigilance is required in protection of the common good. At the same time, vigilance against terrorism also carries with it a need for prudence and common-sense so that we get the balance right between individual freedoms and the protection of society. This is particularly true at those times when society is in profound recoil

Ambassador Sharkey’s wife, Sattie enjoys the Moral Choices Lecture Program while the Ambassador reviews his notes. James A. Sharkey served as both Honors Lecturer and Visiting Scholar.

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from some unbearable outrage and the temptation is there, when the real culprits cannot be found, to strike out against the ethnic or religious minorities they come from. Furthermore, new intrusive technologies make it increasingly easy for governments everywhere to interfere with basic rights such as the right to privacy, freedom of information and freedom of expression. These technologies

have already been harnessed by authoritarian governments to strike back at political protest and dissent. China is a glaring example but not the only one. As we know, democracies have no special immunity from this same temptation.

Within democratic systems, grave injustice will also occur when ideas of the general welfare or the

common good are expropriated by one section of society to the disadvantage and subjection of the other. This is what happened in the American south during segregation. This is also what happened in South Africa during apartheid. It is what happened in Northern Ireland where I grew up. There the majoritarian principle-the right of the elected majority in democracies to enact

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laws for society as a whole - was stubbornly applied by the governments of the permanent unionist majority without proper concern for the rights of the Catholic nationalist minority.

What resulted was discrimination in jobs, housing and voting rights so that Catholics in Northern Ireland became second-class citizens. This situation might

have gone on were it not for a revolution in access to high school and university education so that a new generation of Catholics, including people like John Hume and Seamus Heaney, became immediate beneficiaries. This new professional class naturally asked for the full rights of citizenship for themselves and their communities. Instead of moving forward and modernis-

ing, the unionist reaction, because of deep rooted insecurities and prejudice, was ill-judged, intemperate and repressive-giving space for the re-emergence of the IRA, an underground organisation committed to the violent overthrow of the connection between Northern Ireland and Britain. This, of course, only made the unionists even more intransigent.

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John Hume, a neighbour in my home city of Derry, was undoubtedly one of the most able, eloquent and courageous leaders of the movement for civil rights in Northern Ireland.

Hume dedicated his life - as did his wife Pat, a graduate of the Mercy Sisters in Derry - to the cause of peace and reconciliation, to the creation of a form of government which would allow the two communities to share power and work together for the common good. He sought to persuade the unionists and their supporters in Britain to take up the cause of political reform and inclusion and at the same time to persuade the IRA to give up their arms and engage in negotiations for peace. It was a long and hard road with fearful loss of life along the way. In the end, the persistence and powers of persuasion of John Hume triumphed with the good will and support of powerful friends in the United States. The result was the famous Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 which set up a power-sharing, inter-community government and for which John Hume and his unionist counterpart, David Trimble, were awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

In their struggle for civil rights, John Hume and other civil rights leaders in Northern Ireland were deeply influenced by the success of the American Civil Rights Movement and the charismatic leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King’s faith in democratic persuasion, his strict adherence to the doctrine of nonviolence and

the forbearance and forgiveness of the American civil rights activists - irrespective of the provocations and persecutions they suffered - is one of the most compelling demonstrations of courage and virtue in modern history. Together with the restraint of the Indian independence movement - under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi - it stands in marvellous contrast to the murderous violence which overwhelmed so much of the twentieth century. Dr. King’s legacy endured long after his death, not just in Northern Ireland but in South Africa through the spirit of forgiveness of Nelson Mandela, and in Burma and South East Asia in the steely stoicism of Aung San Suu Kyi. It endured also in Europe.

Throughout the movement away from Soviet communism, leaders like Lech Walesa and Vaslav Havel drew a powerful charge from their faith in nonviolence and from the transformative energy of landmark human rights proclamations like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I was in Oslo as Ambassador the day that Hume and Trimble received the Nobel Prize; 10 December 1998. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations in New York of the Universal Declaration.

John Hume made a point in his Nobel Address of underlining the importance of the Universal Declaration in his own political formation and for peace in Ireland. He said that he wished, “to see Ireland as an example to men and women everywhere of what can be achieved by living for

ideals rather than dying for them and by viewing each and every person as worthy of respect and honour.”

For Hume, the Universal Declaration is one of the main building blocks of contemporary civilisation, based as it is on the glorious hope, after the horrendous atrocities of the Second World War, that men and women everywhere can finally look forward to a better, more decent, more humane world. In 1948, the philosopher, Jacques Maritain, one of the co-drafters of the Universal Declaration, wrote about this new-found resurgence of optimism after the terrible years of slaughter and despair, “By a phenomenon that responds to profound laws, the degradation of human conduct is accompanied by a progress in human consciousness and moral awareness which illuminates more vividly than ever before the idea of the human person and of human rights.”

In a similar vein, John Paul II called the Universal Declaration, “one of the highest expressions of human consciousness of our time.”

Another major influence in the drafting of the Universal Declaration was Eleanor Roosevelt, a feisty and outspoken human rights defender throughout her life. She was the very first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights. She declared memorably that human rights begin in small places close to home; the neighbourhood, the local school, the

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college, the factory, farm and office.

downgrade, diminish and dismiss the other.

