That was the message of "That They May Be Made One," the President's Convocation address by President Pete C. Menjares, Ph.D.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed for his disciples, not just those with him but those to come. "If you are here this morning and believe in Christ, you are the object of this prayer," Menjares told new and returning students, faculty, staff, board members and administrators gathered in the Special Events Center on Wednesday, August 27, 2014. Fall semester classes began on Monday, August 25.
Menjares outlined several roles FPU performs within the Corpus Christi:
· Welcome students. "Because without students we as a university have nothing to do but talk to ourselves," he said.
· Comfort one another. Over the summer seminary student Noe Hernandez (BA '09) was killed and undergraduate student Nick Bergen was injured in two motor vehicle accidents, and relatives of other members of the FPU community suffered tragedies as well. "We feel their pain and we feel their grief," he said.
· Develop unity in diversity. Unity is not "uniformity," he said, "we are not a factory." Instead, a university is more like a "universe," where an aggregation of different entities come together for a purpose.
In order to achieve these goals, FPU must see education as an imperative that is accomplished in collaboration with the intent to engage and enter into the lives of people and communities. In all it does, the university will be guided by the principles of peacemaking. "Peace is at the center of our vision," Menjares said. "It's who we are, what we do and how we educate."