The Towering Tradition: Welcome to Life Under the Tower

{The Towering Tradition Address is given each year to new students gathered at the foot of the Bell Tower in the center of the Belmont University campus on the night before the first day of classes each fall. The tradition began on August 22, 2005 as the finale event of Welcome Week at 10:00 p.m. The speech is a feature of the final event of Welcome Week. At the conclusion of the speech all participants stand with lighted candles in the tiered garden and brick plaza and then file around to touch the tower. This is the text of the speech that was given in 2005 and each year since.}

I am so happy to be with you tonight. This is a great sight…

I’m keenly aware that you’ve been busy since you arrived. You’ve been moving into your room, learning about the university, getting acquainted with the campus and with one another… so I am particularly appreciative that you’ve taken the time to join us here tonight. It’s my privilege, and challenge, to give you a picture that brings all this busy-ness together and gives it meaning in the next few minutes.

I want to put this moment in context.

You see, you’ve joined Belmont at a remarkable moment in its life.

You’ve heard that you are a superlative bunch—all of you together, transfers and freshmen, are:

– the largest class ever in the history of the university.

– the highest qualified class,

with the highest average ACT scores ever,

– the farthest-flung; from the most states and foreign countries ever, and more…

But you are not the first men and women to touch or to be touched by this place, and you will not be the last….

You are joining a story already in progress. It began before you arrived and it will continue long after your departure, but it is undeniable that you are joining it at an auspicious moment.

Belmont’s is a great story, an epic story—and you are joining it just when it gets really good, when the plot is beginning to thicken and the best characters are developing. You are joining the story right when the pace quickens and you just can’t put it down.

These next years at Belmont, Your years, promise to be some of the most dynamic and significant ones in the institution’s entire life, the meat of its story, the part that people will go back to, and tell again and again in the future….

But its not just a great time in the university’s story, you are also at one of the most exciting and important parts in your own story–

People frequently tell you that “these are the best years of your life” in an effort to psych you up and encourage you, but I’ve got to admit I feel a little strange saying that. “…the best years of your life”… That makes it sound like you’ve hit the peak and topped out already– like three hours of sleep, cold pizza for breakfast and a religion exam at 8 in the morning is as good as it gets and the rest of your life is downhill from here! Hopefully that’s not the case—

I can’t guarantee that these are necessarily the best days of your life, but they are undoubtedly some of the most important ones and the real beginning of the life you’ve been looking forward to.

You are entering the part of your own story where the Present is exciting (and if truth were told, a little frightening,) but the Future is boundless, calling your name, and you can’t turn the pages of your story fast enough.

Even though it was many years ago, I remember how that feels— I remember the buzz of everything stretching out in front of me… everything that could be… that just might be… (I don’t think I slept at all for the first 3 months of my freshmen year because I was afraid I might miss something!)

Something magic is about to happen here as you and Belmont blend your stories into something truly extraordinary. (And in this I am not speaking simply to the freshmen. I’m speaking to those of you who are Orientation leaders, residence staff, returning students and and university leaders. Those of you who, though you are not new to this place, have discovered recently, to your surprise, that this place is new to you.)

Indeed, it is at this moment when hundreds and even thousands of independent, individual stories—your story, my story– become one story, become our story…  become Belmont’s story.

You now join what has gone before and lay the foundation for what will come after you.

{pause}

You see, the Present is a gift you’ve been given by those who came before you and stood on this spot– you didn’t earn it or ask for it, but you now rise up on it, and you should be grateful for it. But the Future is an inheritance—a legacy you begin to leave now for the men and women like you that will come later– those you will know in another semester, or in another year, or those you will never actually live to know.

Before you were born, other men and women like you stood here on this spot anticipating the Belmont you now enjoy, and gave themselves to the university’s future and your own. When you are gone, someone else will stand in your place and rise up on what you have left for them stand on.

This is a powerful, life-changing, life-making idea.

{Pause}

I am convinced that images are the hooks on which we hang ideas, and so I want to give you an image vivid enough to hold this powerful idea… Let me give you the most enduring image I can offer, a tangible testament to the passage of time and the endurance of this place… The Belmont Tower.

If all these stories we’ve been talking about—your story, my story, the faculty’s stories, the stories of those that preceded us and those that will follow– were pages stacked one on top of another up through the ages and across the generations, the Tower is a pin through the center of them all—fixing them here in this place across all time.

For that reason, it is our reference point, our symbol, our rallying point, —it alone seems immovable in the midst of change, it stands out above everything on campus and anchors this place. It is the axis around which your world will rotate for the next season of your life.

It has stood here for a century and a half, 148 years to be exact, but it seems to reach even farther back through the pages of history and countless other stories because it was modeled after the Lighthouse at Alexandria, the 6^th Wonder of the Ancient World, the tallest structure on the planet in its day and the symbol of life, and safety and hope to sailors off the coast of Egypt 290 years before the birth of Christ.

This incarnation of the lighthouse was built for $16,000 in 1856 as a water tower to provide irrigation to the gardens and running water in the mansion at the top of the hill. In this way, literally and figuratively it has been an inspiration for growth and provided sustenance for everything at its feet from the start. During the Civil War it became a vital lookout and signal tower for the union army as Federal troops occupied the campus and fought the battle of Nashville. And eventually it became the centerpiece and symbol of the educational institutions that emerged on this site.

