Leadership Seminar 2022 Graduation Remarks

Winston S. Churchill Senior Fellow William R. Gruver

September 24, 2022  

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

As some in the audience are aware, I end each of my courses with a poem that fits with the personality of that particular group of students. Knowing that, the question now becomes: why did I select Robert Frost’s words to describe this group?

Because these 18 young men and women chose “the road less traveled by” by signing up and completing a not-for-credit course that consumed each Saturday in September, plus one Tuesday and one Thursday night. As much as I wished that this seminar could be a for-credit course, I respect the students more for taking it in this form, for in this rendition, they are here not to build their GPA but purely in search of knowledge. And in that pursuit, they sacrificed weekends and evenings to learn not just from me or our guest leaders but also from each other. The peer learning from a group as diverse as these 18 individuals is powerful. 

Yes, we are diverse as the word is used by academic administrators. This group represents a healthy mix of sexes, skin colors, nationalities, and sexual orientations. More importantly in my view, however, is their diversity of thought. All divisions of Bucknell pride themselves on teaching students how to think critically. That’s true, but what I’ve learned over the years is that different disciplines get to that common end point via different approaches. 

This group of students represents all three colleges of the university. From the College of Engineering, we have three computer science majors, one chemical engineer, and one environmental engineer. From the Freeman College, we have two management majors. From the College of Arts and Sciences, we have three majors from the natural sciences (one geology and two biology), six from the social sciences (two economics, two political science, one international relations, and one psychology) and two from the humanities (one history and one English). 

The intersection of so many different majors in this seminar allowed the students to learn not just what others thought but, more importantly, how others thought.

The other way in which this group of students is diverse is one that would make Robert Frost proud. They were not shy about expressing their views when others felt differently, and sometimes very differently. You should know that in addition to studying leadership, we occasionally ventured into hot button issues of the day with a mutual understanding that all views and all persons in the classroom would be honored and respected.

Last week, for instance, we discussed a Quinnipiac University poll that showed that 38% of Americans would flee the country rather than stay and fight if America were invaded as Ukraine has been. Actually, “discussed” might be too soft a verb since each student was pointedly asked what he or she would do in such a situation. The result of that exercise was a highlight of the seminar for me. We had volunteers for combat, those willing to be drafted for combat, conscientious objectors, and those who would leave the country for a safe haven all respectfully and politely expressing their views with no hostility or anger. If only the Bucknell faculty and our country’s political leadership could display such mature open discourse.

Through the support of our donors, we were able to improve our recruiting, selection, and student support this year, as compared to our initial effort in 2021. Consequently, we accepted a third more students into the seminar and lowered our attrition rate from 40 to 10%. Through these improvements and the hard work of the students, tonight we will graduate twice as many students as last year with no diminution in quality. 

It is with enormous pride, Madam Director, that I offer these 18 men and women as having successfully completed the requirements of the 2022 ODC Leadership Seminar.