Posted by Dan Nonte, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-4314
Posted 1-2-08
Dr. Roberto E. Campo uses a piece of paper to demonstrate how to fold a gallette.
GREENSBORO, NC – Thank you, Chancellor Sullivan. Distinguished colleagues, new graduates, families and friends, it is truly an honor to be standing here before you on this fine morning. And to you, the graduating class of fall 2007, my sincerest congratulations to each and every one of you on this special occasion, and likewise, of course, to your families and friends who, I know, could not be prouder of you than they are today—but no prouder, I guarantee, than we are, your devoted professors and dedicated administrators, here gathered on this platform and seated along the sidelines of this grand arena to participate in and bear witness to this time-honored ceremony. Your accomplishments are truly wonderful and most deserving of celebration! But before you all head off to begin (or maybe resume) the revelry, and from there, to discover the new horizons of your lives, leaving that familiar old Spartan water tower in your rear view mirrors perhaps for the very last time, I would ask you to linger just a few extra minutes so I might share some modes parting thoughts with you. In the tradition of all commencement keynote addresses, these reflections are designed not only to have some bearing on what you have experienced here at UNCG over the past four or so years, but also, if all goes well, to provide a vantage from which to consider the future that awaits you in that place you’ve been hearing about for so long: the so-called “real world.”
As you’ve no doubt already read in your program, the title for my remarks this morning is “Gen Ed for the Global Galette.” But what is this curious string of pleasant-sounding alliterations and assonances supposed to mean? I think the best way to explain them, and so too, with any luck, the message they are intended to convey, is to return to their points of inspiration. As it happens, my title and topic come from three interrelated personal experiences.
First, regarding the “Gen Ed” part, while the idea derives to some extent from my current membership on the University’s newly constituted “General Education Council,” it comes more directly from my many years of experience advising students on how best to complete the University’s undergraduate General Education Program. By show of hands, how many of you remember those “General Education Core” courses you had to take during your freshman and sophomore years (or maybe even a bit after that…)? For those who may have forgotten or simply never heard of such a thing, I’m talking about the so-called “GEC marker” courses in basic math, natural sciences, historical perspectives, social and behavioral sciences, humanities and fine arts, reasoning and discourse, writing and speaking that undergraduates are required to complete before dedicating themselves fully to their major, i.e., to what they really want to study! Whether or not it was entirely clear at the time, those courses were intended to complement the specialized knowledge you were to gain in your majors by providing you with the foundations of what the Gen Ed Program mission describes as “the skills, knowledge, and understanding necessary to be a lifelong learner, an ethical and independent decision maker, a critical and creative thinker, a clear and effective communicator, and a responsible citizen.” Now, because I have no intention of conducting an impromptu assessment of the program to confirm whether or not those foundational goals have all been achieved, I’ll dispense with asking for another show of hands. Nevertheless, I would confidently wager that, by comparison to the people you were when you first arrived at UNCG, you are now much more grounded in your abilities to learn new ideas and skills, make principled and sensible decisions, think analytically, give reasonable consideration to alternative viewpoints, communicate with persuasion and suitable sensitivity, and contribute constructively to society. And as my title implies, you will need all of these habits of mind and character “for the Global Galette.”
This takes us to my inspiration for the “global” reference. No real mystery here: it follows not only from my family heritage, as the son a Colombian father and an Irish-American mother, but also from my dedication to the teaching of the French language, literature and culture, and, most recently, from my new appointment as Director of the College of Arts and Science’s growing International and Global Studies Program. With all of that on my plate, it is little wonder that I wake up each day “thinking global thoughts.” No “Wizard of Oz” is required to jumpstart the international synapses in this scarecrow’s brain: it just happens! For me, then, there is nothing more natural than believing in the University’s Mission to educate students to be “more thoughtful and responsible members of a global society” and wanting to share a few parting personal reflections with you on what it means to assume that important membership.
