“A New Life Begins,” the Scripps College motto, welcomes first-year students and campus visitors alike. Now, the adage has been selected as a source of inspiration in a nationally released academic anthology, titled “Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education.”
“Incipit Vita Nova,” which is Latin for “A New Life Begins,” appears on the Scripps College seal, along with La Semeuse, the woman who promulgates “the good seed of thought, of action, of life.” Both the College seal and motto are included in the recently released book, which is a compilation of the most important historical college documents in higher education.
The book’s author, John R. Thelin, a professor of history of higher education and public policy at the University of Kentucky, found special meaning in Scripps’ motto, calling it, “The inspiration for connecting the documents of the past to the present. He chose to title the last chapter of his book “A New Life Begins” because of the motto’s message of confidence, courage and hope.
Thelin ends his book by stating, “The postscript for this anthology, with the image of ‘La Semeuse’ – ‘she who sows the good seed of thought, of action, of life’– is the legacy that might guide higher education in the 21st century as ‘A New Life Begins.'”