As the landscape of the grounds at Belmont and the cityscape of Nashville itself changed over the passage of the seasons, the ravages of war, and the influence of generations that came and went, the tower remained largely unchanged. Except for some cosmetic adjustments– the temporary addition of a windmill on the top, the creation of the chapel at its base, and the installation of a carillon in its belfry, the tower remains today largely as it was created one and a half centuries ago.

Tonight, as we gather here at its foot, at this important moment in your story and the university’s, I want to ask you to do something…

Sometime tonight or in the next several days, I want you to pause in the hectic whirlwind of your schedule, and I want you to come here quietly to this place. I want you to put your hand on the tower and reflect for just a moment on what you have joined.

Feel the roughness of the brick and think for just a moment of the many days gone before. Realize for just this moment as you touch those bricks and are transported back— that these are the bricks that were laid by craftsmen in the middle of the 19^th century. The brick you are touching, like each of the other 247,951 in the tower was gripped individually by a mason and placed just so to last for all time. These are the same bricks that a weary private in the union army leaned his head against as he came off a long night on watchduty… These are the bricks that shaded Mark Cockrell (a pivotal figure in 19^th century Nashville) as he proposed to Joseph Acklen’s cousin soon after the war… and these are the bricks that have witnessed countless other proposals, weddings, graduations and other significant moments of students’ lives for the past hundred years…

Now figuratively and literally you join them all, here in the shadow of the tower.

I want you to take the time to do this even at this hectic time—I want you to place your hand on the tower and pause in the rapid passage of your life for just a moment, because now you get “the context”… because you know this is a moment to be recognized…  because years from now some future Bruin will put his hand where yours is now or her hand where yours is now. He will feel the same bricks and think back across the years, and to her at that moment, you will be simultaneously ancient history and immediately present.

She will think gratefully about what you have left for her as an inheritance, and he will commit himself to living up to your example.

My question to you now is:   What will you leave her?.. What will you leave him?

Let me leave you with words given to men and women like you long before you were born… They are the timeless challenge of my friend and Belmont’s chancellor, Dr. Herbert Gabhardt, who celebrated his 93^rd birthday earlier this month and who has given more than half his lifetime preparing the inheritance you enjoy today. These are his words from Founders’ Day in 1963:

“This college that I have described is your college.  It is a school with a spirit of interest in you personally, of concern for your full development in mind, body, and soul.  It is a school designed to meet the great needs of our day both educationally and morally. 

The greatness of the past, the solidarity of the present, and the prospects of the future do not in and of themselves cause these future prospects to become a reality.  Your spirit, personality, and support must undergird its every effort.

Let us combine our talents and energy so as to insure Belmont College of days more glorious and opportunities more abundant.  Then ‘her sons and daughters will rise up and call her blessed.’”

Welcome to Life Under the Tower.

 

 

 

 

 

Life Under the Tower: Spring has Sprung!

Life Under the Tower blurbs run in a regular e-newsletter of the same name to students at Belmont University. Archives are here: http://blogs.belmont.edu/underthetower/

I don’t know what you did last week, but I’ve heard enough stories of sunny places and ski slopes, adventures in other countries, and relaxation at home to make me good and jealous. I’m glad many of you had such eventful Spring Breaks. I’ve heard from others of you who didn’t have “adventures” per se, but used the break to simply catch up on other things like sleep, homework, jobs, and relationships. I can relate better to that. I didn’t jet off to an exotic locale (unless you call the Beaman Center “exotic”); I just barricaded myself in my office and dove into the things that had buried my desk. Whether your Spring Break was glamorous or not, at least it was exactly that, a break– a much-needed pause in the rush and routine of the spring semester.

Every year, this pause is a mile marker in life under the tower that signals a shift in the perspective of those living it. Before Spring Break, for better or worse, we feel like we have plenty of time; the semester is still gearing up, getting going. We feel like there’s a lot going on, but there’s also plenty of time to get it all done. After Spring Break, it feels like time suddenly got short; we’ve got even more going on, but we realize it’s going to be hard to finish before the end. In the space of one little week, our perspective goes from ramping-up-to-hit-our-stride to hurrying-up-to-beat-the-clock. Freshmen, who are barely over feeling new, find themselves blinking at the realization that their first year is almost over. Seniors, who already thought things were moving a little too fast this winter, are shocked at how much larger commencement and life beyond the tower can loom now that spring has officially sprung.

For such a short space on the calendar, Spring Break makes a big difference in our attitude, and make no mistake, attitude matters. Your emotional posture shapes a lot of your experience. When you’re excited or hopeful, you’re stronger and more resilient. You dream more and give yourself more fully to your experience. But when you’re anxious or overwhelmed, you’re weaker, more fragile, and you find yourself managing life more than really living it. We’ve all experienced the difference. Here’s some advice to make the most and get the most out of the last two months of the school year: remember why you’re here.

With the change of perspective Spring Break brings, it’s natural to tune-in more fully to what you have to do, and that’s not a bad thing. (Setting your eye harder on the prize as the finish line comes into view is good strategy…) But it’s important to tune in more fully to why you have to do it too. If the rush of the year’s end leads you to let the What eclipse the Why, it’s hard to finish strong. After Spring Break, the weight of responsibility naturally rises, and you can’t afford to let the sense of opportunity that sustained you before Spring Break disappear.  You need that sense of purpose and possibility to be strong when it counts. I put it this way to the leaders I work with: People don’t burn out from too much to do, but from too little reason to do it.

In the next couple months of your life under the tower, when your To Do List looks long and your time looks short, the key to not only making it, but making the most of it lies in this principle. You’re at your best and can accomplish amazing things when you don’t let the What eclipse the Why.