And now for that peculiar last word: “Galette.” As you’ve probably already surmised, it’s French. But what exactly does it mean, and how does it fit here? The answer to the first question also relates to the inspiration for this reference because the “galette” idea came to me during the Summer Program in France I directed this year, while passing a pleasant dinner with a group of UNCG students on the terrace of a charming little crêperie in the Rue des Deux Haies (Street of the Two Hedges) near the center of downtown Angers, a medium-sized city located only five miles from the Loire River and about 190 miles west-southwest of Paris. You’ve probably guessed right again: it’s a type of crêpe.
But now, then, what’s a “crêpe”? In case my French pronunciation should throw you off and suggest something entirely different than what I’m prepared to talk about in this forum, how about the English pronunciation: krap? You remember now: it’s that ultra-thin French-pancake dessert specialty of the Brittany region in northwestern France. Made from refined wheat flour, crêpes are generally at least a foot in diameter and served rolled up, tortilla style, with some sort of sweet filling, like fruit, ice cream, or Nutella, and then topped off with sugar, maple syrup, a fruit spread, or tastiest of all, freshly made “crème Chantilly” (whipped cream).
To return to “galette,” then, that’s simply the “salty” version of a crêpe. This other Brittany-born ultra-thin pancake is likewise a foot or so in diameter, but it is made from a courser and frankly more nutritious buckwheat flour, and when it comes to fillings, pretty much anything you wouldn’t put into a sweet crêpe will do nicely. Favorite contents include egg, meat, sea food (I’m partial to scallops: “coquilles St-Jacques”!), cheese, salad, and so on. Of course, your average Frenchman’s all-time favorite is the so-called complete galette (galette complète), which contains a softly poached egg or two, thin slices or diced cubes of ham, and a garnish of grated gruyère cheese (Swiss cheese)! Also distinctive about the galette, however, is the way it is folded, because although it can be rolled up like a crêpe (especially when it’s a hot dog galette, or galette saucisse, a gastronomic favorite in upper Brittany), it is more often fashioned into a square by folding into the middle the opposite sides on the compass of your circle. Let me demonstrate…: Voilà!
To return to how this all fits with my topic, as you have heard and witnessed, a galette is round, flat, relatively small, and a model of diversity in its contents—which to the mind of this particular crêperie patron on that cool Angevine evening last summer seemed a most apt Franco-centric alternative to the “flat-world” metaphor popularized by Thomas L Friedman in his best-selling 2005 book, The World is Flat. For those of you who may not be familiar with Friedman’s provocative theory, our world has undergone substantial “flattening” over the past five-hundred-plus years. According to the author, it all started with the “era of Globalization 1.0,” a period ranging from Columbus’s initial voyages in 1492 through around 1800, when countries and governments drove global integration in the interest of religious and political imperialism. This phase was followed by the era of Globalization 2.0, which lasted from about 1800 to 2000, two centuries during which multinational companies, motivated and supported by technological advancements in transportation and communication, were the key agents of global integration as they sought new markets and sources of labor. The third and most recent era, Globalization 3.0, began about eight years ago with the appearance of what Friedman calls the “flat-world platform,” the result of a coming together of the personal computer, which allowed everybody to author his or her own digital content through fiber-optic cable that gave everyone access to that content practically anywhere and for little cost, and with new work flow software that enabled anyone from anywhere to collaborate on that digital content. The present third era, as you’ve guessed and no doubt experienced first-hand, is the period of individuals going global, people collaborating and competing with each other all over the world—a world shrunken and flattened about as much as this galette.
Lest my Franco-centric culinary metaphor be taken to imply that I share the view of your average French person that France is or should be the center of this new globe, however, the fact is that the newest world “order” is a fundamentally decentralized one. If it is true that the two previous eras of globalization were dominated by Europe and the United States, the third age is driven by individuals across the planet, with people from non-Western, non-white societies having a significant impact on our lives at all levels. A classic example: the tech-support providers for your latest tech gadgets. How many of you have called one of those toll-free numbers and found yourselves chatting with someone in Bangalore, India, in Quezón City, Philippines, or in Seoul, South Korea?
