Thomas B. Coburn, President Emeritus, Naropa University

Rinpoche, Mr. Chairman, Dr. Lord, trustees, former presidents and leaders, faculty, staff, alumni, students, family of Dr. Lord, and friends of Naropa, thank you for the honor of inviting me to say a few words at the inauguration of my successor, Dr. Stuart Lord. In my judgment, he is taking on the most exciting and fulfilling work imaginable: helping our students discover and discipline their inner resources, so that they might live lives of fulfillment in service to others. I loved this work, and I know Dr. Lord is already discovering the deep satisfaction that it provides, before which the inevitable challenges pale in comparison. I join with all the others who have gathered here today, and the larger Naropa family that is here in spirit, in wishing Dr. Lord all the best for the years that lie ahead.

As Dr. Lord embarks on this great work, I know that he will keep in mind the remarkable heritage that Naropa has, beginning with our founder, Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche and his hardy band of adventurers as they opened Naropa’s first doors 35 years ago. Behind them stand the countless contemplatives, east and west, who have worked at the intersection of education and the contemplative life, over thousands of years. We are accustomed, I think, to recognizing the contemplative part of our heritage, but I here want to raise up another part of our lineage, namely, the hundreds of educational institutions in this country, whose company we are proud to keep, even as we strive to nudge the educational climate in the United States in a more contemplative direction.

This part of our lineage—the company we keep with other colleges and universities—came vividly to my awareness about 18 months ago, when I represented Naropa University at the inauguration of the new president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust. That inauguration, like Naropa’s today, featured a procession of representatives from other institutions, all in academic regalia, marching in the order of the date at which their institution was founded. One might have expected Harvard, founded in 1636, to have been first in the procession—but the lineage went back further, with transAtlantic representatives from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, both founded in the 13th century, on which Harvard was modeled. And there I was, representing Naropa, six presidents from the younger end of the procession. It was an awesome realization to visualize the work we do here as continuous with this long line of educators as far back as the Middle Ages.

But there was a second realization that came to me that day. On the way to the ceremony I had stopped by Harvard’s Memorial Hall and Memorial Church and had paused over the names inscribed on their walls, names of those who had died in military service, hundreds of names, those on both sides of the Civil War and of other wars up to the present. How sad, I thought, that with all the learning and the brilliant minds that all these institutions have generated over the centuries, they have had to enshrine those who died because of the violence that has so characterized our national and international life.

And then, perched in my seat nearly at the end of this grand procession, my heart grew warm. I realized that the institution I represented, Naropa University, has at its core a commitment to educating students to shape a world beyond war. Starting with the shaping of individual student lives through the curriculum of contemplative education, educating heart as well as head, we then turn them loose to set about the work of peacemaking in the world, at all levels, large and small. In my judgment, there is no work that is more needed in today’s world—and there is no task more noble. I believe also that no one is better suited to lead this precious little institution in that noble work than Dr. Stuart Lord.

Dr. Lord, welcome to the long lineage of university presidents that has led up to this day. May their heritage sustain you, even as you lead Naropa in its own distinctive direction in the years that lie ahead. Would you please now come forward so that I might convey to you the charter of Naropa University, as a symbol of your leadership?