Valedictory Address

“Valedictory Address” (26 May 1989): 1-6. (UA Case 68, Box 2)

Your honour, Mr. Minister, Madam Chancellor, Mr. President, Madam Vice-President, Your Worship, Distinguished Platform Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Graduates.

I feel honoured to have been selected by my fellow graduates to deliver our farewell address. The topic I have chosen is continuing education. I believe this issue is relevant to everyone in the audience, especially to our graduating class.

We have been told that our achievement today is an important stepping stone in our life. Traditionally, this stepping stone was thought of in terms of the first step to a job, security, independence, and starting a family. This is still true, however, we must now add the pursuit of additional education to the list of things that we will be starting after today.

Many of us graduating today will be continuing our education almost immediately. For some, it will be master programs and other graduate level education. For others, it will be specialized training to prepare for careers as accountants, insurance representatives, bankers, journalists…. Others are intending to take a short break, a sort of a breathing space, before going on. However, all of us must realize that the pursuit of knowledge is becoming a life long endeavor.

One of the great debates in sociology today is how we will spend the increased leisure time that our technological advances are supposed to provide. I believe continuing education will be the major user of this additional time. If we are to work smarter, not harder, then we must get smarter.

What has changed that make our graduating class different from those of twenty, thirty, and forty years ago?

The first apparent difference is the pace of technological change. We now find technological innovations impacting and modifying our jobs, not once or twice during our lifetime, but almost constantly. With each change, the skills required to perform the job are often altered. This is happening in all employment areas including: healthcare, office work, architecture, engineering, printing and publishing, and manufacturing. As a society, we are struggling with these rapid developments and some groups are resisting these innovations. In our economy, such resistance tactics are damaging to everyone. The key to successful technological change is education. Resistance to change occurs because too many of us adopt the attitude that our education was finished after our last diploma or degree and that continuing education is unnecessary. Development of additional skills requires a positive attitude towards the process of learning. People who continue their education have this positive attitude and can easily adapt to changes in the work place. An additional difference between this graduating class and those of previous years is the structure of the organizations we will be entering. Larger businesses have fewer layers of management than before. This is forcing people to acquire a broader range of skills.

Another change is the growth in small organizations: owner operated businesses, self-employed people in the service industry, and professionals. These small organizations are required to have skill bases similar to those of larger corporations. If we wish to make our small businesses successful then we must be willing to learn new skills through continuing education.

In addition to a broad range of skills, we are going to require a comprehensive and current knowledge base. Information has become a commodity in our society and success will require constant acquisition. One of the driving forces behind the demand for increased knowledge is the globalization of many activities. The trend towards internationalism in Business, Politics, Sciences and the Arts is rapidly accelerating. In order to take advantage of these new international opportunities, we are going to have to educate ourselves about other countries and cultures.

The final difference I want to discuss today is the impact of our changing society on family life. How many of us, as we were growing up felt the “generation gap” between ourselves and our parents? We felt the world was changing and our parents didn’t understand. We now realize that they are much smarter than we thought them to be at the time. The difference was and is an education gap, caused by changes that have occurred since our parents finished their education. This generation gap is one of the primary reasons for the breakdown of the family. Changes are coming much faster now and the differences we felt between ourselves and our parents are going to seem very small when compared to the differences between us and our children. This will be especially true if we depend only on the education we have gained to this point in our lives. The key to narrowing the generation gap and building a stronger family is continuing education, that is, “keeping up with your kids”.

I have presented four reasons why I think there is a need for continuing education. There is a growing public awareness that this continual process of acquiring new skills and increased knowledge is essential to living in today’s society.

The number of adults returning for part-time studies is increasing rapidly. These adults are taking a broad range of courses, some employment related by many of life stale and general interest related.

The necessity for continuing education is placing a severe demand on the resources of many universities and institutions or high learning.

I believe that the interaction of full-time and part-time students has many positive benefits. The full-time students in this graduating class have had positive experiences as a result of the interaction with part-time students. These continuing education students bring a mature attitude, a commitment to learn, the real world experiences to the classroom. However, the growing demand and resources required for continuing education has not been fully recognized. Institutions serving large local markets, such as, UNBSJ, have been hit particularly hard. There are many issues involved in the integration of full-time programs and continuing education programs that must soon be addressed by universities, government, business, and students.

The same issues that are creating a need for continuing education are placing increasing burdens on faculty and programs to remain relevant and up-to-date. People seeking a continuing education are seeking answers to today’s problems not those of five or ten years ago. This constant upgrading will require increased resources for our institutions of higher learning and a recognition within these institutions that there are changes and challenges that require strategies and policies quite different from those presently in place.

Continuing education is going to be a major challenge to all of us in this room. If we meet this challenge, I believe we will enjoy a more successful professional and personal lives. Today we are not celebrating the end of our education but rather recognizing our accomplishments to-date.

I have enjoyed my time at UNBSJ and feel that I received an education of the highest caliber. This university has a very promising future and we are proud to say that we received our degree here. As graduates let us go forth and accomplish our goals to the best of our ability so that the university can take pride in our achievements and grow in reputation. The future prestige of our degree is our responsibility.

On behalf of the graduating class I would like to thank those people who have made this stepping stone in our life possible. In particular I want to express to our families how much we appreciate the understanding and support they have given to us over the past years. Thank You.