With Integrity Comes Courage
Standing up for your beliefs in the face of adversity
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“The time is always right to do what is right.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968
The 86-year-old man hobbled to the podium, about to address an auditorium filled with college juniors and seniors.
We shifted in our seats, wondering what lessons of modern sensibilities we, resident assistants assembled for training, could gain from someone then associated with the university for seven decades.
He sized up the crowd and opened with: “I’m an old man.”
Polite laughter ensued. Then, as if to underscore the generation gap that yawned before us, he followed up:
“I’m a VERY old man.”
George K. Makechnie (lovingly referred to as “Dean George” by all who knew him) was dean of one college, acting dean of two others, and a founder of a fourth; his association with Boston University spanned 80 years.
Throughout that unprecedented te…
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