By way of another example, just last week, in the December 12 edition of The New York Times, World Business reporter Louise Story wrote an article entitled “Seeking Leaders, U.S. Companies Think Globally” that opens with the line: “The corner offices of corporate America are increasingly being filled from every corner of the world.” The report goes on to emphasize the globalization of America’s CEO pool as more and more Fortune 100 companies (like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Alcoa, Eli Lilly, Eastman Kodak, and Kellogg) move to expand into foreign markets and decide that a strategic way to accomplish this goal is to hire foreign-born or foreign–raised chief executive officers, people hailing no longer just from Canada or Brittan, but from places all over the map: India, Morocco, Turkey, Denmark and so on. And of course I don’t need to mention that manufacturing juggernaut to our East, the Republic of China, which just this morning prompted one guest writer for the Online Asia Times to write a piece entitled “Christmas is made in China,” where he argues that Santa Claus must be Chinese because “roughly 70%” of the presents found under the tree on Christmas morning “are from China.”
But of course, these examples pertain more or less exclusively to the realms of technology and commerce. In fact, though, as we know all too well since the events of September 11, 2001, and from daily reports on the state of our energy resources and the effects of greenhouse gases on our atmosphere and climate, decentralization is likewise a reality to be faced in matters of our national security and a broad range of environmental challenges. Allow my galette to illustrate what’s going on one more time… If this point should symbolize one of the epicenters of influence during the previous eras of globalization (say Western Europe or America), in the new “galette” world of our third era (and I have to fold just right, like a real four-cornered galette, to pull this off), you see what happens when you look for centers: they’re all over the place!
So what message—or rather, messageS—should my multiply-inspired title finally convey? The most important, I think, is obvious enough by now: whatever you may have thought of those GEC courses while you were taking them, the general education purposes they served are more important now than ever before, in this inexorably flattening and shrinking, yet increasingly decentralized, “galette” we inhabit. Intellectual adaptability joined with solid critical thinking skills, a creative spirit, and a willingness to communicate openly and open-mindedly with others (most especially with those who see this “galette” in substantially different terms than we do!), are critical not only to your personal success in our globalized economy, but also to the well-being of this nation and our planet as a whole.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, this same basic message was already offered about 430 years ago, during Friedman’s era of Globalization 1.0, at a time when Western societies were discovering the cultural riches beyond the confines of their political and geographical borders while confronting the belief-shattering shift in their received notions of creation precipitated by the transition from the earth-centered Ptolemaic model of the universe to the heliocentric Copernican model. Specifically, I am talking about that illustrious French thinker of the last quarter of the 16th century—a guy far more wise and eloquent than I, named Michel de Montaigne. About midway through the first book of his most famous work, the Essays, in an article entitled “On the Education of Children” (“De l’institution des enfants”), Montaigne gives advice on the best kind of education for the person who faces the fresh challenges of a changing world. This person should possess “plutost la teste bien faicte que bien pleine” (a well-made head rather than a well-filled one), and in the best case scenario, where both kinds of mind are achieved, “qu’on y requit…plus les meurs et l’entendement que la science” (then let more character and understanding be required of it than mere learning).
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the ultimate and time-tested goal of Gen Ed: a well-balanced individual of sound understanding, good character, and common sense. And all of you who graduate today from UNCG are, we trust, the beneficiaries and future purveyors of these qualities—you are, if I may, our “Generation Ed”! For in fact, perhaps more than any generation before, you all simply have to be lifelong learners in order to meet the challenges I’ve only just begun to describe. It’s a great big “galette” out there, everyone, and as scary as it might first look on your plates, you’re ready for it. Now go out there and take a great big bite of it! This galette is delicious, so enjoy it—cette galette est délicieuse, alors bon appétit!
