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Student
speaker savors his BU
education, from antipasti to dolce
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John Degory(CAS’03) Photo by Vernon Doucette |
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John Degory, a graduating senior from the College of Arts and Sciences, invoked his grandmother’s fine Italian cooking as the student speaker at BU’s 130th Commencement exercises. Comparing his BU education to a hearty Italian meal, he described the different courses of intellectual and spiritual nourishment he’s ingested over the past four years. Portions of his speech follow:
For the few of you here today who aren’t from New York or New
Jersey, let me give you the personality of Italian boys in a nutshell:
we are extremely animated, highly susceptible to guilt trips, and have
demeanors that parallel our preference for pasta (al dente, “tender
but firm”). This brings up another of our idiosyncrasies: we can
eat. A lot. And growing up, there was only one place that fabricated
culinary creations worthy of my consumption: the kitchen of my Noni.
I
grew up eating Noni’s cooking, and you could tell. I was one
plump little boy until I ventured to Boston for college. When I would
speak with Noni on the phone, the one question I could always count on
hearing was, “Gioan, what are they feeding you up there? They have
sausage sandwiches?”
Well, missing Noni’s sausage didn’t
turn out as bad as I thought it would. Here I am at Commencement, 70
pounds lighter and finally
ready to discuss what they’ve been feeding me for the past four
years.
Italian language and culture are full of references to food and
feasting. The word for food, cibo, means nourishment of various kinds — mental
and spiritual as well as physical. Italians are fond of proverbs, and
one of the most memorable goes like this: Scienza e luce, cibo, e
medicina, “Knowledge
is light, food, and medicine.”
Italian meals always begin with antipasti,
a little taste of what’s
to come. Anyone walking onto the BU campus as a freshman is immediately
served an antipasto of humility. The students I saw were not only smart
and involved, they were also, to my dismay, extremely good-looking. I
really hated you all back then. Now I am eternally grateful. We’ve
encouraged modesty in each other and have shown that learning comes not
only from books and Nobel prize–winning professors, but also from
late night conversations in Shelton Hall dorm rooms.
Now let’s move
on to the primi. The primi course is usually a starch
and is meant to satiate and give energy. The primo of an undergraduate
education is developing the capacity to understand. While it, too, ultimately
transcends books and lectures, it involves applying them in the real
world. Picture yourself in a Muslim country during September 11. How
would you feel? I can tell you how I was feeling as I walked through
the dusty streets of Niamey, Niger, West Africa, listening to news updates
on the radio. I was scared, but not for myself. While the thought of
my being in a Muslim country frightened everyone at home, I was able
to apply my education and understand the situation around me. At BU,
we have been encouraged to understand things that are alien to us. For
this, we should be grateful.
The meat in an Italian meal is the secondi course. It
is never served before the primi. The meat of our undergraduate
education has been the
inclination to question authority, but it is important that this intellectual
secondi followed our efforts to first understand. You cannot
question something you know nothing about. The war in Iraq prompted a
confusing
argument between blind support and emotional opposition. In situations
like this, it is our duty to question propaganda and ideologies. We cannot
let our inexperience ever keep us from getting to the meat of a situation.
And
now for my favorite part of the meal! Il dolce, the dessert.
For me, the dolce of the past four years has been developing
the ability to appreciate. Appreciate what? Just about everything that
crosses my
path: the ramblings of a brilliant professor, the wit of Jane Austen,
the beauty of an African sunset, autumn on Bay State Road, four years
of learning, and the people who made it happen. I therefore urge you
to never, never take the sweet things in life for granted, no
matter how small they seem.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe I’ve
just taken you through the most expensive meal of my life. Fellow classmates,
I hope you have
savored every bite of your meal as I have mine. You’ll be digesting
it for many years to come.
My Noni, who would have celebrated her 76th
birthday this weekend, passed away last year while I was still abroad.
This was the hardest period
of my life. During this time, however, I was being fed the world by Boston
University, the same way we all have been for the past four years. Somehow,
I don’t think Noni minded my absence; the boy she used to fill
with pasta was now a grown man thriving on flavorful intellectual curiosity.
So
this may have been a very expensive meal, but it has also been the best
tasting nourishment I could have asked for.
Congratulazioni a tutti and
best of luck in all future meals. I wish you nothing but fervent insatiability.
6
June 2003
Boston University
Office of University Relations