“Such are the places where every man and woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity, without discrimination. Unless human rights have meaning there,” she declared, “they have little meaning anywhere.”

At times of rising prosperity, it may be that we take economic and social rights too much for granted. Yet, they represent the culmination of over a century of agitation, sacrifice and hardship by working families - in the United States, in old mining and industrial states like Pennsylvania - and all across Europe as rapid industrialisation and urbanisation took hold. Here in Pennsylvania, I am reminded that in my own family, there is a tradition of association with the Molly Maguires. They were an early and secret trade union organisation - condemned, outlawed and persecuted by the mine owners and their special police force. By all accounts, the Mollies were no saints either. But in my own family, they were defended as fighters for social justice and workers’ rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt could say this with such conviction because the Universal Declaration proclaims not alone those rights which are of the essence of our individual freedom but also those economic, social and cultural rights which we would regard as indispensable for physical survival, personal development and for the good of society as a whole; in other words, for the achievement of the common good.

The Declaration recognizes the right to social security, the right to work, the right to equal pay for equal work, the right to join a trade union, the right to a decent wage, the right to leisure and paid holidays and much more, rights that are to be enjoyed without discrimination as to gender, race or religion. To assert all of these rights at the universal political level of the United Nations and on the same indivisible basis as civil and political rights was a revolutionary breakthrough: one which was not uncontested at the time and which has still not found easy acceptance. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration, however, you can no longer have your cake and eat it; you cannot proclaim one set of rights and

This same unrelenting fight for survival is the reality of everyday life for billions of our fellow human beings who are part of our global community. The terrible statistics of their plight can never be repeated too often. Over two billion men, women and children struggle to get by on less than two dollars per day and more than a billion of those have less than a dollar to live on. People so desperately poor are vulnerable to every minor tremor in their economic and social circumstances. More frequently they have to endure massive disruption and upheaval; drought, flood, famine; the cruel displacement of war and other man-made disasters

as well as repression, exploitation, discrimination and disease.

Something like 50,000 people die every day of preventable povertyrelated diseases, two thirds of whom are children under the age of five.

President John F Kennedy attributed the persistence of global poverty in a world of plenty to a lack of will on the part of the international community.

Fifty years later, former Irish president and former UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, could identify this same collective failing as still being at the root of the problem.

She wrote, “The inequalities we face are a terrible indictment of our collective humanity. It is too much even to say we face them.

The truth is that most of the time we ignore them or are indifferent to them. Yet these global inequalities should haunt us and shame us. For the first time in human history we have the capacity and resources to eliminate them.

What we lack is the political will and the sense of urgency.”

Mary Robinson is a truly admirable international figure who all of her adult life has been a fighter for the rights of women and children and for the cause of the dispossessed and disenfranchised everywhere. She was the first international leader to go to Rwanda after the terrible massacre of 1994 and she has dedicated herself tirelessly to international service since that time. As UN Commissioner for Human Rights, she fearlessly condemned human rights violations wherever she found

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them. She has reminded us time and again that today across the world we are part of an ever-diminishing, increasingly interconnected, single, global community and that all our notions of the common good must embrace this international reality. She has been particularly critical of the very uneven progress made in eradicating world hunger and inequality promised by the UN Millennium Summit held in New York in the year 2000.

Next year, 2015, was agreed as the target year for the fulfilment of these priority millennium goals.

Instead, we will have to settle in 2015 for a year of stock-taking, of seeing what has been accomplished or not accomplished over the past fifteen years Hopefully, 2015 will also be a year for rededication to the war against world hunger and inequality and for the re-prioritisation of the many millennium targets still outstanding. For Mount Aloysius College, with its historic connections and contemporary outreach, I know, this is a special concern.

For the rest of us, it will give another opportunity to join with leaders of conscience like Mary Robinson in keeping our governments focussed on the need for urgency and generosity in their engagement.

The terrible gap between rich and poor, the contrast between our own world and the biting realities of life in parts of Africa, struck home dramatically for my wife and myself earlier this year when we were on a visit to Sicily. Near the ferry port where we were staying we came across

a semi-inflated rubber dinghy full of worn-out sandals, empty water bottles, old discarded clothes, shredded life jackets and all the sad human detritus of a desperate and dangerous journey from North Africa to Europe across the high seas. Happily, the persons on this raft were saved and under the care of the Italian authorities. But just as easily they could have drowned, led astray by unscrupulous middlemen who put them out to sea with little or no protection against the elements. What struck us was the desperation and courage of these travellers and the benevolent tolerance of the local Sicilian population towards them.

Without a lot to give themselves, the local Sicilians were happy to share their town and its resources with these unexpected strangers.

I thought this a particularly striking example of committed global citizenship.

I am often asked which of the countries where I served as Ambassador impressed me the most and President Tom Foley asked me to address this point also in this lecture. The truth is that this is a very difficult thing for a diplomat to do, given the nature of our trade. A diplomat has often been defined as someone who is permanently paralysed between the risk of being indiscreet and the fear of being totally irrelevant. The Irish playwright Brendan Behan went a bit further and defined a diplomat as someone who is trained to sit on the fence with his ear to the ground. Given the theme of our talk - citizenship and the common

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good - I will make an exception today and say that, leaving aside the United States, it was without doubt the Nordic/Scandinavian countries who most impressed.

