Three simple questions

President Michael Lovell’s advice to the Class of 2020

Originally delivered at freshman convocation, August 24, 2016

As you begin your personal journey at Marquette, I want to challenge each of you to find the answer to three simple questions. This project is due on your graduation day in May of 2020.

1. What do I value in life?

2. What are my goals in life?

3. How do I define success?

As you consider how you might begin to answer those questions, I thought I might give you some food for thought for each one based on my experience.

What do I value in life?

Early in my freshman year at the University of Pittsburgh, Father Drew Morgan told a story about what society values. This story has stuck with me for over 30 years and it goes something like this:

When God created the world, he put everything that we might need during our lifetime in a giant store. Imagine a Sam’s Club stacked on top of a Costco stacked onto an IKEA.

God put price tags on all the items in the store, but the night before it was to open, Satan snuck in and he switched all of the price tags.

On items of the highest value, he put the lowest prices. Then on things with the lowest value, he put the highest prices.

When the store opened the next morning, material objects that provided prestige and personal pleasure had the highest price tags. Most of people raced for these items first. Certainly their high price tags meant that they were the most important.

The vast majority of people ran right by the items that now had the lowest price tags — things like love, commitment, honesty, and strong relationships with others and with God.

In the context of this story, my plea to you tonight is to not let society tell you what things are the most important.

Do not be misled by price tags.

Use your four years here at Marquette to personally determine what are the most valuable things in life.

Now let’s consider my second question for you:

What are your goals in life?

As you consider this question, I would like to give you some perspective. A few decades ago, some people wanted to simplify how we view the world and the billions of people who live here.

So through some math, they reduced the billions of people to one global village of 100 people. Think about yourself living in that village.

According to the latest statistics, in your global village of 100:

• 70 people do not have access to the Internet
• 48 people are living on less than $2 a day
• 23 people have no shelter from the wind and rain
• 15 people are undernourished
• 1 person is dying of starvation.

And among your 100 village members, 7 people have a college degree — one of which will be you in 2020.

Given your education, what you have today, and where you have come from, you would be amongst the most well off people in the village.

So if we ask the villagers to line up from those who have the most to those who have the least, you would be at or near the front of the line.

Considering that each person in the village represents hundreds of millions of people, there would literally be billions of people standing behind you. Many of those standing behind you are living a few short blocks from where we are located today.

As you consider what your goals are in life, think about how you might spend your time after graduation.

Are you going to spend your time competing and fighting with others near you to try to become the first person in the line?

Or will you focus your time and energy on those behind you in an attempt to help them forward?

Over the next four years, our Marquette community will work with you so that you can answer those questions for yourself.

I will conclude with the last question:

How will you measure success in life?

That question is something that only you can answer. I thought you might want to know how I have come to define success.

I first will tell you what I believe success is not: It is not attaining wealth, being famous, having power, or becoming the first person in the line.

There is nothing wrong with any those things, but they are fleeting and can be taken away from you in an instant.

After being named President of Marquette University in March 2014 I was asked by a reporter how I defined success. Without even thinking, I blurted out:

Success in life is measured by the depth and breadth of the impact you make in the lives of others.

Success in life is measured by the depth and breadth of the impact you make in the lives of others.

In other words, if you use your skills and talents to improve the lives of others, I know that you will go incredibly far in life.

Thank you for joining our family. We are so excited that you are here.

God bless the Marquette University Class of 2020.