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13 May 2004 Longwood
University Baccalaureate Service Presented
by Dr. Raymond Cormier Cooperation and Collaboration What does Longwood's mission statement mean by the expression: "working for the common good"? The theme of my remarks this afternoon (just a "medieval appetizer" for Dr. Jordan's Baccalaureate address) is cooperation and collaboration. You might think at first that it's just a trivial matter, perhaps too petty to deserve the attention of a group this distinguished. But I think you will agree eventually that social harmony depends on humanity's willingness to bend and, to a certain extent, conform to one's community's needs for the greater good. Citizen leaders know all about this, so I know I am preaching to the choir on the subject. To illustrate, however, I have three stories to tell you. Cooperation, of course, may be defined as acting or operating or working together for a common purpose. You must be willing to share in an activity for mutual benefit. Similarly, collaborate means to labor together, one with another, and willingly. Now for my examples. In a famous scene (for me at least) in the now-classic and haunting 80s film, Witness, a community project of an Amish barn-raising demonstrates perfectly the need for cooperation. Harrison Ford's character, the hero John Book who has some previous experience as a carpenter, gets invited to an all-Saturday event involving dozens of families near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From early morning until sundown everyone works strenuously driving nails, sawing beams and roof-beams and drilling bolt-holes. The womenfolk had prepared the food and drinks, serve it at breaks and for lunch, and remain nearby to watch both the barn's framework take shape slowly and the children at play. The structure is completed and raised by the end of the day, an excellent example of community cooperation realized for the greater good. Everyone is at once exhausted but elated over a job well done, in unison, and willingly. In his mid-life treatise on agricultural matters and farming, The Georgics, told cleverly with many mythological, historical and political allusions, the greatest Latin poet Virgil, writing around 40 B.C., glories in the cooperative activity of bees. Their social life involves communal nurturing of the young, "the nation's hope," he observes. They share their dwellings and live life "under law's majesty." To anticipate the winter, they toil to gather food, storing and packing pure honey that will "brim the cells with liquid nectar." Some guard the doors, others watch for rainstorms, and yet others drive the lazy drones. The elders protect the hive, the young arrive late, weary with labor, their "thighs laden" with pollen. Just as they work, they rest in common, slumbering in nightly silence. Bees, writes Virgil, may possess a piece of "divine intelligence," sharing in the "subtle breath of life," a starry status indeed, and for the common good. I borrow my last story on the topic of cooperation and collaboration from a friend whom Patty and I respect and admire, Betty Siegel, president of Georgia's Kennesaw State University. She relates a delightful anecdote originally told by a former CEO of BellSouth: Buddhist monks wanted to build an enormous temple in the holy city of Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. Unable to hoist the roof's wooden beams into place, the monks and their followers hit upon an inspiring solution. Betty Siegel says, "'So their thousands of followers grew their hair long, cut it, and wove it into a massive braid--ropes of human hair twelve inches thick. With these braids, the carpenters raised high the roof [and finished the great structure]' A very bald First Gent would have no role here! But clearly here is a team of workers striving with similar purpose toward a common goal that each member has embraced as his or her own." A contemporary Italian thinker has observed that "we are all angels with only one wing; we can only fly while embracing each other." Embracing each other means cooperation. As French deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida puts it, "seeing only yourself is a form of blindness." And, finally, a little parable on the matter of happiness, which I am sure all of you are wondering about this afternoon, and will continue to ponder after you cross that stage tomorrow morning--happiness, they say, is like a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it will elude you. Like The Force described by that great sage Yoda, it must not be pursued. If you turn your attention to other thoughts, happiness comes softly in a quiet flutter and sits on your shoulder. Again, college president Betty Siegel reminds us: "Successful cooperation establishes trust between leaders and their colleagues, promoting personal and professional growth at every level of an institution. Indeed, an organization is only as good as the entire team of colleagues who comprise it. For this reason, it is essential to encourage partnerships and teamwork, distributing responsibility for the organization's success as broadly as possible." In the classroom, collaborative learning works really well, as students have told me. Reading in your room or listening to the professor lecture cannot match the impact of a peer's feedback as you discuss the assignment. I hope the lessons learned from such academic experiences, as well as from the little tales I have shared today--on Amish barn-raising, keeping as busy as Roman bees, and imaginative Buddhist temple-building--will remind and inspire you to cooperate and collaborate in the world of work and play. In closing, I send you beautiful and bright 2004 Seniors an Irish blessing: May the road rise always to meet you and may the good Lord hold you safely in his palm, always. Thank you. |