They offer an attractive blend of political freedom, social compassion, international solidarity and unadorned plaintalking.

Time and again, these Nordic countries are found on the top of international performance leagues for high productivity, competivity, industrial innovation, excellence in education, affordable health

care, gender equality, protection of the environment and general quality of life. These societies are by no means perfect; at times local authorities and next door neighbours can be too intrusive in enforcing every single rule and regulation. Certainly, here in the United States, you might call them high taxation countries but in Scandinavia they say that if you want to protect the elderly, the sick and the vulnerable and give everyone an equal chance in society, then you have to be a good citizen and put your hand in your pocket and pay your fair

share of tax. Believe it or not, despite their taxes, the Danes even compete with the Irish in being among the happiest people in the world.

The Nordics are by no means the only European countries with protective social welfare systems.

Indeed, comprehensive social protection is the norm in Europe and is very much regarded as a basic right of citizenship. This is not - as is sometimes alleged – a consequence of an entrenched socialist bias. Today, practically all the main-stream political parties

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in Europe on the right and on the left accept the principles of social cohesion; the debate is most often about maximizing efficiency, getting the best value at the lowest possible cost. This concern to protect the disadvantaged within society includes a country such as Switzerland, famous for its low taxation, where there is profound suspicion of central government and where every penny of public spending is microscopically scrutinised at the local level to reduce waste, corruption and administrative inefficiency. This European social welfare system began not

with a socialist or even progressive government but in imperial Germany under the authoritarian Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, who introduced pensions, social security and basic health care.

His purpose was not to advance socialism but to undercut and defeat it. His initiative was praised by the Vatican – no lover of the anti-Catholic Bismarck - and was followed in due course as a model by most other countries engaged in social reform, including eventually by the United States in shaping the New Deal.

As President Tom Foley has said, I served in Russia on two different occasions. The second time round, when I was Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin had just become president.

He was very much a popular international figure; George W. Bush had looked into his eyes in Slovenia and had seen his soul.

In 2003 many world leaders came to celebrate with him the 300th anniversary of the foundation of St Petersburg as Russia’s capital by the modernising tsar Peter the Great. Peter’s intention was to end Russia’s isolation as a

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closed, old-fashioned and inward looking civilisation and make it more open to Western ideas and influences, including technological and commercial innovations. Ever since Peter’s time, there has been a constant tension between those elements within Russian society who emphasise Russia’s natural place as a member of the European family of nations and others who argue that Russia is a distinct civilisation with its own separate Slavic identity, grounded in the Orthodox faith and embracing, in its vast geographic spread and eastwards historic expansion, the two continents of Europe and Asia. President Putin’s hopes of setting up a Eurasian economic union feed off this powerful slavophile and eurasian tradition in Russian politics and reflect his nostalgia for the great days of the Soviet Union. Something of the same tension, albeit on the reverse side, can be found in the present Ukrainian crisis. The on-going debate and divisions highlight not alone the east-west geographic divide within Ukraine but a deeper fault-line concealed within the very bedrock of Russia’s political geology; its competing historical traditions, its internal contradictions and its ethnic rivalries.

In our official Embassy celebrations of St Petersburg’s 300th anniversary, we were lucky to have the companionship of Seamus Heaney and his wife, Marie. Seamus was excited to go to Petersburg because that had been the home of his close friend the Russian poet and Nobel laureate, Joseph Brodsky.

We visited Brodsky’s family apartment and met his old friends and supporters. Brodsky was a prisoner of conscience in the Soviet Union. Like many others who would not toe the party line, he was accused of social parasitism and was forced to live in a remote arctic village, before being exiled to Europe and America. Those of us who live in democratic societies cannot really guess the pressures faced by citizens whose freedoms are restricted. Nor can we imagine if we would have the courage to reply as Joseph Brodsky did when asked by the Soviet judge at his trial “who put you in the ranks of the poets?”

No one.” said Brodsky. Asking the judge instead, “Who put me in the ranks of humanity?” And going on to argue that poetry, like humanity, is a gift given by god. For anyone to stand up to this level of intimidation in an authoritarian state, he or she

would have to draw on every conceivable resource of courage, certainty and conviction, to be able to draw and drink deep from the well of pure conscience.

Because of his persecution by the Soviets and the subversion of literature by the communist system, Joseph Brodsky had a deep suspicion of politics and political manipulation. “The only thing poetry and politics have in common,” he once said, “are the letters p and o.” Yet he had a profoundly ethical belief in the restorative, even redemptive value of poetry, in the truthfulness accessible by the inner creative self; in what he once called, “the movement of the soul.” Seamus Heaney knew this same movement of the soul. Throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland, Seamus frequently faced pressures to be outspokenly partisan, to take sides when divisions were at their deepest and make his poetry more political and polemical. Of course, Seamus Heaney was far from neutral on the issues that arose in Northern Ireland or on any of the great issues of conscience of our time. He was generous and open-minded in all things and gave unselfishly of his time and energy to a range of humanitarian causes.

