Advent Convocation

Professor of the Order of the Gown Lily Mobley, C’26, shared the below remarks at the Advent Semester Convocation on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025.

Advent Semester Convocation story | Full text of Mobley's remarks:

Hello and welcome all. Welcome again to the Sewanee faculty, staff, and administration in attendance today. Welcome to the parents, families, and friends joining us. Thank you to Dr. Smith for those incredible words. And of course, welcome to the newest inductees to the Order of the Gown. Amidst the chaos and the joy of this weekend, I hope that you will find time to take pride in your achievement and to revel in this great honor.

It is a true honor to become a member of the Order of the Gown. It is an institution that has guided this University for over a century. The order was founded in 1873 by Reverend William Porter DuBose. It was inspired by Anglican Europeans that the Bishop Charles Todd Quintard, the very first vice-chancellor, met while he was abroad. The order is an academic honor society, and it serves as a form of student government. It advocates on behalf of student initiatives to the administration and ensures equal educational opportunities. By earning your gown today, you are joining one of the oldest traditions here at Sewanee. Do not let the gown just be an honor.

You have proven your ability to learn, to study, and to succeed. You have proven your dedication to a pursuit of knowledge. Wearing your gown is a symbol of your ability and of your dedication. And since the very meaning of dedication infers action, your dedication to what it took to receive this gown is the same dedication that challenges you to continue to do so.

Your induction today should be a call. A call to a further pursuit of knowledge. For the sake of knowledge, yes, but also for the sake of what the act of pursuit does. It moves us forward. By pursuing knowledge, you are participating in a discourse of curiosity.

Curiosity is one of our most vital responses to the human condition. It is the ability to wonder and to think, to envision something more, and to notice when something seems absent or lacking. To question and to seek good answers to those questions constantly. You must stay vigilant in your curiosity. Keep asking questions. Keep seeking answers. Keep engaging in conversations and advancing your understanding. This discourse does not need to always be profound. You can be curious in every part of your life.

Curiosity is the root of change. It is what has allowed us to advance as a society. We are constantly seeking more and searching for answers. Curiosity invites us to learn and to become more knowledgeable, more understanding. It is a necessity of human life. We must be curious because we do not know what lies ahead.

We have been told our whole lives, "We are in unprecedented times," making our personal futures feel vast and intangible. Right now is perhaps the time of greatest national uncertainty that we have ever experienced in our lives, and all the more so for those of us in higher education. But curiosity will make the future feel less foreboding because it will allow us to shape our future.

Dr. O'Rourke shared a quote with me by Paul Mercier, the late Swiss novelist and philosopher, who described this feeling better than I can. He said, "What could, what should be done with all the time now before us? Open and unshaped, feather-light in its freedom and lead-heavy in its uncertainty. Lead-heavy in its uncertainty and feather light in its freedom."

It is easy to feel burdened by this uncertainty. We will face uncertainty throughout our whole lives, in every phase. These years spent at Sewanee can feel like some of the most uncertain. But, and this is what you prove by your admission to the Order of the Gown, these years spent here should remind you of this feather-light freedom found in the uncertainty. It is a gift to learn and to be curious at this place.

My time at Sewanee has certainly been curious, and often uncertain. Your time here will shape the way you think about the world, the way you are curious about the world. Your time at Sewanee will also reveal to you, if it already has not, that living in the uncertainty is a call to this pursuit of knowledge. Let the gown be a representation of your dedication to shaping your future. Press on through your uncertainty and find freedom in this place. Don your gown and be curious.