FARMVILLE – Newly-inaugurated Hampden-Sydney College President Dr. Christopher B. Howard spoke across four centuries, using two languages, to affirm H-SC's 235-year old 18th Century roots will branch far and wide across the 21st Century sky.

And beyond.

Thursday's ceremony, which saw award-winning documentary film-maker Ken Burns deliver the keynote address, filled Kirby Field House. Among those in attendance were Dr. Howard's family and friends, along with dignitaries from other colleges and universities.

Everyone listening learned about “ubuntu.”

“Ubuntu” is word, and an ethical philosophy, from southern Africa centered on our collective human connectedness, the spirit of sharing and shaping destiny.

Dr. Howard, H-SC's first African-American president, told H-SC students about 'ubuntu' last fall, telling them then, and repeating it on Thursday, that the word captures the mission of the college as set out by H-SC's first president, Samuel Stanhope Smith.

“It was he who set forth our college's mission to form good men and good citizens all in an atmosphere of sound learning,” said Dr. Howard, H-SC's 24th president. “While I recognize that my predecessor some 235 years ago paid little heed to the southern part of the continent of Africa, the words he adopted as our guiding light are captured in the term 'ubuntu'…It means collective humanity and because of that collective humanity Hampden-Sydney's men proudly boast individual and collective responsibility…Today we gather as a larger brotherhood, as a community and as a family…”

In the real world, in a global community.

A planet Earth, the Air Force Academy graduate affirmed, much in need of Hampden-Sydney men.

“A Hampden-Sydney man commands respect by who he is and what he does as a good citizen,” he said.

Nor has that foundation varied through the centuries.

“The essence of a Hampden-Sydney man remains unchanged. For a Hampden-Sydney man there is a right, there is a wrong, and he knows the difference,” the Rhodes Scholar said. “He has the strength of character to choose the harder life.”

With the “world around us…ever-changing,” Dr. Howard said, and often not in certain, simple, straightforward ways, “who better” to positively impact that world “than a Hampden-Sydney man?…Our country needs such men as much, if not more, than ever.”

Referring to two pivotal events in the nation's history, Dr. Howard noted that the Civil War ended just down the road in Appomattox and that, closer to Hampden-Sydney, Barbara Johns led the historic student strike at R. R. Moton High School in 1951 that “ultimately integrated public schools in America and in no small way paved the way for me, the great-great grandson of a slave…to lead a wonderful college called Hampden-Sydney.

“The lesson of the Civil War and the ongoing movement for civil rights are part and parcel of the Hampden-Sydney College foundation…Clearly, Hampden-Sydney has deep roots in our nation's and our region's history but in the world of the 21st century our outlook extends far beyond the college's gates,” said Dr. Howard, who earned his doctorate in politics at Oxford University and was named a 2010 African-American Trailblazer in Virginia History by the Library of Virginia.

The state of the world today, Dr. Howard noted, “mandates that we have a global outlook…So we embark upon this journey of the next phase of Hampden-Sydney College together…The traditions of honor, service and character will continue as hallmarks of the Hampden-Sydney man…but we, as a college, will adapt and evolve as we take the steps we must to ensure that Hampden-Sydney thrives over its next 250 years.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Dr. Howard declared, “do not think for a minute that Hampden-Sydney College's best 235 years are behind us because our best 235 years are in front of us.”

Closing with a crescendo, Dr. Howard told those in attendance, “We have, must and shall innovate.

“We have, must and shall re-imagine.

“We have, must and shall transform.

“And finally,” he said, “we have, must and shall build a better world one Hampden-Sydney man at a time.”

Ubuntu.

Ken Burns' Speech

In his keynote address preceding Dr. Howard's speech, Burns called H-SC's newly-inaugurated president “a remarkably accomplished human being and, I am pleased to say, my friend.”

The film-maker described H-SC as “a college of such important history, such striking ambition and such noble purpose” and said the “very act of this inauguration must be regarded with sober reflection…and also unrestrained optimism and joy. We acknowledge that some of this joy must be checked by the difficult times we live in, the hardships so many of our fellow citizens suffer, and the challenges we face as individuals, colleges, communities and, of course, the country.”

Those gathered at Kirby Field House were there to affirm their whole-hearted support for H-SC's new president and to “pledge to him our sincere assistance as he struggles to guide this important institution through the rocky shoals of our uncertain future. We are comforted, though, that we have found the right man, a man of intense energy and concentration, willing to take on these challenges and I salute you and I enthusiastically congratulate Dr. Howard and his family.”

Burns has family roots in Virginia. Burnsville in Bath County, just to the east of Warm Springs Mountain, is named for his family and the New England resident spoke glowingly of the beauty of the Commonwealth of Virginia and its history.

“We are not that far from Monticello, that wonderful sanctuary that gave Thomas Jefferson the opportunity to author our national creed and that transcendent second sentence in the Declaration of Independence that says, for all time, that all men are created equal. For Thomas Jefferson, we know that meant all white men of property free of debt, but the vagueness of his words has allowed us to learn and to grow, to live out the true meaning of that creed.”

Talking of the man seated directly behind him, Burns continued, saying “it permits Christopher Howard, a great-great grandson of a slave, to be counted as a man today. Indeed, to ascend to this great office. We rejoice in our ability to change, to be corrigible, to realize that the pursuit of happiness means not the pursuit of objects in the marketplace of things but as Thomas Jefferson himself insisted…a life-long pursuit of learning, just the kind of learning made possible here at Hampden-Sydney.”

And Burns, as would Dr. Howard, noted the proximity of Appomattox “where our nation's greatest challenge, the Civil War, came to an end…The reconciliation that has served as a reminder through the ages, down through the decades, of our best selves.”

Reconciliation that, though ungrammatically correct, he noted, speaks volumes.

“Before Appomattox, we said the United States are, plural, grammatically correct…After Appomattox, we began to refer to ourselves as one thing…We began to say, as we say today, ungrammatically, the United States is. That war that ended not too far from here ultimately made us an 'is.'

“What a great thing.”

A great thing, yes, but a great thing that needs protection from the agents of divisiveness who are so certain of their own righteous moral rectitude and lack of fallibility.

Harkening back to Lincoln's first inaugural address in 1861 and presidential words aimed at union rather than division, Burns cited Lincoln's phrase “the better angels of our nature…He was so sure of our essential goodness.”

Lincoln also spoke of “the mystic chords of memory,” Burns said, noting the president of a soon-to-be-warring nation wasn't speaking of cords that would bind us by force but “musical chords, signifying some celestial harmony that would unite us through all time…”

Those words, he said, resonate with us today because “they are so forward-looking, so positive…in the face of the harsh realities of human existence, the collective cruelties we have sometime visited upon each other across the time and space of our shared past.

Lincoln, Burns affirmed, offers “a uniquely American vision, I think, that confidently swims upstream against the currents and treacherous undertows in the stream of human history.

“And yet, buried in his inspiring words is an essential warning that we human beings too often stray from our pursuit of happiness…”

We must be on guard, he warned, lest we be divided as a people again.