President Smith:	Good afternoon everyone.
Audience:	Good afternoon.
President Smith:	As some of you may know, I am the eldest child of an elementary school teacher mother and a biology professor father, so I was raised to value education. In choosing education as my professional field, I followed in my parents' footsteps. More specifically, like my father, I've been inspired by the opportunity to teach young people at the transitional point between adolescence and adulthood to conduct original research and to be part of a national and global community of scholars in similar or related fields.
	Now recently, I recognized that while I followed my father's path of being an academic, he possesses other qualities I admire even more. Perhaps because of his upbringing and education in segregated schools in the [inaudible 00:06:31] south, where even students who were on the academic track were required to pursue a trade as well. My father developed a remarkably well rounded intelligence. So in addition to being cerebral, he is remarkably dexterous. He loves nothing more than analyzing how objects and components fit together and relate to each other. For my father, as for many people of his generation, those who spent their childhood under the shadow of the great depression and came of age during world war two, no task is too menial.
	He is now 91, but until quite recently he prided himself on his ability to fix, repair, or repurpose almost anything. We joke that in my parents' house everything has a story. Everything used to be something else. This table used to be a door, that desk used to be a headboard, this kitchen table is half of an old dining room table and it goes on.
	Even now, he never comes to visit his children without thoroughly inspecting our homes for something that isn't working. Then he figures out how to fix it. And I always admired and envied my father's confidence that if he studied a project long enough, he could get to the bottom of it. In a society where we seem to be losing the ability to repair and repurpose our belongings and where we are living with the consequences of excess waste, I value his ingenuity and thrift.
	In recent years I've noticed a resurgence of interest among current and perspective students in tinkering and making and fixing things. Here at Swarthmore and on campuses across the country, students and faculty members are recognizing a need for so called dirty and so called clean maker spaces, innovation labs and workshops where students, whether independently or in groups, can learn or refine their ability to invent, create, and fix things.
	Increasingly, we realize that this ability aligns with and compliments the pursuit of knowledge in the traditional liberal arts as much as in engineering and applied sciences. Now note that I said that I admire my father's ability to make and fix things. I did not say that I inherited it. So those of you who are getting your room set up, don't expect me to help you set up a piece of furniture or repair a broken appliance, okay? Just saying. But in observing how my father approaches projects, I realize that the skills that he has developed for these types of manual projects are broadly applicable to other spheres of life.
	If I discover that some material object isn't working or is broken, I generally feel a sense of frustration or panic first. My inclination is to call somebody or worse, to talk away from it as if it will fix itself if I go away and ignore it. Then generally I go back to it and see if I can fix it myself. And I'm not half bad really, but my success rate isn't terribly high. But for my father and for tinkerers like him, these types of situations are not problems in the [inaudible 00:09:53] sense but they're projects, and people like him I think are drawn to projects, not frustrated or repelled by them.
	Here's where I think his confidence comes from. First, it comes from his tools. When he was very young, he acquired a basic set of tools. Flathead and Phillips screwdrivers, a tape measure, a crescent wrench, locking pliers, needle nose pliers, a drill, a saw, a utility knife, a hammer. He knows what tools he has and he understands their purpose, what they're used for. If he doesn't have the right tool, he'll do some research to determine if such an implement exists and then he'll either buy it or more likely borrow it. Or he might modify an existing tool if he decides that will work just as well.
	For him, a basic tool kit is an essential of adult life, and he made sure that all of his children had one when we left the family home. Second is analytic ability. When he encounters a problem or a project, he studies it. If something is broken, he takes the time to figure out possible causes and possible solutions. Does a component need to be tightened, loosened, smoothed, or replaced? Is there an inherent defect that might require him to invent a new part?
	When I watched him figure out a project, I'm always impressed both by the pleasure he gets from losing himself in the work and by the patience and persistence this kind of work requires. And the third, his ability to match the tools to the project at hand. Once he believes he understands the challenge at hand, then he returns to his tools and matches the tool, often through trial and error with the problem. For him, a mistake or an error is not a failure, but a step on the path to finding a successful solution.
	Now I mentioned that I did not necessarily inherit my father's ability to fix or make material things, but I think that these skills are relevant to many different arenas and I believe I've adapted them to fit the needs of my professional life as an administrator and scholar and of my personal life and I believe that your generation of students has come to value these skills as well. As you embark on your college career, I encourage you to practice the discipline that has served tinkerers for generations. These are habits you will cultivate here and then develop throughout the course of your life. That is what it means to be a life long learner.
	So first, know the tools you have and determine which ones you need to develop. Intellectual curiosity, quantitative reasoning, contemplation, analytic ability, persuasive communication skills, the ability to listen and to speak across differences, compassion, collaboration, imagination and resilience.
	Second, cultivate the ability to solve problems. Whether in the classroom, laboratory or studio, in a civic engagement project, on your athletic team or in a student organization. Learn to look at a situation from multiple sides and figure out what problem you are actually trying to solve. This is a core value of a liberal arts education.
	And third, learn to use the tools you have to solve the problems you have identified. You will be the leaders, artists, innovators, scholars, writers, investors, entrepreneurs, partners and parents of tomorrow. Will you need data analysis, empathy or both? Will you need to work alone or will you need to collaborate with others who's skills and talents differ from and compliment your own? And will the project you're working on require imagination, archival research or both?
	I leave you to reflect on this variation of the concept often referred to as the law of the instrument or the law of the hammer, and that is if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. We need you to be able to use everything in your toolkit to help solve the most intractable problems we face as a nation and as a global community. Health disparities, inequality, climate change, education and many others. Use all of your tools wisely, creatively and with a clear sense of what problem you're attempting to fix. And then, be single minded in your determination to go out and fix it. Thank you.