Charge to the Seniors
122nd Commencement Exercises
Wellesley College
May 26, 2000
Diana Chapman Walsh
President
Wellesley College
Now we move to the traditional segment of the
Commencement program in which the president issues her
"charge to the seniors," sending them off into the world as
if shot from a gun.
Often I've observed from this vantage point that the
seniors look charged up enough and hardly need an infusion
of energy from the president -- or anyone. And so it is
today. But every year is different -- each class is sui
generis.
This year's seniors -- the millennial class of which
we've made such a fuss since the day you set foot on campus
-- this Class of 2000 has turned the tables in various ways.
And one has been that you have charged the president to
bring you something particular on this, your, graduation
day.
In late March, two of you brought me a petition asking
that I bring an outside voice into these proceedings. It
wasn't that you wanted a celebrity, you insisted, and you
were delighted and excited to have Dean Daniels as your
speaker.
But you worried that something would be missing without
that outside presence to mark this life transition you were
anticipating. I listened hard for what lay behind your
concern; it was a desire that this day be out of the
ordinary, memorable.
And so I have resolved to bring you outside voices today,
along with a memento to keep and ponder I hope, perhaps even
to treasure. This is something entirely new, an innovation
inspired by your request.
We send you off today, I first want you to know, with
utter confidence not only in what you will do in this world
but who you will be. You represent the pride of this
institution. We send you off, as we often say, to make a
difference in the world. We know that you will take your
places in the sisterhood of Wellesley women who have crafted
lives of commitment to serve causes larger than yourselves.
You have developed here a thirst for learning--and a knack
for it--that will define you throughout your lives.
And as you leave this institution whose first obligation
has always been the full development of women, you carry
with you possibilities for women everywhere. You will write
the next chapter of the story of women's gifts to the world,
and you will enlarge women's hopes for the next
generation.
As a symbol of those hopes, a
token of our esteem, and a tangible reminder for you today
of that voice you wanted from the outside world, we are
giving each of you a copy of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. This is a tradition I bring you from the
Harvard School of Public Health, where I was a professor
before I came to Wellesley 7 years ago.
This document, adopted in December 1948, was one of the
first major achievements of the United Nations. It was
crafted by the first UN Human Rights Commission, chaired by
Eleanor Roosevelt, who considered the successful negotiation
of this remarkable covenant the most consequential
accomplishment of her long and productive life.
A product of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, the
declaration has been codified and extended in international
treaties, resolutions, conferences, and national
constitutions of newly-formed states. It exerts an enormous
influence on lives all over the world. It is the first time
in history that a broadly-representative international
organization has been able to agree on a document considered
to apply universally, a point of contention then, and
now.
At the same time that it represents optimism for the
future, and aspirations we all can share, this declaration
serves as a poignant reminder of work we all need to do. In
1997, two months after she took up the responsibilities as
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, former
president of Ireland, pointed to discrimination, genocide,
and poverty as "a failure of implementation on a scale which
shames us all."
And so -- the passionate Wellesley class of zero-zero--we
send you out now into the world to breathe meaning into
these principles. This declaration speaks to you in many
outside voices: in the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt and all
that her life signified, in the voice of Mary Robinson and
other contemporary women who are taking up the cause of
human rights around the world.
This declaration speaks to you in the voices of the
victims of ethnic hatred and genocide -- incidents that were
a steady drumbeat during your four years here:
- the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Rwanda and
Burundi who trudged to eastern Zaire and back in your
first semester here;
- the thousands killed and maimed these past four years
by dozens of terrorist bombs;
- the Serbs, Croats, Kosovars, Chechnyans who suffered
unspeakable miseries while you studied here;
- Matthew Shephard and the children who died at
Columbine High...so many others.
This document speaks to you, too, in the voices of whole
countries and continents--like India, China, the Soviet
Union and sub-Sarahan Africa where HIV, silently but
relentlessly, is mutating and decimating families,
communities, societies
entire nations, reversing
recent improvements in the quality of life. By 2010, roughly
40 million African children may be orphaned by AIDS, a
calamity on a scale that's difficult even to imagine.
Few infected Africans are receiving as much as an aspirin
to relieve their suffering, while rich countries are
spending $15,000 a year on drugs for a single patient.
Funding for prevention programs is equally skewed, with 95%
of the funds being spent in industrialized nations, where 5%
of the infected people reside. Who among us doubts that the
response to this catastrophe would be dramatically different
if it were befalling not Africans and Asians but Americans
and Europeans?
This Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks to you
in the voices of all the suffering people it is too painful
for us to countenance. And so we look the other way and go
on about our lives, taking our privileges for granted.
So that this day will stand out in your minds as one in
which we remembered our privileges--and the reciprocal
obligations we owe--I want each of you to have your own copy
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I hope you
will read it, save it, mull it over in your minds, ask
yourself what you can do to advance human dignity and equal
rights as the essential foundation of a free, just and
peaceful world.
And when someone asks you, years from now, what you
recall from your graduation, I hope you will find this
document tucked away with your diploma, or your scrapbook,
in a box of treasures
or your underwear
drawer--wherever it is that you end up storing the few
things that accompany you through your life's journey.
I wish all of you great adventures in your travels ahead.
May they take you safely to places you never dreamed you
would encounter, and may they bring you back here--soon and
often. And as you strive to live up (as I know you will) to
all the expectations we have for you, and all those you have
for yourselves, I hope that you will cut yourselves a little
slack.
I've been more serious in these comments to you than I
often am on this occasion. At another graduation some years
ago, after a particularly grim invocation, the next speaker
said to the graduates, "Having heard the words of the good
father about the troubles of the world, my advice to you is
don't go." So maybe my ulterior motive is to scare
you into staying. We are going to miss you, your energy and
your caring. But I think you're ready to go
am I
right?
When you do go, do me one favor. Please be forgiving,
gentle, and compassionate towards yourselves. Don't struggle
to get it all done in the first five years--or even the
first 20. Wellesley women are made of sturdy stuff. We are
durable. I know this from the thousands of redoubtable
alumnae I've met around the world and across the
generations. You will have plenty of time -- trust me--and
each of you will craft your own special life of purpose, and
beauty, and meaning.
So take your time, enjoy your friends, prize your
families and this exquisite world, this amazing life. It is
a precious gift as my own experiences this past week have
driven home to me. Don't let your relentless search for
meaning drive the meaning out.
Stay connected to each other and to the joys of the
moment. Smile -- if nothing else, people will wonder what
you're up to. Travel light. Listen, always, to your
curiosity, and don't ever let anyone talk you out of your
passion for justice -- it is a wonderful thing.
Go in peace. Go with our love.
We are so proud of you.
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