However he courageously resisted all pressures to support extremist positions - above all anything that could be regarded as supportive of violence - and he rigorously defended what he regarded as the moral autonomy of the poet. Like his friend Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney drank deep from the spring of pure conscience and found consolation and fortitude in what he came to call, ‘the redress of poetry.’ “The poet,” he said, “is on the side of the undeceiving world. Poetry tries to help you be a purer, wholer, truer human being” In his great poem “From the Republic of Conscience” Heaney wrote When I landed in the republic of conscience it was so noiseless, when the engine stopped I could hear a curlew high above the runway.

At immigration, the clerk was an old man who produced a wallet from his homespun coat and showed me a photograph of my grandfather. ………………………

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No porters. No interpreter. No taxis.

You carried your own burden and very soon your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared.

Seamus Heaney has written about the background to this poem. In 1987, he was asked to contribute to Human Rights Day - the day commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - by his local branch of the human rights organisation to which he belonged in Dublin, Amnesty International. Seamus had been given for inspiration a dossier of very moving cases of prisoners of conscience but in his modesty he felt he could not do justice to their moral courage and individual suffering. He had almost given up when a slightly different thought came to him to compose a poem about the mysterious country where conscience is born and bred and where it comes of age. As he said himself, it is a poem “about an ordinary guy who ends up in an imaginary place where everybody he encounters brings him back to primary values, where everything seems a reminder of the necessity for probity and integrity in individual and civic life.”

I came back from that frugal republic with my two arms the one length, the customs woman having insisted my allowance was myself.

The old man rose and gazed into my face and said that was official recognition that I was now a dual citizen.

He therefore desired me when I got home to consider myself a representative and to speak on their behalf in my own tongue.

Their embassies, he said, were everywhere but operated independently and no ambassador would ever be relieved.

Heaney is suggesting, however ordinary each of us may think we are, that we are all ambassadors for the republic of conscience - we must stand by the call of conscience and encourage others also to live by it. He is not asking us suddenly to become heroes or saints but he is probably arguing against the sins of indifference, complaisance and moral inertia and asking us to be aware of our responsibilities to the common good. To heed this call may involve for some of us

a career of service in health and education and on behalf of the poor. For others it may mean a more active political participation or engagement with local charities or perhaps some form of practical support for international causes. It could even involve a position of measured scepticism and critical distance when we are overwhelmed by the torrents of excessive argument and polemic and campaign rhetoric at election time.

Indeed, Seamus Heaney reminds us in his poem that politicians also have very clear responsibilities in the republic of conscience. “At their inauguration, public leaders/ must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep/ to atone for their presumption to hold high office.” For all of us, however, the role of ambassador of conscience requires us to be alert and tolerant; to recognise injustice when it occurs and to raise our hand and say out loud; “This should not be happening and should never be allowed to happen again.” Even this, as we know, may not be easy but we can take inspiration from the good example of those who have been heroic in their exercise of citizenship and in their service for the common good - people like Martin Luther King, Tip O’Neill, Mother Theresa, Mary Robinson, Nelson Mandela and John Hume.

Catherine McAuley was also one such hero. Her biographer, Sister Mary Sullivan described her heroic call to service in this way. “We are to be and to do what we teach. If we wish to teach mercifulness, we must speak and act mercifully towards others. If we wish to teach forgiveness, we must forgive and ask for forgiveness. If we wish to teach others to serve and respect those who are poor, we must first serve and respect them ourselves.”

I have no doubt that the education and leadership which you receive at Mount Aloysius College, in the light of its inspiring origins and heritage, will give you the confidence and the courage as citizens - citizens of the United States and citizens of the world - to raise your hand and speak your mind when the voice of conscience beckons, as someday for all of us it surely will. I have certainly been inspired and rewarded by my stay here and by my encounter with all of you, the students, staff and the neighbourhood community of Mount Aloysius College and I thank you sincerely for that kind gift. §

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James A. Sharkey Bio

J

ames Anthony Sharkey, born in Derry, Northern Ireland, is an Irish historian, writer and diplomat. He most recently served as Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, and chaired the Council’s Human Rights Committee.

He has served as Irish Ambassador to a number of countries including Australia, Japan, Denmark, Russia, and Switzerland. Mr. Sharkey also served as a delegate to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (the Helsinki Conference).

These first face-toface talks between Western European nations and nations of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact are credited as the first step in the long process of ending the Cold War. As Ireland’s Charge d’Affaires in Moscow, Mr. Sharkey was Ireland’s first-ever official representative to Russia. As ambassador to Russia, he served concurrently Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan,

Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. As ambassador to Denmark, he held concurrent accreditation to Norway and Iceland, and his duties as ambassador to Switzerland included concurrent service to Liechtenstein and Algeria.

During his service as political counsellor in the Irish Embassy in Washington, D.C., Mr. Sharkey was instrumental in building U.S. congressional support for the efforts of Northern Ireland political leader (and later Nobel Peace laureate) John Hume, and others, to find a peaceful resolution to the three decades of sectarian strife known as the Troubles. Working closely with Speaker Tip O’Neil and other congressional leaders, Mr. Sharkey helped shift the consensus among America’s political leadership toward active support of a negotiated settlement to the Northern Ireland crisis. These efforts eventually led to the 1998 peace accord known as the Good

Friday Agreement.

