Alex Tesar giving the
Valedictory address at King’s
College in Halifax.
Alex Tesar worked for the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) in the Registry Branch as part of the Registry records digitalization project during the summer of 2010, and is the grandson of MNO Chronic Disease Coordinator Jo MacQuarrie.
Alex was the 2012 valedictorian at the University of King’s College in Halifax. He was also the winner of this year’s Sir John William Dawson Essay Prize in Science and Religion, for his essay, “Natural Necessity and Moral Possibility: Vindicating Natural Evil”.
In addressing his graduating classmates Alex Tesar captured their attention with his wit and sense of humour as well as some notable quotes. Graduation is a life-changing event and he acknowledges his own progress from a little boy who wanted to be a fire-truck to an adult with a Bachelor of Arts (BA).
Alex likens King’s College and its students to a platypus because they “belong in the rarefied company of things that shouldn’t be, but are, charmingly oblivious to our own impossibility.” He continues: “We are members of that category of things Hunter S. Thompson once described as ‘too weird to live, and too rare to die’.”
After graduating with a BA there are usually two choices: go to graduate school or get a job, or sometimes both. Alex addressed this dilemma. “They say that a BA isn’t worth anything – personally, I think that’s something to celebrate. It’s true that constructing an argument isn’t the same as building a ship; all we have are words to weld with, and unless the government radically changes its priorities, no-one is going to give us a 25-billion dollar contract to build them a fleet of rhetoric,” said the new grad.
Proving that he is a well-rounded and intelligent young man, Tesar made this interesting point: “The modern axiom that a degree in the liberal arts does not provide an obvious foundation for today’s careers is absolutely true, but it is a consolation, not a curse; who are more likely to change things than those who do not have an investment in the way things currently are? In a world that can no longer exist in its current formulation, its best chance for the future is not a collection of rapacious business majors struggling to learn Mandarin, but people who think, reflect, and dream, whose palettes possess colours we have yet to see.”
The entire valedictory address may be read at the link below, or watched on YouTube. It’s worth your time. Linda (editor)