"If it weren't for Ball State, my life would be very different today." That's a comment that I've heard again and again from BSU alumni. It's why I tell people that, while the Census may consider me an academic administrator and while my degrees are in political science, my real job is helping to transform student lives.

Many freshmen still arrive on campus thinking that the sole purpose of a college education is to train them for a better job. It is only later, sometimes much later, that they realize the real purpose of a college education: to prepare them for life--a life of continued learning, responsible civic engagement, ethical example, personal fulfillment, and yes, professional achievement and economic prosperity.

Their lives may follow, as many of yours have, paths very different from anything they can reasonably contemplate in their first semester. It is likely that their first exposure to new possibilities beyond what they experience among family and friends will come from Ball State classes, laboratories, internships, and student activities.

Their careers may depend, as many of yours have, on transferable skills, effective communication, and the ability to acquire and creatively use information. It is likely that their first serious exposure to different ways of knowing, different approaches to texts and data, and different ways to solve complex problems will come at Ball State.

Their contributions to society may require, as many of yours have, a stable gyroscope of values in the roily seas of social, scientific, and political change. They will learn, as you have learned, that many of the important questions of the 21st Century are no longer simply "Can we do it?" but also "Should we do it?" It is likely that their ability to steer a steady ethical course and to defend their choices articulately will rely heavily on informed discussions and late-night debates first held in Ball State classes and residence halls.

To be sure Ball State has changed over the years. There are new buildings and laboratories, new equipment and technologies, new majors and minors, new faculty and staff. But other things have not changed. We remain devoted to student success and to the challenging, yet nurturing, environment that supports it. We remain committed to intellectual inquiry in basic and applied research, especially to projects that actively incorporate students. We remain involved in programs and communities that depend on our expertise and participation not only to ensure their success, but also to model for our students responsible citizenship.

Whether we are poets or nanotechnologists, veteran faculty or newcomers like myself, we stand as one with pride and pledge our common allegiance to Ball State's historic mission: transforming student lives.

by Michael Maggiotto

Michael Maggiotto is dean of Ball State's College of Sciences and Humanities