Geneva M. Walker-Johnson
Dean of Students
Wednesday, September 6, 2000

WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST FALL SEMESTER OF THE NEW CENTURY!
Opening Convocation 2000

There is a sense of energy and excitement that comes with the beginning of the new academic year, of discovering new things, of being in a new and different place.
Even if this place is not new to you, there is a certain sense of urgency and electricity the anticipation of newness ushers into the community at the start of the academic year. As we busily go about preparing, we can't help wondering what will be different when newness comes? What new challenges and opportunities will this year bring. And are we willing to take the chance to try things differently? Or are our experiences so full of the what was that there is no room for the what could be?

For each of us, the start of this new year can represent an opportunity for us to contemplate these and other questions about new beginnings.
Whether you are joining this community for the first time as a member of the Red class of 2004 or are returning to a place that has become very familiar to you. A place that has a history you inherited and on you will help to create.
On this day, all of us begin our journey together into Wellesley's history on this first fall of the new century.

As we look to our future as a community, we must pause and reflect on our rich and glorious past as a premiere liberal arts institution dedicated to the education of women. That over time has evolved in to a premiere women's institution in the world.
There have been years of opening Convocations and Commencements, of leave taking and rejoining, of challenges and choices, of winning and loosing, of growing and developing, of seeking opportunities to try new things and of committing ourselves to experiencing all that Wellesley has to offer.

Part of the challenge in the experience of being new is a willingness to step outside the person that you are and meeting yourself face to face in a new moment that calls into question all that you thought you knew and understood about who you are or how things should be.

This is not an easy task. It is not easy to open yourself up to learning differently, exploring objectively the things you don't understand, to making meeting out of each new experience, of challenging your own assumptions about your place in the world and the place of others around you and in relation to you. Of creating your place here, in this community; of carving out your identity while desiring to be assimilated into this new culture. Of finding the places where you feel most comfortable and of understanding the nature of your discomfort in others.

And of having the fortitude to swallow hard, challenge your discomfort and learn from it.
Of trying to adjust to a new community and hoping it is big enough to adjust to you.

This is not a first year phenomenon.
It happens to each of us, with each new encounter, with each new experience we have the chance to open ourselves to new thoughts, new ideas, new Challenges. And in a place like Wellesley, what a wonderful and fertile environment for the nourishment of new ideas and a new way of thinking about things!

There is that magical moment when a new experience starts to ask ourselves, "What will I take from this experience? What am I prepared to give to it?
Whether as a member of the Sophomore Class, faced with the seemingly monumental decision of choosing a major, realizing full well that this decision is laying the blueprint for her future educational experiences.

Or the Junior that has decided to study abroad, to take advantage of the unimaginable opportunity to be immersed in a new culture, to try with every fiber of her being to understand and adapt to a new set of experiences and expectations, of living and learning in the fullness of a culture and community she's never encountered before. Where she has exchanged the known for the unknown, where she is suddenly different on many measures, the one who wishes to be accepted, appreciated and valued for the gifts she brings to this new place.
And our soon to be alums, the green Class of 2001, regaled in their Commencement attire, looking with anxious and eager eyes out of Wellesley's windows into the world they will soon inherit. They are about to be new once again. The next time they don their robes, it will be the last. They will be joining the hundreds of thousands of graduating seniors all over the World, and in a matter of moments in time, will be making that leap from this Sheltered, safe, supportive and caring community of the past four years or so to join the ranks of the many distinguished Wellesley alumnae. And their part of of Wellesley's history will have been written.

These new alumnae will now start again and they will be new. They will have their ideas and decisions tested and tried, their judgment questioned, their personhood scrutinized and evaluated against a standard they may not yet know or even understand

They will once again have to learn a new culture, to adjust to a new set of experiences and expectations, to seek acceptance in a new community.

As we celebrate the road behinds us and contemplate the road ahead in this 125th year, what will we write on the pages of this new chapter in Wellesley's history. What will be our legacy? What are we prepared to do to ensure that each person has full and meaningful membership in this community.

As your Dean of Students, I sincerely invite you into creativity, in positive exploration, into growth, living, learning, and into celebrating our differences in a constructive partnership that will build a glorious future for all of us.