{"id":95360,"date":"2015-06-16T14:19:46","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T18:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=95360"},"modified":"2024-07-08T13:46:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T17:46:21","slug":"president-spencer-honored-with-degree-from-bishops-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2015\/06\/16\/president-spencer-honored-with-degree-from-bishops-university\/","title":{"rendered":"President Spencer honored with degree from Bishop\u2019s University"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Clayton<\/a>

Clayton Spencer receives an honorary degree from Bishop’s University and Chancellor Brian Levitt (right). (Photo courtesy of Bishop’s University)<\/p><\/div>\n

On June 6, President Clayton Spencer<\/a> received an honorary doctorate in civil law from Bishop\u2019s University<\/a> in Sherbrooke, Quebec, an institution devoted to the \u201cliberal education of undergraduates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer appeared alongside Beverley McLachlin<\/a>, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and Louis Vachon<\/a>, the president and CEO of the National Bank of Canada, both of whom also received honorary degrees.<\/p>\n

Michael Goldbloom, Bishop\u2019s principal and vice chancellor, said the trio were recognized<\/a> at the university\u2019s 187th convocation ceremony for their \u201coutstanding professional achievements and service to society.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her remarks<\/a>, Spencer likened the years immediately after college\u00a0to a journey \u201cinto the woods,\u201d with all the \u201cadventure, danger, and uncertainty they represent,\u201d and she suggested that the students\u2019 liberal education had equipped them with \u201cpowerful tools of navigation\u201d for their journey.<\/p>\n

Evoking the values animating the Purposeful Work initiative at Bates<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a tolerance for ambiguity, the imagination to see specific choices within a larger context, and the humility to reach out for help and solidarity at difficult moments\u00a0\u2014 Spencer counseled students \u201cnot to panic early and grab for premature clarity at the expense of more durable meaning, which is different for every person.\u201d Her invocation of Joseph Campbell\u2019s famous dictum, \u201cIf the path before you is clear, you\u2019re probably on someone else\u2019s,\u201d evoked nods of recognition and laughter from students and their families.<\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>

President Spencer received an honorary degree on June 6 from Bishop’s University Chancellor Brian Levitt.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAt this early stage in your lives, the relationship between near-term choices and long-term meaningfulness is often \u2026 [not] clear,\u201d she told the graduating class. \u201cSo the question is, how do you square the arbitrariness of your first step\u00a0\u2014 or, for that matter, any given next step you may take along the way\u00a0\u2014 with the goal of finding work over a lifetime that aligns with your deepest interests, brings you joy, and allows you to contribute to purposes larger than yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n

The key, Spencer said, lies in \u201cthe deep lessons of a liberal education,\u201d which not only teaches you “‘stuff’\u00a0\u2014 biology, chemistry, economics, English, or whatever else you may have majored in”\u00a0\u2014 but \u201calso motivates and equips you to live an examined life, to \u2018live with the question of how to live.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Bishop\u2019s educates 2,200 full-time undergraduate students at its residential campus in Sherbrooke. Founded in 1843, Bishop\u2019s is one of only three universities in the province where instruction is primarily in English. Spencer said she felt a strong kinship between \u201cthe culture and values of Bishop\u2019s and those of my home institution, Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer found another Bishop\u2019s-Bates connection on stage during the ceremony. Fellow honorand Vachon, CEO of the National Bank of Canada, graduated from Bates as a member of\u00a0the Class of \u201983.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Clayton Spencer has received an honorary degree from Bishop\u2019s University in Quebec, an institution devoted to the \u201cliberal education of undergraduates.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":95365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12356,10935],"class_list":["post-95360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews","tag-center-for-purposeful-work","tag-clayton-spencer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95360"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95380,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95360\/revisions\/95380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}