EXECUTIVE DEAN’S FAREWELL
As we arrive in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow morning, our community will suddenly disperse and we will return to our various homes, families, schools, and work. The ending is so abrupt that we will feel a profound sense of loss.
But we will have countless moments to remember and savor. For many of you, the ship will remain our favorite port. Among our treasured recollections will be those long, late-night conversations with friends new and old, Don Gogniat’s hearty “good morning Adventur-ers” in Global Studies, Dr. Mort at Clinic and pre-port tips, equatorial sunsets, the faculty who have led us around the globe intellectually and experientially, and our transformation from pollywogs to shellbacks on Neptune Day.
The moments we had in our thirteen ports of call are also indelibly burned into our consciousness. Who could forget the volcanoes and observatories in Hawaii, walking on the great Wall, conversations with new friends of many nationalities in a variety of cabarets, helping needy youngsters in the Dalit village, searching for the ultimate sushi, or walking somberly through Ghana’s slave “castles.”
And so we join the more than 50,000 shipmates who have called Semester at Sea their home for an altogether too brief time. As we leave one another, let’s resolve to follow Mark Twain’s advice “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Best wishes for a wonderful life!
Loren Crabtree
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