Orientation Dinner
Class of 2003

Wellesley College
August 29, 1999

Diana Chapman Walsh
President
Wellesley College

A warm welcome to everyone. Wonderful to see you here. Many people planning for this moment for a very long time.

Special thanks to everyone -- faculty, staff, students -- whose ingenuity, commitment, and hard work has come together in planning the opening of the College.

Students (~ 400): Orientation Committee, Res. Staff, Ask-Me's (in purple), Staff: Student Life division, all the front line administrative offices, Food Service, many others.

It's a special joy for me to welcome everyone who is new to Wellesley -- transfer students, Davis Scholars and postbac students, and the yellow Class of 2003. We are going to think of you as the Y2K class -- the class that arrived on campus and helped us survive the millennium bug. I'll try to resist saying anything more about the millennium tonight; we are all going to be very tired of hearing about it I know, you probably already are.

I know we are going to have an exciting four years together. Your class will help us celebrate our 125th anniversary next year, and this year, in anticipation of it, we will be coming together from time to time to reflect on Wellesley -- where we are as an institution, where we have been, and where we are headed.

Since 1870, Wellesley College has been redefining what constitutes effective leadership by making it truer to women: to the gifts they have for the world and the hopes they have for the future.

We're now watching the first generation -- a transitional generation -- of women whose leadership may actually mean something more radical than just a reflection of the dominant culture, or a reaction against it. With that comes a responsibility for us to redefine -- in kinship with each other -- what it means to be the leading educational institution for women, and what it means that our highest purpose is to educate women who will make a difference in the world.

So ... these are exciting times for Wellesley College; we are as strong and vibrant as we have ever been. But I don't have to tell you that; you're here because you made that discovery on your own. We are delighted to have you joining the phalanx of intrepid and effective Wellesley women.

It's a great pleasure, today, also, to welcome the families of this powerful class of 2003 to the Wellesley family -- to share your excitement and pride in your accomplished and promising daughters.

With that well-deserved pride, I do sense your feelings of impending loss, as you prepare to say good-bye and watch these women set off on this new adventure they've been anticipating for so long.

I want to say a brief word, first, to the families -- and especially the parents -- here this evening, before I extend my words of welcome (and, yes, I won't be able to resist dispensing just a little advice) to the extraordinary women of Wellesley's Class of 2003.

To the families -- to the parents -- of these women of Wellesley '03, let me just say that I do know from fairly recent experience that many of you will be leaving here not only with your cars still full of all the paraphernalia that couldn't be jammed into those dormitory rooms, but also with a large lump in your throats as you say your good-byes.

As the mother of an only child -- a daughter -- who graduated from medical school just this past June, I still recall this transitional moment vividly ... viscerally. In fact, I still remember as though it were yesterday the feel of her hand in mine, the crunch of the leaves under our feet, and the crisp autumn air in our lungs, as we walked to kindergarten for her first day of school more than 20 years ago. Do you remember that moment too?

Our own David Pillemer, a professor of psychology at Wellesley, has written a wonderful book about these kinds of vivid memories -- they stay with us with a saliency that brings back a flood of feelings. There will be aspects of this day -- today -- that for many of you will occupy such a place in your minds and hearts, an indelible place as a major life transition for your family.

We all have our coping strategies when we need to sort things out, and one of mine has always been to write. I wrote a couple of poems that day my daughter left for college. It's become something of a tradition for me to read one of them on this occasion and I'll do that this evening -- at the end of my remarks.

I am happy to be able to report -- from personal experience -- the good news that your daughters will be back to you (and not only for the remaining stuff you'll be schlepping home today). They'll come back fresh with a new appreciation and respect for all you've been and done for them -- once they've had a chance to find and claim their own passions.

One of the great joys in my husband's and my life right now is the deep and rich relationship we have with our grown daughter. We'll catch her for a rushed meal at some bizarre hour as she rotates off a shift at the MGH where she's an intern in internal medicine. She's usually exhausted, and, as she says "toxic"after an all-nighter dealing with drunks and trauma in the ER, but those moments with her are precious, and we do savor them.

At the same time, we try very hard to strike the right balance with her between intimacy and invasion of her space, between silence and words. We try to be there for her when she needs us, but not to impose our needs on her, at least not too much. That's the delicate balance of parenting -- acting as though we really accept the famous dictum from The Prophet, that our children are not our children but life's yearning for itself.

