Student Commencement Speech 1993
Kelly McCutcheon
Good morning to Wellesley's 115th graduating class. It is
an honor to be speaking to you today. I would like to
welcome and thank all of the parents, relatives, partners,
children, friends, faculty and staff who have made it
possible for us to reach this day. It is a joy to us all
that you can be here to celebrate with us.
Reaching this day has been a long and yet rapid process
and it can be hard to think about what today means. A few
years ago, when I saw the movie EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, I was
struck by one of its simple lines. For those of you who are
not familiar with this modern fairy tale, it is the story of
a young man, Edward, who is created by an inventor. When the
inventor passes away, Edward is left incomplete, with
scissorhands instead of human hands. He is discovered by a
neighborhood woman and he walks towards her, holds up his
hands, and says, "I'm not finished." I wanted to get it
printed across all of my shirts and made into
bumperstickers.
All of this, everything we have been working so hard on
during our years at Wellesley is a journey, not a race to be
won. We are not finished, we are just in a different place
than where we started. While this notion of continuity
struck me during a movie, maybe you realized the same thing
in another way. Perhaps a certain biology lab prompted your
interest in pursuing a career in genetics or a studio art
class gave you a new interest in art museums. Maybe a novel
you read described a place you are now trying to visit or a
lecture you attended gave you a new angle on an old topic.
We have all had different experiences here and we will
continue to do so when we leave.
However, we are here today with a common purpose: to
celebrate the completion of our undergraduate education. We
are finishing our time at Wellesley as students. But, we are
not finished. There is unlimited growth and change before
us. If our education has served us well then the learning
and the curiosity engendered here will continue for their
own sakes. This day is called our commencement for a good
reason. We are here to commence the rest of our lives, to
hold up our human hands and say "We're not finished."
Starting well over a year ago many well-meaning people
began to ask that cheerfully phrased question, "So, what are
your plans after graduation?" By January I was listing the
things that I was not going to do. "Well, I'm not quite
ready for graduate school and I have not yet sent for a
Peace Corps application." I tried to picture myself in a
year, 10 years, 50 years but I couldn't see myself. My
anxiety ran high and my temper grew short at various times.
But then, I would remind myself that graduating from college
is not synonymous with having a clear vision of what the
future holds.
For those of you who know in your heart what you want to
do, then do so with the greatest passion. If however, you
are unsure of what will be best for you right now, then do
not try to live someone else's life in the meantime. Explore
every interest you have no matter how far out of the
mainstream or how far out of the limelight it may be.
It is true that we will be reading about one another in
the years to come. One of us may line her mantle with
Academy Awards. One of us may enter the White House as
President. One of us may discover the cure for AIDS.
The rest of us, though, do not need to be the stuff of
headlines to make a difference. Do your best at every
moment. Find work that makes life better in any way. Commit
yourselves to partners who value your vision and respect
your passion. Raise children who know that telling the truth
and believing in the future will make a difference. Choose
your issues and fight for whatever you believe in. Help
others gain access to the kind of education we have
received.
Just as we are not finished, so too are the goals of our
time here not finished. We have often spoken of
multiculturalism, and what is important is that we take this
initiative with us wherever we may be going. There is no
corner of the globe that would not benefit from the equality
and explicit valuing of diversity that is inherent in
multiculturalism. By multiculturalism, I do not mean a
dogmatic political correctness, but rather an openness to
the new ideas and to the people who have had to fight their
way to the front and to old ideas which were brushed over
for political and not intellectual reasons. I also do not
mean the adoption of pat answers and attitudes that serve
only to placate, not to educate. Accepting simple answers
only denies us the richness of the complexities that lay
underneath the surface of the issues that multiculturalism
raises. Each of us has made many assumptions that demand
evaluation, and judgments that deserve another look.
We have also learned that each one of us has her own
voice and that each voice is worth hearing. Some of us speak
loudly, while some of us use our silence to do our talking
for us, but we each retain our voice. Taking the time to
listen to each other is another goal which bears relevance
far beyond our time at Wellesley.
We were here for many critical turning points in the
politics of the modern world and in this country. The Berlin
Wall came down, the Soviet Union dissolved, the Gulf War was
waged, the L.A. riots broke out, the presidential
administrations changed. We have seen that a conflict of
ideals can be a volatile thing and sometimes we have found
ourselves at the very centers of the changing pools of
feminism and multiculturalism. However, while political
changes may grab the most press and employ some of the
loudest voices, the changes in all the other arenas of our
lives need our voices too. Through all of these changes, we
have made our opinions known and tried to learn to respect
differences. These are dialogues which should not end today.
The world has changed before our eyes and it will
continue to do so. Let us be a part of it. Let us speak up,
use our voices and then take action whenever possible. We
know that each person can still make a significant
difference. As an Ethiopian proverb says "When spider webs
unite they can tie up a lion." Imagine what 550 motivated
women can do.
We are not finished, we are commencing and when we gather
here in five years and in fifty years to look back, we will
still not be finished. There is work to be done and we are
certainly the women for the job. Thank you and best wishes
to all of you.
***
KELLY ANNE MCCUTCHEON STUDENT COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
A resident of Marlborough, New Hampshire, Kelly Anne
McCutcheon is a political science major at Wellesley
College. In her undergraduate career, she has been active in
dorm government and College Democrats and has been a
volunteer worker in Newton-Wellesley Hospital, the Red
Cross, and AIDS Action of Boston. The daughter of Ms. Julia
Sandoz McCutcheon of Marlborough, New Hampshire, and Dr.
Michael E. McCutcheon of Albuquerque, New Mexico, she will
work for a nonprofit firm, Parents Choice, in Waban MA,
which reviews children's media and may later pursue a
master's degree in sociology.
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