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Charge to the Class of 1996
President's Charge to the Seniors
Commencement, 1996
"All serious daring starts from within."
So ends a lovely book, One Writer's Beginnings, by Eudora
Welty, another of our fine (and funny) woman writers, in the
company of our guest speaker today. "As you have seen,"
Welty concludes her 1983 memoir, "I am a writer who came of
a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as
well. For all serious daring starts from within."
The three chapter headings of Welty's book -- and that
closing thought -- encapsulate what it is you graduating
seniors have been doing in the shelter of Wellesley College
these past -- and packed -- four years: "Listening,"
"Learning to See," and "Finding a Voice."
Eudora Welty visited this campus in the winter of 1964,
spoke in Alumnae Hall, visited a creative writing class,
and, the next afternoon, had tea (in the Wellesley way) with
a small and admiring group of English majors. I was at all
three events, 32 years ago, and I've carried that brief
encounter with me all these years. It was one of those
signal experiences that is a small part of the person I
became.
As you leave this College (later this afternoon), you
will carry with you not only the astounding accumulation of
stuff you've been packing all week (where did it all come
from?), but also many encounters from your four years here.
Some will stay with you throughout your lives, wherever you
go, whatever you do, whoever you become.
Some of those are salient enough that you know right now
-- if you pause for just a moment -- which ones they will
be: experiences forever seared into your memories. Others
will sneak up on you to become important later, in ways
--and for reasons -- you can't imagine now., reasons that
will find their meaning as your life unfolds.
The encounters you carry with you from your Wellesley
years will sometimes inspire you, supplying confidence when
you need it to get on with the unending project of becoming
that fuller person you began to incubate here.
Some will console you. You'll be tired or dispirited, and
a memory of Wellesley (a teacher who believed in you more
than you did in yourself, a friend who supported you when
you felt alone and afraid, an achievement that amazed you,
amplified inner resources you didn't know you had) -- those
Wellesley memories will restore the flagging resilience and
the tenacity every one of you discovered in yourself, and
cultivated here.
Often, the encounters that will stay longest with you
will be those that become enduring touchstones for who you
are (I am a person who meets my commitments, a person who
doesn't give UP, a person who extends a hand to others who
need my help, a person who never stops questioning, a person
of bedrock integrity, a person of convictions) --
expressions of your deepest aspirations, of your essence --
your most serious daring, the daring from within.
Occasionally, the baggage you carry from this place will
chide and discomfort you for failing in some way to meet
expectations you've set for yourselves, as Wellesley women
intent on improving the world.
There will be such moments -- yes, even for you -- the
incREDible class of 1996 (a class with prodigious stores of
talent, drive, and passion). Even you will have setbacks and
moments of self-doubt. But they will not divert you from the
serious daring of which you have shown us -- over and over
again -- you are fully capable, the daring we know you will
do out in the world.
My overriding memory from Eudora Welty's visit was of an
elegant Southern gentlewoman who seemed fundamentally shy,
and yet was a commanding presence, softspoken,
introspective, charismatic in her quiet way.
People who are shy, according to the work of our own
Professor Jonathan Cheek, shy people have a tendency to
wonder "who does this situation want me to be," rather than
"how can I be me in this situation?" Writers who are shy (as
many are) are monitoring those inner voices for answers of a
different sort -- -lessons about living and life they can
transform into art. Listening, Learning to See, and Finding
a Voice.
The listening I've seen you seniors doing in your time
here at Wellesley -- the listening I hope you'll carry out
into your lives -- is the kind of listening a writer does,
the daring kind that plunges you into new situations, an
individual rooted firmly in the person you know yourself to
be, but one willing to emerge from any encounter changed,
enlarged by having opened yourself to a new opportunity to
learn and to grow.
And how have you learned to see, in your time here at
Wellesley? What skills of observation will you carry from
this place? You've learned here, I hope, the disciplined
life of the mind. You've learned to be open always to new
evidence, thrown up against clearly specified standards of
validity and inquiry, in an iterative and never ending
search for provisional truth. "No experiment can ever prove
me right," Einstein used to say. "A single experiment can
always prove me wrong."
You've learned to listen well for counter arguments, to
sift through them with a blend of skepticism and curiosity,
to incorporate new bits of evidence or new arguments you may
not have encountered before, or ones you may see in a new
light as a result of exposure to new experiences, new
perspectives, new world views.
That is why our diversity -- in all its manifestations --
is so essential to the work that engages us here. Our work
-- -the seeking of truth -- requires that we expose our
assumptions, biases, and ignorance to challenges that will
yield more complicated, more refined, and more complete
understandings of the world. We treasure and thank you --
-members of the Class of '96 -- for the diversity of gifts,
experiences, and spirit you have brought to Wellesley and
shared with us here. Wherever you go, please be sure,
always, to honor and celebrate diversity.
And what of finding a voice? How will you speak out in
the world after you leave this place? Here on this campus
you have shown yourselves to be the kinds of women leaders
we witnessed in Beijing, women who form fluid circles of
inclusion rather than the rigid lines of demarcation that
have caused so much of the world's violence, inhumanity, and
pain. We know you will be voices for reason, voices for
tolerance, inclusion, and justice, voices for the better
world we're counting on you to lead.
You're leaving here to enter a broken and confusing
world, one that needs your energy, your commitment, and your
caring -- the caring that has balanced the daring you've
done here. We send you out into the world with our
admiration, with our pride, with our love, with our
heartfelt hopes for your happiness and with our deep
aspirations for the better future we are certain that you
represent.
God speed to you all.
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