I would like to thank all the parents, guardians, and families who dedicated themselves to their daughters’ success. College is a cycle of stripped identity, in which we continuously challenge our minds, step outside our comfort zones, and sometimes lapse into being lost. Without you, we would not have a foundation to feel grounded ever so often … so thank you.

To our professors. Thank you for making learning our passion. 20 years from now, it will not be the grade you gave us that mattered … but the lessons you taught us through the textbooks, the discussions, and the office hours. Eloquently stated and simply put, you all are “wonderful”.

To my Wellesley sisters of ’06, ’05, ’04, and Davis Scholars your time will quickly arrive. Do not rush along this journey, but experience it. Through my time at Wellesley, many of you have been my teachers. I will never forget the lessons you live and that I have learned.

And last but not least, to my ’03 sisters. You have helped to define me as the woman I am today. I came to Wellesley on a feeling, not knowing how to pronounce Wellesley, not knowing it had a lake, just having a feeling that it was right. And for the past four years, you never made me doubt my decision. You women rock my world … and I hope I’ve gotten most of your signatures for my collection of “Famous People”.

Entitlement.

It’s a word that may have crossed our minds at some point or another during our four years at Wellesley. We may have felt “entitled” when someone hastily questioned “why a girl’s school?” and you replied “why not a woman’s college?” Or getting on the Senate Bus before all the men at Harvard Square? You may have felt “entitled” to correct someone in their pronunciation of Wellesley as Wesleyan, Wesley, or that Hillary Clinton School. Or you may have felt the sense of entitlement to cross College Road despite the speeding on-coming car because you were at the green walkway? Or sitting here now today ready to graduate as a Wellesley woman. You may feel, my sisters, a sense of entitlement.

But why?

During a chapel scene taping of Mona Lisa Smiles, I was not allowed to walk through a scene because the cameras were rolling—so I stopped to watched, since I had no other viable option. “Action” someone screamed and in an instance Wellesley transformed itself into its past. It was 1954 again marked by the beeny caps, the tweed brown skirts, and the curled hair worn stiff against the neck or back. In this reenactment I did not exist and it marked a time where I barely existed in my own Wellesley history. But understand that this moment —as indescribable as it was—could be described as hauntingly empowering. In fact, it was. For a rare moment in my life, I was living in two periods simultaneously. A period marked by Brown vs. the Board of Education coupled with the new millennium (quite ironically the period of University of Michigan).

Today, I exist along with 26 other black students. I am a trailblazer, just like each and every one of you here.

As you sit, ready to walk across this stage and receive your Wellesley diploma, take no comfort or felicity in feeling entitled. The feeling of entitlement should only last from the moment you set foot on the stage till the moment you walk off. We’ll call this period the “entitlement strut” (or stroll for those who may want to enjoy that moment longer).

Now don’t get me wrong. Wellesley will open doors for us. People may sit up a little straighter when they see (or rather hear) the letters W-E-L-L-E-S-L-E-Y in that particular sequence. But I’ve got a question for you my sisters? Why? Who made Wellesley what it is today? Who defined Wellesley? Who placed Wellesley in between the words respect and distinguished? Who made this name come to life? Who is writing Wellesley’s history as I speak? It certainly had to be somebody—or should I say some woman.

Ironically, these were the same type of questions I was asking myself during the taping of Mona Lisa Smiles. And interestingly, this was the same conclusion I had reached.

This world is not changing or quickly transforming before our eyes. 9/11 did not mark the time of world transformation. We are not witnessing a recreation of the world with a blink of an eye. We-my sisters- are changing. We are becoming more aware, more conscious, more educated, more “worldly”—we are growing … or at least I hope so. And as we grow, we are the ones that must understand that sadly race matters, money matters, sexual orientation matters, religion matters, beauty matters, and the fact that we are graduating from a higher educational institution with a women’s liberal arts degree means that gender matters as well.

And why must we understand this? Why must we be forced to think about these things? Because with our degree, we are entering this world as forerunners—as trailblazers. We are the world’s progress, the world’s change. We define the world’s actions, the issues, the mistakes, and the achievements.

And so my sisters (I hate to break it to you) nowhere can entitlement become our state of being. Like Anna Johnson, Cecile Kennedy, and Alice Yen the only two women of African-descent and the one woman of Asian-descent from the graduating Class of ’54, we must continue to act on our behalf because we are continuously building the stage for future generations.

We must build such a stage like the women and men who have built it for us at Wellesley, including our parents, family, friends, administrators, staff, and faculty. But as I thank these men and women, never forget the backbone to this institution. The ones who maintain the beauty and safety of this campus day in and day out, the ones who cook our meals, drive us into Boston, clean the bathrooms, do the complicated and laborious tasks that we simply over look on our way to class or running out to Boston. Thank you for building our stage as well.

So my sisters, build the next stage for our next generation of sisters and ourselves, be the next trailblazers. The next neurosurgeons, the next fashion designers, the next political influentials, the next Housing Development gurus, the next Director of the Women’s Center at the NIH, the next CEOs, the next little league soccer coach, the next pastor, the next teacher, the next professor, the next Dean of Students … be the next and/or the first. And for those trailblazers who choose to have a family, the best legacy that you could leave behind is the one you raise … your child. After the ups and downs, we remain our families’ legacy, just like we will remain Wellesley’s.

You my sisters should have no need or desire to feel entitled. For wanting entitlement is wanting a sense of complacency, wanting the world to honor you. And how passive, yet difficult does that sound? My sisters, we should be far beyond that state of mind. It’s time that we honor the world we live in, which will sometimes bring praise along with more than enough criticism for one person to chew. But at least, you have become your own judge … you have become your own woman. And there’s something – something my sisters – empowering in that.