Its provisions for political power sharing and economic development have given birth to a new era of peace and stability in Northern Ireland.

Ambassador Sharkey earned degrees in Russian and Russian history from University College Dublin and Birmingham University. He began his career as a teacher in Stepney, Derry and Dublin. He is the author of works on: Scots Gaelic, the folk history of Inishowen, the Russian peasantry, and the writer Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo.

He joined the Irish Diplomatic Service in 1970.

Ambassador Sharkey and his wife, Sattie, have three children and make their home in Inishowen, Donegal, Ireland.

Introductory Remarks

By President Tom Foley Three quick things we learned about Jim Sharkey during his visit here— he knows well some of Ireland’s greatest storytellers; he is quite a storyteller himself; and Jim Sharkey is a story all to his own! A few words on each— One, Jim Sharkey knows in a very personal way many of Irelands greatest living storytellers—poets, playwrights musicians, novelists and more.

During his very first class here—Professor Nathan Magee’s drama course—Jim talked about the “idea” of a play, about the “craft” of playwriting and especially about his close friend the playwright Brian Friel— who is rightfully placed by literary critics on the same page with O’Casey, Wilde, Shaw and others.

Jim is also of course the first person I’ve ever met to actually have a poem written about him by a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the late and great Seamus Heaney. Dr. Glenn Neff, director of the Honors Program here at the College, will read Alumnus Illustrissimus in just a moment.

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Some other Heaney lines keynote the introduction to Mary Sullivan’s wonderful tome on Catherine McAuley and the Sisters of Mercy, a book to which you referred in your lecture today, Ambassador—from his poem “Sunlight”: “And here is love/like a tinsmith’s scoop/sunk past its gleam/in the meal-bin.” Sullivan used that quatrain to frame her salute to McAuley and the order which she founded.

We appreciate your sharing your reminiscence of Friel and Heaney and so many other Irish storytellers with us these last two weeks.

So first, Jim, we learned that you know a lot of storytellers.

Two, we have learned that Jim is quite a storyteller himself. We have heard »» about Jim’s childhood in remote, craggy, beautiful Inishowen, »» about his first-hand civil rights experience at Bloody Sunday in Derry 1972, »» about his time working with both President Reagan and Speaker Tip O’Neill, and with both of my old Washington bosses, Congressman Jim Shannon and then-Senator Joe Biden, »» about his brokering the friendship between President Mary Robinson and the Empress of Japan, »» about his ambitious launch of the Stallion, a long boat modeled on its Dublin-crafted ancestor of a thousand years before, and so much more.

We are grateful that you shared these stories with so many of us here at the college. And let me say that we are grateful for Sattie’s stories of nursing on four continents as well, while somehow finding time to raising three boys and serve as the active duty wife of an Ambassador with an always broad portfolio.

So you know a lot of story tellers, and you are yourself quite a story teller.

Finally Jim, we have learned that you are quite a story—all by yourself. Irish Consul, musician extraordinaire and our friend Jim Lamb touched on some of the highlights of that story in his introduction of you for the Spring Honors Lecture earlier today.

Consul Lamb referred to you by the Irish expression “he’s some man for one man.” And he was right. We are astounded by all this service— »» As Ambassador on four continents and more than a dozen countries »» As Ireland’s representative to the European Court of Strasbourg at the critical post Berlin Wall stage of its evolution. »» As Chairman of its single most important committee, on Human Rights. »» Your interest in rural (or as it’s called in Ireland “parish”) life and writings on same. »» Your work to preserve the story and culture of Inishowen and again your writings on same.

»» Your professional knowledge and your academic background in all things Russian and—as we learned the other night in your Community Lecture—on Ukraine as well. »» And I know I’m just touching the surface.

But we appreciate having you here Jim and learning from these three parts of your life—the many storytellers you count among your intimates, the many stories that you can tell yourself, and the fascinating personal story that you are still writing.

We especially appreciate your example of hospitality—in the best tradition of Catherine McAuley—as you made room for all of us at Mt Aloysius in this life story you continue to write.

Thank you Ambassador Sharkey and Sattie Sharkey.

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D

AVID: In his famous speech in Berlin in 1963, President John F. Kennedy stirred the world with this remark: “Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum, meaning “I am a Roman citizen.”

Let us begin our commencement remarks by saying that today our proudest boast is soumis mounties, which, translated from the Latin means: We are Mounties. And so that is

our way of saying that we are delighted to be here once again in Cresson, and of course at Mt. Aloysius College, which we now can claim as our alma mater, too.

And while it is traditional to use commencement addresses to declaim on what it means to be an educated man or woman, we’d like to beg leave from that custom. You all know what it means to be educated men or women, and your parents and in some cases your husbands and wives know what

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it costs to be an educated man or woman. We’d like instead to talk about what it means to be an educated citizen—and why President Kennedy was right, in his Berlin address, to say that it was a proud boast to say that one was a Roman citizen.

So we will talk, for just a moment we promise, on what it means to be an educated citizen, not only its joys but also its burdens, its responsibilities—its duties. For that is the role you will assume the moment you divest yourselves of those robes you worked so hard to earn and step into the sunshine of a Pennsylvania afternoon, relieved, pleased—and transformed. For the code of the citizen is not terribly unlike the Military Code, unwritten but revered, dating to the time of knights and probably before.

