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President Diana Chapman Walsh
President's Charge to the Class of 1994
May 27,1994
Well .... (as the ancients might have said) mirable
dictu (the miracle be spoken)... we made it!
You made it through four years; I made it through one. I
don't know which of us should be more amazed, relieved, and
exhausted. We've been tested, challenged, stretched to the
limit, you and I, taught and nurtured, celebrated, and run
ragged. And now we face the future -- you and I ... in
different ways.
There will always be a special place in my heart for you,
the Class of 1994. You are my first seniors, my first
graduating class, my first experience of signing over 500
diplomas. At my inauguration last month, we donned our
academic regalia together and processed in the Big White
Tent. I could feel your palpable support. It helped propel
me joyfully through that most amazing day.
We share the color purple, too, passed down in four-year
rotations through the 28 years that separate your class and
mine, and it has been by watching you that I have observed
the inventive ways in which generations of Wellesley women
have kept our traditions alive, and yet have adapted them to
the changing times.
Yours was my first raucous step singing with champagne
corks popping, my first hoop rolling race with the new,
updated legend. In my era the winner was to be the first in
her class to marry. Now she is destined to become the first
CEO. I won the hoop rolling race in 1966 and was married two
weeks after graduation. It took me a lot longer to become a
CEO, but here I am. You never know.
That's the going-away message I want to leave with you --
the reminder that you never do know, that life is long and
endlessly fluid, and that the possibilities for your lives
extend beyond what any of you, any of us, can possibly
imagine, project, or plan as you sit here today.
It says on the program that this is supposed to be my
"charge" to you. Get out there and set the world on fire.
But you look pretty charged up already, and I know you're
going to do great things, as generations of Wellesley women
have always done. So instead of adding to your burdens
today, I want to reach out in friendship and encourage you
to enjoy your lives, even as you are engaging the world,
stretch yourselves, and honing your skills.
Social psychologists have invented a construct called
"supermarket trauma" -- a paralysis and/or a panic that can
arise out of an overabundance of choice. Your generation --
the MTV generation -- has been heavily burdened by sensory
overload, and my best advice to you, now, as you contemplate
your future is to take a deep breath and relax.
I'll come back to that, but, first, I want to say a brief
word of congratulations to your families, and a brief word
of tribute to our faculty and staff.
To the families of the Class of 1994 -- parents,
siblings, spouses, children in some cases, congratulations
and heartfelt thanks for the loan of these extraordinary
women. You have much reason for celebration and satisfaction
in their accomplishments. I know many of you have sacrificed
greatly to enable them to have these precious, formative,
four years with us.
These women, in turn, have taken their obligations
seriously. They have grown here by leaps and bounds, they
have challenged us, themselves, and each other, they have
made an indelible mark on this evolving community. We are
forever grateful for the gifts they have shared with us. I
hope you will savor this moment, enjoy these graduates, be
unabashedly proud of them -- they deserve your flagrant
pride, and so do you.
To the faculty and staff of Wellesley College (all who
have worked to teach, serve and support these seniors in so
many ways), hats off to you for a job well done. You have
worked hard to foster and witness in each of these 616 women
a process of amazing growth: in intellectual mastery, social
competence, and spiritual depth. You've created the safe
environments in which these graduating seniors have dared to
take risks and to experiment. You have lent a sympathetic
ear when they were struggling. You have held their feet to
the fire when they were slacking off (did they ever do
that?).
You have communicated through word and example the high
intellectual and moral standards you expect of them,
together with your profound belief in their capacities. The
seeds of self-confidence and self-knowledge you've sown will
continue to germinate throughout their lives.
To the seniors, finally, to the Class of 1994, 1 want to
send you off with a poem that was brought to me as a gift by
a dear friend, Parker Palmer, at the multi-faith celebration
the night before my inauguration. Parker is the kind of
lifelong friend I hope many of you have made here, and will
never let go. He brings me gifts of deeply probing questions
that always work on my unconscious for weeks after he's
left. They generally leave me more puzzled and yet
(paradoxically) clearer than I was before he came. Some of
you were able to attend the multi-faith service, but many
missed it. I want you to have Parker's poem working
subliminally on you as you leave this place. It's by Mary
Oliver and it's called "The Summer Day."
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean --
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down
--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated
eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her
face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the
fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
The question with which the poem ends is the one that's
been plaguing many of you, worrying you, dogging your heels,
driving you crazy through this entire year. I know that
because I've seen the look in your eye.
"Ah, you're a senior," I would observe breezily to one or
another of you. "So, what's next for you?" And you would get
that frozen look in your eye, like a deer on the highway
staring into an onrushing headlight. "Tell me what it is you
plan to do with your one wild and precious life." How can
anyone answer a question like that? The stakes are far too
high. But then the poem starts to work Parker's magical
paradox.
"I don't know exactly what a prayer is," the poet admits.
Here we are, immobilized in front of an onrushing light, and
we don't even know how to pray. We're in deep trouble. Or
are we? "I do know how to pay attention," she offers, having
just shown us how through an exquisite description of the
grasshopper in her palm. "I do know how to fall down into
the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle
and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what
I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have
done."
You have not been idle here, but you have done what you
should have done. You have learned to pay attention in all
sorts of important ways -- and this you will do with your
one wild and precious life ... pay attention.
We send you forth now, with the pride of our institution,
and with enormous faith in your abilities, your instincts,
and your promise. You represent our aspirations, our
vocation, our vindication. We send you out with all of that,
with our admiration and love, and with the profound hope
that you won't forget to save some time, now and then, to be
blessedly idle and idly blessed.
Good luck and God speed to you all. The world desperately
needs what you have to give.
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