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Commencement Address, May 20, 2005
Good Morning. Welcome to Goucher College and our one-hundred-fourteenth spring commencement. The weather is not ideal, but this amazing place never feels better than it does on a day like today – when family members, faculty, staff, alumnae/i, friends, and those who govern the institution come together to celebrate our graduates: extraordinary young people – some older ones, too – who will go forth from this place and use their educations to help change the world.Before I go any further, I cannot help but point out that the new traffic light at the entrance to our campus on Dulaney Valley Road began functioning at 9 this morning. Not a bad development, after fifty years of trying – and another reason to celebrate today!
I love ceremonies, and especially graduations, but this is a very particular occasion for me. This is my class, and they know I’m liable to be a little bit maudlin today. These students and I arrived at Goucher together in 2001. We were all a little naïve and, frankly, some of us were more than a bit scared about how it was all going to work out. There are a few people sitting here today, about to receive their diplomas, whose parents worried about leaving them behind in August of 2001. I won’t specify who they were, but they asked me at the time to keep a special eye on their daughters and sons, because they weren’t sure they were ready for this big change in their lives. Well, I had just been to a special seminar for new college presidents, so I knew how to act like a grown-up, confident guy. I said, “Sure, no problem” – when what I really wanted was probably for them to look after me.
Then came September 11th. I had been here barely two months, and they just a couple weeks, when tragedy struck on that beautiful, clear morning. I doubt that any of us will ever forget that day – we suspended classes and meetings, held vigils and services, discussed and debated, trying to make sense of the unfathomable tragedy that had befallen our country. We prayed and sang and speculated and – this being Goucher – we drummed. I remember which student told me this was no time for drumming, but a time for action, and I remember which one asked if she could have dinner with me that night, so we could talk and try to feel more comfortable; I saw them both at the snack bar in Pearlstone just the other day. They seem so mature now, so wise, and so ready to take on the challenges around us. I remember which members of the faculty and staff wandered around campus with me late into that night of 9/11, checking up on people, and I remember the students who took over from the dining hall workers, so they could go home to check up on their own people. I remember how we slowly, gradually bounced back, comforting those among us who had suffered very specific and terrible losses in the terrorist attacks; and I remember how we found strength in this unique community, as we have since then on some other very difficult occasions.
Four years have passed. We’ve endured extraordinary amounts of snow, a hurricane, and even the use of port-a-potties during a water main break. Members of this class designed our campus recycling program. The truth is: we’ve learned a great deal from each other, we members of the class of two-thousand-five, and we’ve had some very good times together. They got me up on a mechanical bull that first year – for the first and the last time ever. I’ve tried to bury the photograph of me looking terrified, but it keeps turning up. These students have talked me into some things, and out of some others. From my inauguration party right up to this year’s gala, they have allowed me to pretend that I know how to dance. They have poked fun – affectionate fun, of course – at my shirts…my swimming…and, of course, our strategic plan. But just you wait: when we finally build it, you’re going to love coming back to see that Athenaeum.
Our senior year has been a big one. We moved the Loop Road, built some new parking lots, and brought the sensational new residence hall out of the ground – excuse me, that’s the new new residence hall, as distinct from the old new residence hall. (We’ll have names soon, I promise.) We opened the Old Goucher Neighborhood Collaborative on Charles Street in Baltimore City, just around the corner from the original home of this college. We heard from Dr. Ben Carson, jazz great Cyrus Chestnut, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, among many others. We opened new horizons for our three-week intensive courses abroad – in Brazil, China, Italy, Romania, and Spain, to name a few. Our lacrosse teams both went to the conference finals, and the men’s tennis team hit new heights. Both cross country teams received all-academic team awards. We registered many new people to vote and helped students get their absentee ballots from all across the country. Our music, dance, and theater events were spectacular. The Relay for Life raised a record-breaking amount of money for cancer research. And just a few nights ago, under cover of darkness, a mysterious boat constructed entirely of aluminum cans set sail on the pond near our entrance.
While I stay behind in the Goucher Bubble, these classmates of mine will go out and make their mark. I want to highlight, as I do every year, what some of the remarkable people who will soon cross this stage are going to do. Quite a few are headed for top medical schools, law schools, and veterinary schools – but, in many cases, will first have time off to get some grounding. We’ve got a rock musician who was fought over by the best doctoral programs in philosophy in the country, and a dancer and singer who’s headed to graduate school in theology. Several have been selected to work in inner-city or rural schools with Teach for America, and others will go off to teach English in Japan and South America. A number will be in important jobs in the Baltimore media world. We have chemists who will dance on the side, social activists who are figuring out where they are needed most, and a few disk jockeys, too. There’s a budding conductor, a world-class player of Irish pipes, and someone who seems to know everything about eco-tourism.
Goucher College is proud to change lives, to transform individuals, and to prepare students for citizenship in the world – to be a place where you can return with pride and inspire whose who follow you in this beautiful spot. Please join me in saluting the Class of Two Thousand Five.