By Valerie Barker ('87)
This article is an excerpt from a speech Valerie Barker presented in Spring 2001 to congratulate the College's most recent inductees to the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society.

 

Use Your Talents to Make the World a Better Place

Academic excellence is the basis for your induction into the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society, but elements of character are how you will live up to its tenets. There are a lot of extraordinarily smart people-many of whom have high I.Q.'s. but don't have character. Think of Adolph Hitler, Ivan Boesky, Ted Kazcynski, the "Unabomber." No matter how brilliant you are, if you lack character, it is just a matter of time before you either explode with pride and self-aggrandizement or you implode with guilt and shame.

I recently read an article in the New York Times, "A Crisis of Fakes: The Getty Forgeries." The article highlighted Eric Hebbron, a painter who found "success" as a forger. He spent time studying old masters and began a counterfeit business, focusing on European artists from the 15th through the 20th century. Among them were Rembrandt and Michelangelo. He found paper and canvas from the time period he was looking to duplicate. He made ink from authentic ingredients. He focused his efforts on preparatory studies, the series of sketches that led to a completed painting. Many of these works ended up in places like the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Obviously this man was talented, but he lacked character.

People sometimes confuse character with competence. Competence is about what you do. Character is about who you are. Competence is about your performance. Character is about your being.

Think about character and the tenets of Beta Gamma Sigma: guarding and cherishing honor, striving to acquire wisdom and using it for the betterment of mankind, cultivating earnestness in all undertakings and seeking by honorable means to advance the interests of the University, the community and the nation. Upholding these tenets requires character.

Guarding and cherishing honor means maintaining personal integrity, even when there are no legal or punitive repercussions.

Striving to acquire wisdom and using it for the betterment of mankind creates two obligations: the first is to pursue knowledge with vigor; the second is to use your knowledge to do good. For business professionals, this can mean tutoring kids in math, volunteering to do taxes for senior citizens, helping to run a non-profit organization. Whether it is in your spare time or it is your full time job, you can and should find ways to give back.

Cultivating earnestness in all undertakings means if you are going to do it, do it right. Be focused, be serious and treat it with importance.

Pledging to seek by all honorable means to advance the interests of the University, of one's community and one's nation. The new vision statement of Notre Dame MBA students-"serving, inspiring and leading the world community with passion, humility and dignity"-sets the standard for this tenet. It provides a clear and focused goal.

Your induction into Beta Gamma Sigma creates an obligation. It requires you to do the things you do well and to use your talents to make our world a better place.

A member of Notre Dame's Business Advisory Council, Valerie Barker ('87) is the Vice President, Marketing and Public Relations for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. She is the campaign director for a nationwide public service announcement program for parental responsibility. The campaign, sponsored by the Ad Council, is designed to encourage parents to be more involved in the lives of their children.