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Student Commencement Speaker
May 29, 1998
Sarah R. Smith
Hello, Class of 1998.
Do you remember the Admissions video they sent us about a
billion years ago? I have to admit, I loved the scenes from
Commencement. Those women looked so grown-up, so beautiful
and so proud as they marched along, trying not to look at
the camera. The looks on their faces, I thought, how did
they get those wise eyes? I wanted to be one them. I wanted
to feel how it feels to have completed Wellesley - I wanted
to stop feeling so small. Though today may feel as scary in
some ways as the day we left home, I can see the look they
had on all your faces. You somehow make these silly hats and
robes look regal.
A woman I greatly admired my first year told me about the
words inscribed on the College shield. Not the famous ones,
but another Latin phrase, incipit vita nova. It means, Thus
begins a new life. How true, I thought then. And now. When
we stepped onto Wellesley's beautiful landscape for out long
Orientation almost four years ago, we might not have been
able to imagine the women we have now become, but we knew
something big had begun. And our lives became not about
reaching today, Commencement, not about completing
Wellesley, as I thought when I admired the women in the
Admissions video, but working through each day, with the
women around us. Our new lives became about living here, and
I think the wiser eyes we have today attest to the part of
Wellesley we will take with us tomorrow.
What that is, is going to be different for all of us. Our
experiences in and out of the classroom, our accomplishments
and our frustrations have intersected countless times; we
have affected each other deeply, but we each will make our
own meaning of Wellesley.
We all know that there are many differences among us, and
that they make our unity complex and sometimes difficult.
Just as we do out best not to shy away from our differences,
I think we should leave here remembering not just the joy of
this wonderful place, but its hard times as well. For these
are what have made our experiences here more than a vacation
- a long, lazy, sunny stay that soon fades into other
peaceful memories.
I hope you all have found peaceful moments here, on Lake
Day or Spring Weekend or when you finished your theses. Or
on any day when you found yourself enjoying life in spite of
your cares. I hope we will continue to have those days.
But what about the days that came before and after them?
There were struggles large and small - papers, projects,
conflicts both personal and public. Those were the hard
days. They've made us strong. And the beauty in them is that
it's not bad to have hard things to do - in fact, it's good,
it's where life happens. My mom has often reminded me that,
"If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth doing." It wasn't
easy here; it won't be easy when we go. But that's what
makes us proud, whole, and beautiful.
We can continue to be this way in the new life that
indeed begins today. I encourage you to also keep with you
our official motto, not to be served but to serve. Ponder it
as you make your new choices. We each can decide how this
motto affects our lives. I think our time here has instilled
it into each of us - we know that the smallest service can
mean the world to another person, and that the most sweeping
reform needs to touch the individual. We know that to serve
is one of the harder things in life, but we are not only
ready for the challenge, we can appreciate its beauty. It is
what makes our new lives less focused on our personal
successes: if we listen to it, we give our personal
victories meaning in the world. It brings beautiful
struggles into our lives, making the hard days the ones to
live for.
I know this class is going to do wonderful things, for
ourselves, for each other and for those things and people we
each care deeply about. Congratulations, Class of 1998. May
we have many hard, beautiful days.
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