Morehouse College September 26, 2014 Wilson: Morehouse On Quest to Finish an Unfinished Symphony By Add Seymour Jr. While the College is headed in the right direction, President John Silvanus Wilson Jr. '79 said during his 2014 Opening Convocation speech that Morehouse is an unfinished symphony "that is beautiful, but incomplete." "Morehouse was founded to help realize wholeness for a decidedly broken people," Wilson said to faculty, staff and students. "And simply put, we are not yet whole. And that means everything we do to strengthen Morehouse College is de facto pursuant to finishing the symphony of our collective wholeness." "Think of it," he added. "This world cannot truly be what it ought to be until we as a people complete the quest of unleashing our unique gift to the world. Until we finish our symphony!" His speech set the tone for the 2014-2015 academic year as it is the ceremonial beginning of the new year at Morehouse and brings together the entire campus to get inspired and ready for the new year. Wilson said that work continues moving forward on enhancing the College's financial capital, physical capital, intellectual capital, technical capital and human capital. There also will be a bigger push on the campus' student embrace. It will focus on character development, or what Wilson called the character preeminence imperative. "With key roles for Drs. [Timothy] Sams and Campbell, my team is on a quest to make Morehouse College the very best place for young men to come of age," he said. "That involves optimizing not just the classroom experience, but our overall programming, the co-curriculum, the hidden curriculum ... in short, the unfinished symphony of our embrace." The focus, Wilson said, is for the Morehouse community to fulfill the unfulfilled destiny of the College. "In our view, the call is not to just help us to find our people, but it is a call to help us find our better selves," Wilson said. "It is a call to help us find our better Morehouse College. Most of all, it is a call to help us to finish all of our unfinished symphonies!" Provost Garikai Campbell told students that it is a time to tap into their passions and to hear "the sound of the genuine," a reference to a favorite saying by Howard Thurman '23. "It is a call to move beyond just hearing the sound of the genuine, but to more fully develop these rhythms, to work hard, to use this time and this brotherhood to advance your skills to become more expert in this passion," he said. "I truly hope that you each have an extraordinary year and that you do hear, discover your passion and the sound of the genuine and to fully realize it as the symphony that I know it will become." SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/2014meeting-form.html for the October 26-28, 2014 HBCU Library Alliance 6th Membership Meeting in Atlanta GA!