“Making A Good Living and A Good Life”

Mary E. Ridgway, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Center for Community Service Learning

D/FW Area Volunteer Coordinator – Heifer International

It is a great honor to have one of my last moments at The University of Texas at Arlington speaking to the people who have meant the most to me in my 30-year career here – the students who have persevered in completing their degrees, who have encountered challenges and hardships, who have sacrificed family life and professional life. Now this part of the sojourn is done and a new one has begun.

I am not a highly sought after commencement speaker – my last (and only) gig was in 2001 and I remember sharing a quote from Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Anna Quindlen from her book, A Short Guide To A Happy Life,

“You walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life… Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul. People don’t talk about soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve gotten the test results back and they’re not so good.

When I gave that commencement speech almost 5 years ago I was a Vice President in search of her soul and pondering the question – “Am I living the life that wants to live in me? Then that wonderful adventure called serendipity hit me and I moved from senior administration to directing a Center for Community Service Learning and teaching Honors Service Learning courses. It was then that I began to craft my spirit and not my resume.

Oh, I always thought I was a brilliant teacher – captivating, spellbinding, interesting, and totally dedicated to filling my empty vessels called students with all the knowledge I could pour into them. Yes, I was one of a large cadre of tenured professors professing to be sages on a stage who contributed to a deadly disease afflicting students in every classroom and university across America – death by lecture.

The other night I had a dream – really a nightmare – I dreamed that I was in my 50^th year at UTA in a tenured position and what I did not know was that I was dead, but still teaching for the last 20 years. I vividly recall going into my classroom and telling my students – “Hello, I am Dr. Mary Ridgway” and I have been at UTA for 50 years. My students quickly grabbed up their books and belongings and ran out of the room, screaming that it was impossible for anyone to hang around that long. Death in a tenured position is not a pretty sight.

While most of you think that we are here to celebrate the achievements of those seated in the audience in their academic regalia, think again. I am joining the ranks of these graduates because today I am finally graduating – and you thought your son or daughter, husband or wife or loved one or friend took a long time to complete their degree. It took me all 61 years of my life. Today, we will be conferring not the BA or BS degrees many of you may be expecting to receive, but the BRL degree – Bachelor of Real Life. Finally, I have a degree that I earned through my actions and not what I could memorize. And I had the most amazing teachers of all – my students.

In Honors Service Learning, my students were placed in community service settings relevant to their academic major. For example, some of my Nursing students served in a community health clinic and my Education students mentored or tutored in after-school programs such as Mission Arlington or HOPE Tutoring. They completed reflection journals and other kinds of reflection papers and activities. What I discovered through their transformational experiential education experiences was that my students were the knowledge producers, the critical thinkers, the public problems solvers embracing diversity and building communities. I began to have a series of “ah-ha” moments that began to define me and set me on a pathway beyond higher education – the first was that I learned more from my students than they learned from me.

I began to see students with new vision – I heard their stories, listened to them talk about facing their biases and overcoming them through their service-learning experiences. I saw their passion for goodness and their desire to make a good living and a good life. And then horror of all horrors, I began to examine my own life and found it sadly lacking – at least compared to what my students were accomplishing.

I remember an excerpt from one of my Honors Education students who served 75 hours with the American Cancer Society and talked about the tenacity of the cancer survivor – She included a Zig Ziglar quote in her reflection journal about the optimism required to survive cancer – “An optimist is someone who goes after Moby Dick in a rowboat and takes tartar sauce.” Interestingly, I saw the same tenacious spirit in my student as she made the discovery that one individual can make a difference.

An Honors Nursing student who had volunteered in an orphanage in her home country of Kenya could not believe the needs of the community surrounding UTA. She served at Agape Clinic in Arlington that serves low-income patients and primarily deals with immunizations for children. She wrote in her reflection journal, “The biggest lesson for me was that I could do it. To be honest, my one fear in life was that I felt that school was my cushion and protector, and once taken out of that field I would be lost. Well, I worked at a clinic where I had very little knowledge of what to do, and not only did I survive, but I did a good job too…that was great for my self-esteem.” She was learning the new civics – learning about things is no longer good enough and learning how to do things is not enough. She learned how to value doing things that mattered to the community.

Graduates, this evening I will not spout, “go forth and do noble things”, because you have been all along – every step of your education has been punctuated by sacrifice and a genuine passion for goodness. Your actions define your character. I believe that each of you will continue to promote productive collaborations, creating opportunities for renewed civic and community life, and applying intellectual resources to help address the challenges that confront communities.

No, tonight I will say – “Ridgway (self), it is time for you to get out of Dodge and to leave UTA while you are still vertical and can fog up a mirror held under your nose – to live an authentic life – one with a noble purpose and committed to the common good.” My students expect no less of me. Oh, I will not go silently into the great good night – I will go kicking and screaming, but go I will. I will be close on your heels, graduates, as you leave tonight. I will not have engraved on my headstone that I died in a tenured position, using the same set of lecture notes that I came in with 30 years ago. When we cross paths again, you can ask me whether what I have done is my life and I will tell you “Yes, I know what I am meant to do and who I am meant to be. “

I will be able to give a mighty thumbs up to Frances and Anna Lappe’s (authors of Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet) question, “Is what I am doing consonant with my own deep need to feel that my life counts, to know that I’m using each day towards ends that really matter and acting on the care for others that I feel?”

Tonight, I want to say from the depths of my heart and soul, “Thank you students” – thank you for placing on me the same high expectations that I placed on you. Thank you for taking me inside your life and your dreams, for making me terribly uncomfortable with the comfy, cozy life I have been living, for taking me on your service adventures into the lives of those you served with such compassion. Thank you for sharing the great moments and the ones that did not turn out so well.

Also, I would like to thank my dear friends and colleagues, Dean Poster and Dean Gerlach who have given me this opportunity to validate my life. A special congratulation to my Administrative Assistant Nelda Lawson who will graduate tomorrow night after a 23-year journey to complete her degree, while working full time and raising three children.

Whatever time I have left in life, I will give it to finding sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty and care for the earth. If I change one life for the better, I will have made a positive difference in this world. I have my students to thank for giving me back my life.

In closing, I will give you a farewell from my Navajo friends who are trying to improve the quality of their sheep’s wool for increased income and the spiritual nature of their weaving through purebred Churro rams Heifer International is providing them.

Saah Naghai Bikeh Hozho – “Walk in beauty and harmony”

Congratulations Graduates and Happy Trails.