The new relationships you'll develop with your daughters will evolve in surprising and delightful ways, so hold on to that reassuring thought as you take your leave this evening. We're deeply grateful to you for sharing these accomplished women with us; we do know how lucky we are to have them for a time, and we'll work hard to be worthy of your trust. We thank you for it.

And now, to you incoming students -- the Class of 2003 -- first it's a real pleasure to add my words of welcome to those you've been hearing all day. As Wellesley women, you already sense, I think, that much will be expected of you, during the time you're here on campus, and, indeed, throughout your lives. I know you've had high expectations of yourselves; they are what brought you here.

I want to reflect a bit on those expectations tonight. One of the great privileges I enjoy, as President of the College, is the opportunity to meet and interact with alumnae across the country, around the world, and down through the generations.

In my six years in this role, I've visited with thousands of Wellesley alumnae at hundreds of events ... local, regional, national, and international.

I've heard stories about and from scores of stalwart Wellesley women, women who are literally transforming the world from the inside out -- in families, in communities, in corporations, hospitals, court rooms, classrooms, governmental agencies, research laboratories, nonprofit organizations, in every sector of human endeavor.

The women of Wellesley are made of sturdy stuff. They're smart and committed and passionate, and they're careful about their impact on the environments they inhabit. These are women who demand more of themselves than they do of those around them. These are women who become the kinds of leaders who absorb pain and who don't inflict it. These are women who craft creative ways to serve and not be served. This is the sisterhood of women you are joining today.

Your task while you are here will be to discover what matters most to you, what for you is most fully alive, the places where you can be most passionate, most powerful, engaged, and effective -- the places where "your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet," Frederick Buechner's elegant definition of vocation.

And then your task will be to find the courage to develop the capacities, knowledge, and wisdom that will enable you to shape your life from that wellspring of identity, integrity, and commitment. That sounds straightforward enough, but it is a life-long task. And you will succeed at it.

You'll succeed if you apply yourselves, if you take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities that lie before you here, if you make intellectual pursuits -- feeding your mind, your heart, your soul -- your number one priority during your four years with us.

This is the only time in your lives when you'll have in quite such a concentrated form the luxury of investing so directly in your own growth, surrounded by so many people so committed to supporting and rejoicing in your developmental strides. I know you'll take every advantage of this unique and precious time.

You'll succeed if you are true to yourselves, if you take risks (but not dangerous ones), if you stretch your wings and surprise yourselves, if you experiment with entirely new ideas and new tests of your mettle, with different versions of yourself, different ways of expressing your vision, your promise, your voice.

A feminist poet, Marge Piercy, wrote a lovely poem about finding a voice -- how growing up in a male world and internalizing subtle and relentless criticism can produce a self-censor that silences a woman's voice. The title is evocative -- "Unlearning to Not Speak."

Some of you will have to struggle with that, will succeed here by discovering your voices, asserting yourselves, doing the hard and important work of unlearning to not speak. Others will succeed by stilling your own voices for a time, learning to modulate them so that you can unlearn to not listen ... to listen with every ounce of honesty you can muster, to listen for ways in which you are similar to and different from that other person down the hall or across the classroom, before you go crashing through a boundary that separates the two of you. That's the essential work of creating community.

You'll succeed here if you let yourselves grow toward the sun (as you certainly will), and I hope you'll make the time to observe that growth, mark where it is you are -- intellectually, socially, spiritually -- assess and consolidate the personal growth you will surely experience.

Keep a journal, meditate, take long walks, dangle your feet in the lake, write poems or letters to yourself (or to someone else and keep a copy), save quotations or writings or other works of art that speak to you, share your joys and struggles with friends -- use any and all touchstones that work for you -- from your own culture or (even better) from a new one you'll encounter here.

Cultivate curiosity and interest in many things. Learn to amuse yourself -- to find your muse. Try to notice something every day that delights you and takes you by surprise -- and try to surprise others -- notice what inspires you. Find out what it is you love, and do more of that.

You'll succeed if you ask yourself what you need from this College to develop into the finest, deepest person you can be. Ask yourself that question from time to time and then make sure you get what you need, whatever it is.

And let me know if you're not finding it. I don't promise that I'll be able to fix everything right away, but I do promise to listen. Because the best way -- the only way -- Wellesley can make a difference in the world (our most fundamental purpose) is to facilitate the healthy and creative growth of every member of this community.

