Reunion & Commencement 2008

View President Roth's Speech (QuickTime needed)

REMARKS of MICHAEL S. ROTH
PRESIDENT, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

Members of the board of trustees, members of the faculty and staff, distinguished guests, new recipients of graduate degrees and the mighty class of 2008, I am honored to present some brief remarks to you on the occasion of your commencement.

Today is a glorious time of celebration, and we are grateful to have the participation of some very special people. Welcome to Wesleyan University, Senator Obama. I’d also like to recognize Senator Edward Kennedy, who is unable to be our Commencement speaker, but who is certainly with us in spirit. Senator Kennedy, a Wesleyan honorary degree recipient, has great family ties to our school. His son, Ted Jr., graduated 25 years ago, and his stepdaughter Caroline Raclin is in this class of 2008. Senator Kennedy has been a great supporter of higher education during his many years of public service. His dedication to civil rights, to labor, to health care, and to a pragmatic and principled politics, has made him one of the most productive legislators in modern American History.

This year I've begun my "second Wesleyan education." I want to express my appreciation to the class of 2008 for helping me through my learning curve. I know that we share a desire to make Wesleyan the best school in America -- not according to US News, but on the basis of how hearts and minds are developed here. May I say how great an honor it is for me to be the president of this group of students. Your generosity and your thoughtfulness, your tolerance and your tough-mindedness represent much of what I love so dearly about our alma mater. My job is to help Wesleyan live up to its best self, its highest aspirations, more consistently and more fully. And I realize that this is what YOU want as well. I understand that it is only by working together that we can fulfill the enormous potential of this university we all love.

Most of you began your careers at Wesleyan in the fall of 2004. Do you remember your first meetings with your roommates, with teachers, with the friends that you see around you today? I went back to the Argus archives to read about what was happening at Wes in those years. There are articles about the construction all over campus, complaints about student dining, housing issues, and within a couple of weeks passionate Wespeaks about an incredible variety of subjects.

The fall of 2004 was a very important time in the United States, and many of you were involved in the political campaign during that semester. The War in Iraq was already more than a year old, and the photographs of Abu Ghraib revealed a reprehensible dimension of what had become Standard Operating Procedure. In the fall of 2004, your frosh year, we had the sad spectacle of presidential politics promoting a climate of fear in which self-assertion was framed as an antidote to inflamed insecurities on topics as diverse as terrorism and marriage.

That was in 2004. In this spring of 2008 we have heard the word "change" on countless occasions. But will we see a change? Can we emerge from these dark times?

Being in the company of students as gifted and energetic as Wesleyan's class of 2008, gives me faith that we may well be able to reject the status quo, to build a politics and a culture of hope and community rather than of fear and divisiveness. Your thoughtfulness and courage, your questioning and your exuberance keeps me from becoming cynical and pessimistic. If you engage in the serious politics of change, if you participate in the struggle for social justice and sustainable economic growth, I believe we can change course. Now, it would be easier for you to use your smarts, your sophisticated learning, to be funny and hip, to be smart and ironic. But you don't have to take this path of least resistance. You have the moral and intellectual capacity to take the path of actually making real progressive change, of becoming productive idealists.

For many generations of students, Wesleyan University has stood for the opportunity to connect serious intellectual and aesthetic work with making a difference in the world. Wesleyan students have the talent, the capacity and the drive to create something new. This year's graduates, like Wesleyan alumni before you, will contribute to shaping our culture in the future, because otherwise it will be shaped by people for whom creativity and change, freedom and equality, diversity and tolerance, are much too threatening. We are counting on you to help shape our culture, so that it will not be shaped by forces of oppression and violence.

Violence remains one of the sad, disturbing parts of our lives. It is the loud noise that keeps us from hearing the music of the world. Violence not only destroys meaning, but it has the potential to disrupt our very capacity to make future meaning. Wesleyan University resists that violence, and a powerful example of our doing so is in your work with people in need in Middletown and throughout the Connecticut River Valley. At the Green Street Art Center or at Traverse Square, at MacDonough School or at Middlesex Hospital, Wes students are making a positive difference in the lives of our community. As scholars and artists, as scientists and as writers, you also set an example against the de-meaning that is violence.

You will hear people tell you that the greatest protection against violence is surveillance, that greater security is developed with higher fences to keep out the foreigners, or that we must project violence on distant shores to keep our homes safe. DO NOT BELIEVE THESE MESSAGES. Please remember that your education stands in opposition to non-sense and cruelty; please recall your capacity to create when others around you call for destruction.

Years from now, when you do recollect your capacity to add meaning and value to the world, your Wesleyan education will come to life. When you persist in expanding your knowledge, when you continue to find new ways to create positive change, then you will feel the power and promise of your education. And we, your Wesleyan family, we will be proud of how you keep your education alive by making your ideals effective in the world.

My dear friends and colleagues, Thank you and Good luck!