Lincoln University students should learn to ask questions all the time, two top administrators said Thursday during the school's annual opening convocation.
And they should learn something new every day.
"We need for you, no matter what, to keep moving toward knowledge," Said Sewell, LU's Provost and new vice president for Academic Affairs said. "We want you to do things that other students aren't doing - particularly those of you who are our new freshmen."
Sewell just joined Lincoln last month, after serving as an assistant provost at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.
"This is my sixth week being at the university," he announced.
In that short time, Sewell has "begun a conversation with my colleagues about the quest for distinction," he added.
"In other words, how do we make what happens in the classroom, the laboratory, on the farms (and) across the campus so unique that we become the gold standard for HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) that people from around the country will come to this university - this great Mecca on the hill - to study, to work?"
Kevin Rome, who is starting his second year as Lincoln's 19th president, noted the convocation was on the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
And thinking about that day caused him to think of other situations that have been the focus of news stories in recent weeks.
"I think about Ferguson and the chaos," he said. "There were shooters (and) several murders in Kansas City over the past week.
"I think about (football player) Ray Rice and the whole ordeal that's going on where it comes to battering women. I've been thinking about Robin Williams and why he committed suicide."
He mentioned Joan Rivers' death after going to a doctor for what was supposed to be a routine procedure.
"And I think about the impending war with Syria," Rome said. "I think about the condition of race relations in this country."
That list of concerns leads to a list of questions, he said, about the role of higher education and why people have chosen to teach or be students at Lincoln.
"And, as I think about it, I believe that, maybe, it's a belief in the greater good," Rome said, that faculty will inspire students "to reach their potential and beyond," that staff members will "go out of their way to assist a student, and inspire the student to make a difference in the lives of others."
And, Rome said: "I believe there is a student here - or several students - who will rise above their current conditions and have an impact on the world.
"And every time I pass a student, I wonder - is it you? Are you the one?"
Lincoln is a historically black college, which offered its first classes 148 years ago, after Civil War soldiers from Missouri gave and pledged money to start a school where freed men and former slaves could learn to read and write, after years of living under an 1847 state law that made that learning illegal.
Newcomer Sewell talked about his reactions to the Soldiers' Monument in the Quadrangle, a dream of the late David Henson, Lincoln's 17th president, who wanted to honor those soldiers.
That memorial is "symbolic of the founders of this great university," Sewell said. "That memorial, by noted (sculptor) Ed Dwight, bespeaks the essence of Lincoln University."
But, Sewell cautioned, Lincoln can't rest on its past achievements.
He reminded faculty members - to students' laughter and applause - that "we cannot fall prey to reciting old lectures printed on what looks like fragile Dead Sea scrolls or the first draft of the U.S. Constitution. Millennium students - students who had X-Boxes and PlayStations instead of Atari, students who grew up with computers as opposed to calculators - they are different.
"Thus, we have to incorporate new methods of teaching in the classroom."
At the same time, Rome said in his separate remarks: "I have hope because I believe in the collective you.
"I have faith that, in the end, all that we endure is worth going through because of the greater good. We all have a role in the future."
And Rome urged students and adults alike, to "work together to build a community and the world in which we want to live, filled with love and hope - because there are those out there who are depending on you. ... Please, don't let us down."