In 15 years as president of Union College, Roger H. Hull has told many graduates: “Make a difference. Do well and do good.”
On Sunday Hull took that aphorism a step further and called on the U.S. Congress to create mandatory two-year military and social service requirements for young adults.
Hull will retire as president later this month and was awarded an honorary doctorate before giving the keynote graduation speech Sunday morning on a lawn in front of the Nott Memorial.
In his speech Hull recalled the spirit of community service that cropped up after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He also noted that more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers have been killed in military action in Afghanistan and Iraq since then and wondered why many Americans have “reverted back to the life they lived prior to 9/11.”
“Why do so few of us care?
Why do so few of us share the burden?” Hull said. “It is time for congress to put a mandatory service program in place.”
Hull said such service would last two years and could be in the military or in a social program but did not elaborate. Many countries in Europe and elsewhere have similar mandatory service programs. The suggestion was received with mild applause from the hundreds of family and friends watching the ceremony during intense heat and humidity.
Hull, 62, is the son of German immigrants who fled Nazi Germany for New York City during World War II. He went on to college at Dartmouth and earned a law degree from Yale University before beginning a career in college administration at Syracuse University in 1976.
In Hull's tenure, the school bought and remade apartment houses and a Ramada Inn located near campus into student housing. Hull also served as a board member on Schenectady improvement initiatives but has been criticized for not offering a payment in lieu of taxes to the city. College and universities enjoy nonprofit, tax-exempt status. In recent weeks Schenectady Mayor Brian U. Stratton has called on the school to donate $500,000 a year to compensate for police, fire and emergency service calls connected with Union. Hull made no mention of making a payment during his speech.
Instead he spoke to the 488 graduates, a group who were just beginning their freshman year on Sept. 11, 2001. He advised them to be passionate, compassionate, accountable and ethical.
Hull invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who once said that a college degree is not required for service to society. All that one needs, King said, is a “heart full of grace and soul generated by love.”
“Now you have your degrees, all you need is the requisite grace and love. Find it within yourself and make a pact with yourself to serve your community, state and nation,” Hull said.
PROTEST PARADE
The last graduates of the college's civil engineering program carried a boat in the graduation procession, marching as though carrying a casket to a funeral.
They were protesting the school's decision to cancel the civil engineering program. Graduates of the program have been protesting the decision during graduation for the past two years.
Union College officials made no attempt to stop the students, who set their boat down next to their seats and carried it back out with them after the ceremony.
College spokeswoman Lisa Stratton said Union officials got the message – but they don't plan to change their minds.
“The decision still stands,” she said. “But they clearly made a statement, as they have the right to do and as they have done before, and the college wasn't about to stop that.”
She defended the decision as “purely budgetary,” noting that the engineering department was told to cut one program and department officials decided that civil engineering should be cut.
“It was, unfortunately, the lowest priority,” she said.
The Sunday commencement was the 211 th in the school's long history. The graduating class includes eight from the city of Schenectady, 19 from Schenectady County and 79 from the greater Capital Region.