Le Moyne College, our beloved Jesuit gem, is now 75 years old. Seventy-five. Let that sink in for a moment. For 75 years, we have welcomed new students and bid farewell, but never goodbye, to graduates. We have implemented creative, dynamic ways of teaching and supported path-breaking student research. We have cared for one another, building an enduring sense of community. Even in the most challenging of circumstances, we have looked to the past with gratitude and the future with optimism. We have indeed, as Saint Ignatius exhorted us to do, set the world on fire.
Yes, we have done all of that in just 75 years - less than the average American lifespan of 78.8 years.
The anniversary we now mark has inspired me to reflect upon the road we traveled, one lined with more than 30,000 alumni, each one of them a profound force for good in the world, working to tackle seemingly intractable problems, including poverty, disease and injustice. We have established critical partnerships, most notably with the Diocese of Syracuse, an enduring relationship that Bishop Douglas Lucia himself recognized at the fall's Mass of the Holy Spirit. We have nurtured within our students the capacity to find God in all things, especially when it is difficult. Even in a world filled with pain, we hear His voice. We see a light in the darkness.
The commemoration of Le Moyne's Anniversary has also moved me to consider the road that lies ahead, one full of uncertainty and potential. We are by almost any measure a young college. I don't shy away from highlighting that fact. In fact, I believe that it is one of our strengths. Our youth empower us to innovate, to reassess and, as it might not surprise you to hear a former college point guard say, to pivot. Yes, for 75 years Le Moyne College has set the world on fire. As I said in my own remarks at the Mass of the Holy Spirit, it is a fire that produces "a warmth that leaves no one in the cold" and a "light that leaves no one in the dark."
I don't know what the next 75 years will hold for Le Moyne, but I'm certain of this: If you're a Dolphin, nothing is impossible and you are never alone.
President Linda M. LeMura, Ph.D.