Mississippi State's longtime vice president for agriculture, forestry, and veterinary medicine, Dr. R. Rodney Foil, delivered the summer 1999 Commencement address to nearly 850 graduates and their families and friends. Foil, who retired June 30, came to Mississippi State in 1969 as head of the Department of Forestry. He served as vice president for 13 years.

Y2K More that just computers

There is a lot of focus on Y2K right now, and the coming of a millennium is truly something worthy of contemplation. I, however, have difficulty even imagining a thousand-year interval. So today, I'd like for us to look back to 1899, then ask you to think ahead, and consider how your life will influence things that might be said to the MSU class of 2099.

In the school year 1898-99, Stephen D. Lee was completing his founding presidency and he could be well pleased with his 20-plus years of effort. The college had a total enrollment of 271, all white males, 120 of whom could be more accurately classified as preparatory students, presumably to be admitted later. There were 146 undergraduates, all but five of whom were majoring in agriculture, and five master's students.

Three of the five engineering students graduated that year, joining 17 ag majors to make up the class of 1899, your predecessors by exactly 100 years. Those 20 graduates of 1899 left a college in transition, somewhat as we were in late 1998, when President Portera was new here.

They entered a rapidly changing world, much as you do today. The internal combustion engine was 13 years old, and a few horseless carriages had been built. I suspect that very few of them had made it to Starkville. The incandescent light and AC generator had been invented for 20 years, but kerosene lanterns, carbide lamps, and candles were still the norm.

The radiotelegraph was but four years old in 1899, and although motion pictures had appeared six years previously, "talkies," or movies with sound, were more than a quarter century in the future. The telephone had been invented in 1876, but the first powered airplane flight was not until four years after their graduation.

Things that were brand new to the class of 1899 included Coca-Cola, the motorcycle, cameras, and zippers. Since the safety razor did not come on the scene until 1901, we can assume the cadets at A&M used straight razors, or none at all.

Clearly, things were greatly different here 100 years ago, but some things were much the same. The president in l900 was John C. Hardy, a young native Mississippian who had many similarities with our current leader. Since Dr. Hardy managed to triple enrollment and quadruple the budget in 12 years, he set a pace that may challenge even Mack Portera.

Let me share a quote by Dr. Hardy that may sound familiar.

"Our state is rich in undeveloped material wealth, but richer still in undeveloped and unskilled young manhood.. It is the function of this college to transform this undeveloped manhood into trained and skilled leaders and captains of industry who will lead our great industrial army in the changing of our raw materials to material wealth."

Except for the gender reference, this sounds a good deal like some of the things we've heard from political candidates this past week. Even more familiar sounding is a description of Dr. Hardy when in 1912 he left A&M to become president of Mary Hardin Baylor College in Texas. "Dr Hardy," it said, "prohibited the use of cigarettes at the college and has strenuously enforced this prohibition. He has also used every effort to prevent the sale or drinking of intoxicants among students." That same description fits rather well the efforts of my good friend, Vice President for Student Affairs Roy Ruby, over these many years. I suspect, however, that Dr. Hardy may have been more successful.

We are all familiar with the changes in our world during the past century, in science and technology and in human intellectual and social development-the chemical and mechanical discoveries of the first half of this century, coupled with the electronic, medical, and biological advances of the last fifty years have created a world that would be totally unrecognizable to the 20 sons of Mississippi who so bravely left this place 100 years ago.

Despite all this change, there are a few constants that I have observed, and I would like to share with you.

It is better to be smarter. That may seem silly to be mentioned here, but I suspect that there may be some in the audience who plan to secure their future with their physical talent, good looks, inherited wealth, or maybe even at the casino. Let me only repeat, no matter what, it's better to be smarter, and, to me, being smarter is not just native intelligence, it is using that intelligence positively.

Being smart is not enough. As I hope you have learned here at MSU, there are a lot of smart people in this world. Those who benefit most from their ability are those who place themselves in positions that allow the gaining of experience and the opportunity to observe the use of gifts by others. A cynic once said that the world was run by those who showed up. There is much truth to that.

You must never stop learning. Back when I was a dean here, before many of you were born, we used to spend time debating the merits of four-year versus five-year curricula. I'll bet some of the parents here think we finally settled on six. In any event, I've become convinced that our efforts should now be focused on designing a four- or five-year preparatory course to lead to a lifelong curriculum. It will never be appropriate to solve tomorrow's problems with yesterday's knowledge, if for no other reason than that we will be dealing with tomorrow's people.

Good judgement is beyond value. In the song "The Gambler," Kenny Rogers told us, "You've got to know when to hold them and when to fold them." That calls for the exercise of that elusive quality called judgment, and I believe all of us have it, and too few use it consistently.

Honest self-confidence, respectfully employed, is essential to good personal relationships. Contemporary advice is to both walk the walk and talk the talk, or perhaps to avoid a poor self-image. Under any terminology, it means to me that you must apply your skills and talents in an honest and straightforward manner, so that you maintain your own self-respect and rely on it without reservations. When someone treats you as if they expect the very worst of you, you can be fairly sure that that is the behavior you will see from them sooner or later.

My last constant and the one that grows more important in my mind with each passing day is that, for most of us, personal relationships will be the things that define our life here on Earth, not material things or physical accomplishments. I hope I offend no one by downplaying the necessity for spiritual relationships, but time doesn't permit, nor is it appropriate for me to attempt to guide your thoughts in that area.

My point here is that you are well advised to hold tight to your friends, family, loved ones, and co-workers. The future I see will demand more teamwork in every phase of life. Transportation, communications, and other technologies may make physical proximity less critical, but close, trusting, loving relationships will, I believe, become more important each day. I hope you will seek those elusive linkages that expand your abilities and expectations while enriching joint outcomes. If you approach the effort with honesty and intelligence, shared value systems will emerge to support true progress.

You, as successful participants in the MSU experience, leave here with an advantage, in that you have already forged many such relationships, and those relationships will help you build the future. You will find, as you join our more than 90,000 alumni, that those who preceded you here are anxious to help.

There is a new relationship beginning for most of you today, and it is potentially the most important of all. I believe sincerely that your continued involvement with Mississippi State University is critical to your success, and I know for sure that it is critical to the university. Universities are more and more providing their alumni and friends with a point of reference, a sense of constancy and stability in this rapidly changing world. In that relationship, both the university and her alumni accept greater responsibility to each other, and to the world around them.

While your university must always be here for you, you must not allow it to stand still and wait. MSU has changed over the years, and must change even more rapidly in the future. It is incumbent upon you to help encourage and guide that change, while at the same time insisting that the value system that has served us so well remains strong and operative.

An old university adage says that the alumni remember their alma mater as it never was, and darn sure don't want anyone to change a thing! That contains some truth, but I ask that you move past that to propel this institution, this state, and yourself toward a better future.

President Hardy, almost 100 years ago, told his student body to keep three things in mind:

"There is a right way to look at everything; you are here to fix yourselves to live in this world; and, quicken your blood and get ready for competition!"

I don't believe those things have changed. It is your turn now.