General Douglas MacArthur described the military code this way: “It embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right and its restraints are from the things that are wrong. Its observance will uplift everyone who comes under its influence.”

For civilians in our country, the elements of that code—the duties of a citizen, if you will—are easy to describe but difficult to fulfill.

One stands out, and you know what it is, though you may not do it faithfully. You have the privilege of the vote, and you should use it. In 1960, when President Kennedy was elected, more than 63 percent of eligible

Americans voted. A half-century later, only 57.5 percent of eligible Americans voted in the last presidential election. Now this is not a good record, and it should be deeply troubling to us all, especially when you consider that in the 1995 referendum on separatism in Quebec, turnout was 94 percent.— and the turnout in the contest that same year that brought Nelson Mandela to the presidency of South Africa was 86 percent. Consider voter turnout in nations where voting is new and precious: 86 percent in Kenya’s most recent election, 91 percent in Sierra Leone’s. You lose the privilege of criticism if you relinquish the privilege of voting.

Voting is a one or two day a year responsibility where the greatest challenge is finding someplace to park. There is another responsibility of citizenship that requires 365-days-a-year attention. When he took office in a difficult time after the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford delivered a potent four-word sentence: “Here the people rule.”

That is true, and it is a distinguishing characteristic of our country. But I would make an addendum to President Ford’s remark. Here the people rule— but they should know what the hell they are talking about.

You can guess where an editor and a columnist is going with this.

You have been armed here at Mt. Aloysius with every tool required to succeed. You have taken courses that are practical and theoretical. You have been taught the importance of good writing, and have learned that good writing is

really a proxy for clear thinking.

Your estimable president, Mr. Foley, has convened symposia upon symposia to explore the great issues facing educated men and women and facing this Republic of citizens. But—and you know this is true—a lot of you do not read the newspaper.

Or watch the television news.

Or consult your smart phones for news. Or engage in the vital conversation about current affairs—the debates on all sorts of issues, not only war and peace but also taxes and medical insurance and the notion of marriage— that define your time. You are citizens in name alone, for while the word “citizen” is a noun, it possesses characteristics of a verb. It can be active and it can be passive. And the true measure of citizenship is in the active, not in the passive.

I’m now going to pass the baton— pass the speaker’s microphone— over to Cindy, who is going to talk about why active citizenship is essential to our democracy and is going to give you some tips as to how be an active citizen.

C

INDY: Good morning and congratulations.

I want to talk to you about the role of serious reading in a democracy. With the dawn of the Internet, we now literally have thousands of sources to find information, check a fact, excavate a memory. This is research, not reading.

Since the Founding Fathers, the importance of having a free press has been a privilege that our country has enjoyed and it has

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shaped us deliberately. That free press for more than 300 years has made the difference in fostering robust debate and sanctioned disagreement from the halls of Congress to the corners of your neighborhood. Unlike Russia, China, or Egypt, where the first impulse in snuffing out moves toward democracy is to replace the airwaves with static and fill the newspaper with propaganda, we do not overtly fear the government shutting down the press, murdering journalists, or stifling free speech. So, as full citizens in a democracy, we have remarkable freedom to say what we think and act on what we think in free elections.

There may be subtle moves by the government to curb press freedoms or demands to withhold information, but, by and large, journalists still believe it is their job to be watchdogs of big institutions, give voice to the voiceless and “provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.”

Now that you are leaving Mt. Aloysius, your lives will be busier than ever and the temptation for many of you will be to ignore the news and default to the lowest common denominator in your reading habits out of a lack of time or interest. Candy Crush calls. Click. Swipe. Gotta answer that text.

This would be a huge mistake, because this is what you would miss in just the past few days— Nigerian terrorists kidnapping hundreds of young girls and holding them as slaves; the go-ahead for widespread fracking

in a park in Allegheny County; a confession from President Clinton’s young, impressionable paramour, Monica Lewinsky. And if you don’t know who she is, look her up and the juicy report on the former president’s dalliances with the then-intern.

That’s just the topical, but important, stuff that you need as a citizen with more than a passing awareness about your world. That doesn’t even touch the fine long-form journalism that exists, the investigations that win Pulitzer Prizes, the online sites that aggregate the best writing of the day, public policy criticism

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and the biographies and nonfiction that continue to be printed in digital and print form.

Do not become a news snacker— or is it slacker? This is someone who might glance at the headlines on Yahoo, take a small bite of Buzzfeed, or fill up on listsicles.

These will pass through your head faster than a syllabus to one of last year’s courses and will not at all prepare you for understanding why the Supreme Court just allowed prayer at public meetings; what Vladimir Putin’s intentions in Ukraine mean for the U.S., and what effects climate change already is having on susceptible plants and populations. Facebook and Goggle Drive may allow you to skim the surface on these issues, but the time wasted there won’t allow you to continually educate yourself about the world, your country, your community— making you a full-time citizen of each of those. In fact, even though 81 percent of Millennials are on Facebook, they see news incidentally there and engage most with news about entertainment. Meanwhile only 21 percent of Facebook users might go to a newspaper for more of an in-depth reading on issues.

