Convocation welcome: Students encouraged to expand understanding

August 17th, 2010 by Lachlan Feez | Tags: Students, Welcome Students

  (Photo by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services)       And so it begins. WSU’s newest students were welcomed to the Cougar family during the 2010 Convocation ceremony in Beasley coliseum Friday.   Today marks the beginning of a new journey for nearly every one of you in this audience, said President Elson S. Floyd. In welcoming the freshmen, transfer and new graduate students, Floyd encouraged them to take advantage of the many opportunities they will encounter during their time at WSU.

Standing under the lights on the Beasley stage, surrounded by university leadership in academic regalia, Floyd told the students this is a marvelous time in your life. Not only will they be studying with exceptional faculty who are among the best in their fields, he said, but they will be making lifelong friends.   In his keynote address, WSU associate professor Brian Kemp, a molecular anthropologist, talked about the ties that bind not just Cougs but all humans.   Every person in this room is related, he said. Kemp, who uses genetic data to study human migration, said one might need to go back hundreds or thousands or millions of years, but the evidence is in the DNA.   His first recommendation to the new scholars was to learn about evolutionary theory, which opens up a new way of looking at the world, from economics to psychology to human rationality.   For instance, he said, how do you explain why people are afraid of spiders but willingly stand in lines to board airplanes? Kemp said he believes fear of spiders is an evolutionary holdover from our distant past when spiders posed an immediate threat to our existence.   He also recommended that students take an anthropology class to deepen their understanding of how humans are alike and how they differ and then take other classes to broaden their world view.   Take an art history class and an art gallery will never look the same, he said. Take a language class and the world will become smaller. Take a physics class because that will explain everything.   Kemp also urged students to not just memorize facts, but to understand how knowledge is created. Understanding how it is created is part of the excitement. At his wedding reception two weeks ago, Kemp said, a distant relative asked about his work, so he described a recent project where he analyzed ancient turkey poop to learn about human migration. The uncle just looked at him, slightly stunned, and said, I didnt know that people did this.   Kemps final piece of advice to students was to turn off their cell phones, turn off IM and log off Facebook.   Your professors will thank you for it, he said, adding that the students will get a lot more out of class.   Other speakers at the convocation included Provost and Executive Vice President Warwick M. Bayly and Dean of Students Chris Wuthrich. Gods Harmony, the only Gospel singing group on the Palouse, opened the ceremony with an original arrangement of the WSU Fight Song; the WSU Marching Band closed the event with the traditional WSU Fight Song.

Similar Posts:

Share
 

Leave a Reply