It won't be easy. I hope you know that. There will be times of real struggle and distress, times when you will feel lost and overwhelmed. That is an inevitable part of the journey you are here to take.

One of the books I read this summer, Cultivating Humanity by Martha Nussbaum, a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, who spent some time at Wellesley, describes the essential task of a liberal education as ìbecoming a citizen of the world."

"This is a lonely business," she warns ...

"It is, in effect, a kind of exile -- from the comfort of assured truths, from the warm nestling feeling of being surrounded by people who share one's convictions and passions. In the writings of Marcus Aurelius (as in those of his American followers Emerson and Thoreau) one sometimes feels a boundless loneliness, as if the removal of the props of habit and convention, the decision to trust no authority but moral reasoning, had left life bereft of a certain sort of warmth and security."

Do expect to be lonely and lost some of the time and don't blame yourself when it happens. Don't panic, and don't worry that something is wrong with you. Hang on and remember that you are doing something very important and very hard--learning to think critically, to examine yourselves, and to respect the humanity and diversity of others ... figuring out who you will be in the world. You are engaged in a learning project in which the very meaning and purpose of your lives is at stake. Of course this will be unsettling, sometimes profoundly so, but it is the work you have come here to do -- work you owe yourselves and our collective future.

There's one other obligation we all share -- one other measure of our individual and collective success. We must all ask ourselves not only what we as individuals need from Wellesley College, but also what each of us can bring to Wellesley to make this the best learning community it can possibly be -- for everyone.

I ask you, please, to ask yourself this question from time to time: What personal, intellectual, cultural, creative contributions am I bringing this community? Is there more I can do to make this a vibrant, inclusive, challenging place in which we all can learn from each other?

If you do these things, if you ask these questions, if you are mindful in these ways, if you act, always, as though what you do makes a difference (because it does), then you will surely succeed ... at Wellesley and throughout your lives.

So -- there is serious and important work we will be doing together -- learning, questioning assumptions, shaking loose of prejudice, supporting one another in community-building and truth-seeking. I know you'll do this work well. I know we can count on you.

I know, too, from all those visits with alumnae across the country and around the world, that among the greatest treasures you will take from this College -- and cherish for the rest of your lives -- will be the deep and enduring friendships you will nurture here. And some of the most lasting ones have already begun this day.

Please savor your friendships, guard your spirits, and save some time for fun and play. For, as important as our serious work is, it is equally important that we not get so bound up in it that we miss the joy along the way. "If you miss the joy of it," Robert Louis Stevenson said, "you miss it all." Rabbi Hillel said it this way: "I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing." A few years ago, our students had a T-shirt made up for Lake Day. On the front it had a big Wonderwoman W and on the back it says "even superwoman took a day off."

Let's make a pact together then -- on this August day as we contemplate the next four years in each others' company. Let's agree to work hard, to be disciplined and respectful, to take seriously our commitments to ourselves, to one another, to this special community, to the powerful legacy of this College which is yours, now, to inherit, reshape, and carry forward.

And let's promise, too, to save some time for laughter, levity, and love. When you catch me walking around the campus with a distracted or worried look on my face, remind me to lighten up -- to keep dancing -- and I'll do the same for you.

Welcome to Wellesley and the very best of luck to each and every one of you. We are so very glad to have you here.

==========

Now the poem ... from the day my daughter went off to Stanford as a first-year student. As hard as my husband and I tried all that summer to change her mind, she was resolute that she wanted to fly alone to California. She said it was going to be hard enough and this would make it easier for her. So we said good-bye at Logan airport. This poem describes the moments just after we put her on the plane.

Shall we watch the plane take off?

You ask as I try not to cry.

I shake my head no,

And we walk to the car

Unburdened except for the pain.

It's not as though there wasn't time

To see this coming, you say

Cautiously, half question-half joke, as if to help.

But I am blinded by a loss

Beyond envisioning.

We come to the car, just two of us now

No child to sit in the back ...

Empty electric chair at the end of death row.

Let's go back, I blurt. Gently, you say

No. It's time to go on.

So ... it is time to go on now. Safe journey and God speed to you all.

Your daughters are going to thrive here and make you even prouder of them, if that is possible, than you are right now.

Thanks again for the confidence you have placed in us.

Betsy Lawson elawson@wellesley.edu
Office for Public Information
Date Created: September 3, 1999
Last Modified: September 13, 1999