Only deep and consistent reading continues to educate and contribute to a rich civic life. One that you have been prepared for at Mount Aloysius and one you should take seriously at the ballot box and in the quieter moments of your life when you can take time to read, reflect and act to make your world a better place through understanding the past and anticipating the future.

I would be lying if I did not say that journalists are the troubadours and the first drafters of this history and have been since the days of primitive cultures—people who can gather and retell stories.

Technology has not exploded the necessity of this truth telling, but it has amplified it and given you many choices and responsibilities as citizens to figure out what to believe and what is worth reading.

As you go forward from here, the first adult phase of your education completed, remember that you have the obligation to do more to keep yourself educated than have information pushed at you through an electronic pipeline running full blast. Your job for the common good is to seek out the best way to inform yourself, cultivate understanding and contribute to the debate that goes on freely every day in this country. As newspaper editors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil put it: …”societies that want to suppress freedom must first suppress the press.”

D

AVID: Now let’s conclude with some thoughts on the word that I used earlier in relation to citizenship: “duty.” It is a word seldom heard in our time, but much missed by those of us who were reared in an earlier time. And then there is the notion of the duty of the educated person, which is to say all of you in our audience. Do you have special duties?

To provide an answer to that I looked at two ancient volumes, published in 1795, written by

Thomas Gisborne, and occupying about 1000 pages of hand-set text. The official title of these two volumes is: An Enquiry into the Duties of Men in the Higher and Middle Classes of Society in Great Britain, Resulting from their Respective Stations, Professions, and Employments.

Now in these pages are general remarks on the duties of the sovereign, of his subjects, of peers and of members of the House of Commons and of the executive officers of government.

There are musings on the duties of naval and military officers, the legal profession, municipal magistrates and so on. “There is even a section on Considerations Submitted to Persons who Doubt or Deny the Truth of Christianity; or the Necessity of a Strict Observance of all its Precepts.”

Let’s leave that for another time and linger instead on the duty of a college and of educated persons, which Gisborne summarizes in the stilted language of the late 18th century: “Let him train them up to a reasoning and investigating spirit; and to a habit of examining the various works of the creation.”

Cindy has spoken eloquently on that.

But later in this remarkable, but utterly antiquarian, work is some advice to “private gentlemen” which I will share with you in the understanding that gentlewomen might profit from them as well.

These include the admonition of a young person to not be “led by the habits and society of his

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neighborhood into gambling, intemperance, or profligacy.”

But it also includes this: “In his intercourse with other families, let him pay every possible regard to character, and to have no intimacy with the vicious. Let him not pay servile court to great men, nor become their tool; nor be elated by their notice, and rendered arrogant

and fickle towards others. Let him be free from every emotion of discontent or envy when any of his equals receive some accession of rank; and not be led by jealousy, or the silly importunities of his friends and relations, to hunt after similar advancement,….Let him not be puffed up with pride, or become contemptuous or distant in his behavior.”

Words to live by, though admittedly difficult to understand.

So, after all of this, what is the responsibility of citizens—of educated citizens—in the world that has been given to you, and more important, in the world that you will make?

To adapt some of these precepts of the 18th century to the second

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and third decades of the 21st, to be sure.

To be gentle and kind—and involved in your community and in the great issues of your society.

To vote To read widely and deeply.

To do as John Adams—vice president, president and father

of a president—suggested: Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.

To separate the wheat of eternal lessons from the chaff of contemporary thought.

And above all to consider the purpose of life not to achieve riches, or fame or that most beguiling of goals, happiness. Not any of those things at all.

Instead the goal of life must be to achieve happiness through your work, and ideally through good works, and above all—above all— to discern what your duty is, and to do it.

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D

avid M. Shribman, became executive editor of The Pittsburgh PostGazette on February 3, 2003. He came to Pittsburgh from The Boston Globe where he was assistant managing editor, columnist and Washington bureau chief.

Mr. Shribman graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1976 and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He did graduate work at Cambridge University, England, as a James Reynolds Scholar.

He joined The Globe after serving as national political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Prior to that, he covered Congress and national politics for The New York Times and was a member of the national staff of The Washington Star. A native of Salem, Massachusetts, he began his career at The Buffalo Evening News, where he worked on the city staff before being assigned to the paper’s Washington bureau.

Mr. Shribman was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1995 for his coverage of Washington and the American political scene. His column, “My Point,” is syndicated nationally.

Mr. Shribman was a regular panelist on the PBS show Washington Week in Review and a frequent analyst for BBC radio. His I Remember My Teacher, a tribute to the nation’s great educators, was published in April 2002. He has lectured at universities and colleges

around the country. Shribman delivered the Lyndon Baines Johnson Distinguished Lecture at Southwest Texas State University and the Charles Hall Dillon Lecture at the University of South Dakota.

Mr. Shribman is an emeritus member of the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College and of the Board of Visitors of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences at Dartmouth. He is a member of the selection committee for the Profiles in Courage Award given by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and for the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award given

by Colby College, Waterville, Maine. He also is a member of the national board of the Calvin Coolidge Foundation, Plymouth, Vermont.

