SLU Welcomes New Billikens
Saint Louis University’s newest Billikens learned what will be expected of them and what they can anticipate from SLU during the New Student Convocation and Family Welcome Aug. 18.
Convocation symbolizes the beginning of learning at the academy and serves as a “bookend” along with commencement for students educated in the Jesuit tradition.
Approximately 3,200 people attended the ceremony at Chaifetz Arena on the St. Louis
campus as part of Fall Welcome 2016.
New this year, both new students and returning student leaders joined University leadership
and the faculty in the processional into the arena.
Also new, Student Government Association President Kevin Lynch led all students in reciting the University’s Oath of Inclusion. The student-created oath acknowledges the diversity of the SLU community and establishes the expectation that all SLU students will embrace the inherent dignity of each person.
View a slideshow of the convocation ceremony. Photos by Steve Dolan
This year’s student speaker was Corey James, a presidential scholar and a senior majoring in theology and philosophy. The president of the student group Labre Ministry with the Homeless, James offered his new fellow students advice. He talked about how getting to know a man experiencing homelessness changed his perspective on life, and he encouraged his fellow students to delve into experiencing the city of St. Louis, as well as the University community and themselves.
“Being a university student will come with some of the greatest challenges you’ve faced in your life,” he said. “Challenges to your integrity and authenticity. Challenges to your character and worldviews. Challenges from friends and from classrooms. Allow everything you learn during your time here to sink into you and to impact you. These experiences are important in this phase of life, and important to us at this university.”
University President Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D., also spoke about the opportunities of the academy, highlighting SLU’s distinctive attributes and the responsibilities that accompany the privilege of learning.
“What a small percentage of the world’s population has this opportunity,” he said. “At your age, to devote years now to the focus on the development of your whole person. This is the time to prepare for all that comes afterwards. To prepare in this powerful, resource-rich environment.
“When you think about – what is it that propels humankind forward? – it is our unquenchable
thirst for truth,” he continued. “University is a place where we take the most serious
and compelling questions of our time and we grapple with them with individuals who
have devoted their lives to mastering bodies of knowledge and methodology, to rigorously
pursue the answers to those questions. Humankind benefits from our university, which
is why universities are the most enduring and important institutions humankind has.
You are now a part of a great university.”
During the ceremony, Jay Goff, vice president for enrollment management, formally
presented this year’s freshman class, which has a number of impressive and interesting
attributes.
- The average ACT and SAT entrance scores of this class are the highest of all time at SLU and place the students among the top 10 percent of all tested in the country.
- Seventy-three percent are from outside the St. Louis area.
- American students represent 43 states, while international students represent nearly 30 countries.
- 846 students are from public high schools, while 568 are from Catholic schools.
- Nearly 300 are transfer students, with half coming from community colleges.
- Nearly 30 percent are first-generation college students.
Other highlights of the annual event included an invocation led by Chris Collins, S.J., assistant to the president for mission and identity; remarks from University Provost Nancy Brickhouse, Ph.D.; music from SLU a cappella group Decadence and the singing of the national anthem led by assistant professor of music Katherine Jolly, D.M.A.
Following the ceremony, new students and their families visited with Pestello, Brickhouse and other University administrators and faculty before continuing on to additional orientation activities.