C

indy Skrzycki is an award-winning, full-time senior lecturer in the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh and is a business correspondent for GlobalPost.com, a news service based in Boston.

She is the 2012 recipient of the Tina & David Bellet Teaching Excellence Award at the University of Pittsburgh, an annual award given to two faculty members.

Prior to joining Global Post in 2009, Skrzycki was a business columnist for Bloomberg News, a worldwide financial news service.

She then was a consultant to another Bloomberg publication called BGov.

She was on staff at The Washington Post for 18 years, covering federal regulatory issues, management, and technology. She has a special expertise in the business of federal regulation and lobbying and wrote a weekly column called “The Regulators” for more than a decade.

Before joining The Post, she was an associate business editor at U.S. News & World Report, specializing in transportation issues, and a Washington correspondent for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where she covered the gamut of business topics. She also worked in the Washington bureau of the Fairchild News Service, covering the steel industry, and was a business writer for The Buffalo Evening News.

Born in Buffalo, N.Y., she is an honors graduate of Canisius College, where she was editor of the student newspaper, The Griffin, and a member of the DiGamma Honor Society. She is a former, three-term member of the board of trustees of Canisius College. She also holds a master’s degree in public affairs and journalism from the American University, Washington, D.C. She is the author of The Regulators: The Anonymous Power Brokers Who Shape Your Life. She is a member of the board of directors of the Three Rivers Youth Orchestra in Pittsburgh and a former member of the Pitt News Advisory Board.

She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, David Shribman. David and Cindy are the parents of two daughters, Elizabeth and Natalie.

Today we celebrate citizenship, education

I

n an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson smudged out a single word and replaced it with the word “citizens.” He really obliterated the unwanted word—so intent was he on changing it—and for more than two centuries, historians wondered what word he had so completely scratched out in favor of the word “citizens.” Just three years ago, using modern spectral imaging technology developed for military use, the Library of Congress revealed that the word he removed from the early text was “subjects.”

Not subjects. Citizens. Not “tell me what to do,” but “let me participate”—perhaps the very essence of our American Revolution.

Jefferson also saw a direct link between education and citizenship, and believed that for full citizenship, all our citizens had to be educated.

He went further, opining that in addition to moral education, students should receive academic training, which Jefferson hoped, in the words of one biographer, “would prepare their critical reasoning skills to meet the challenges posed by democracy.”

It is appropriate that we explore the difference between subjects and citizens as we mark this Constitution Day (September 17)—less than a week after we commemorated the magnificent heroism on 9/11 in the skies

TOM FOLEY

President, Mount Aloysius College over Somerset, PA, and less than a month since we marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington that culminated in Dr. King’s remarkable “I Have a Dream” speech. At Mt Aloysius College (just miles from the Somerset memorial and home to many of its students), we choose a theme each year and coordinate student orientation, first year seminars, our Speakers Series and other events around that single idea. After a year on Civil Discourse and a second year on Finding Home in a Changing World (in a word, “hospitality”), our theme this year is citizenship, specifically “21st Century Citizenship: The Common Good.” In a way, it is our own year-long opportunity to explore the difference between citizens and subjects.

This conversation began more than 20 centuries ago, when

Greek thinkers grappled with the ideas of citizenship and common good. They argued about the notion of a communal life in the polis, the Greek citystate, and about the conflicts inherent between the wants of the individual and the needs of the community. Plato and Aristotle led the early debates, taken up in later centuries

by Christian theologians like Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, by political theorists like Locke and Rousseau and by early American practitioners like Ben Franklin and Paul Revere.

Through all that debate, it has become clear that citizenship, actively participating in democracy, is the higher calling, and apparently the founders who endorsed the Declaration of Independence felt the same—citizens, not subjects.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis observed almost two centuries after the signing of that document that “the most important office in our democracy is that of private citizen,” and thus drew a line direct to Jefferson’s distinction between a mere “subject” and a vaunted “citizen.”

One other thought on the connection between citizenship and education. In 1930 Eleanor Roosevelt penned an essay on “Good Citizenship: The Purpose of Education,” in a magazine called Pictorial Review. In it, she argued that “the true purpose of education is to produce citizens” and she outlined all the ways

that an educational system does that—from the simple “acquisition of knowledge” that may help one day to critically analyze an economic issue to the “development of powers of concentration and accuracy which…help analyze a difficult situation.” She also saw a connection to citizenship from “social activities and athletics” that are part of one’s education.

She argued that these activities “develop team play, cooperation and thought and consideration for others”— something to do with the common good one might say.

We applaud the key role played by education and by educators (and not just those who educate in the classroom) in the promotion of the cognitive and moral qualities of citizenship on Constitution Day. We recognize that this connection (between education and citizenship) is key to the practice of “full” citizenship—thinking critically about the issues of the day, discussing them civilly with each other, lifting a hand to help out in the community and certainly pulling the lever to vote— honoring the opportunity.

Someone once wrote that America’s first words were “We, the people.” Citizens, not subjects. Education, not indifference. Let me participate, not tell me what to do. On this “Constitution Day—“We the People”—indeed.

Tom Foley is President of Mount Aloysius College in Cresson, PA.