Orientation Dinner
Class of 2007: President's Welcome
Wellesley College
August 25, 2003

Diana Chapman Walsh
President
Wellesley College

You have been hearing words of welcome throughout this bewildering and exhausting day and I hope you’re not growing too weary of them, for it is my privilege -- and my pleasure now -- to add my voice to the chorus. I am delighted to extend a warm welcome to the 591 talented and interesting women who henceforth constitute the Wellesley College class of 2007 (an identity that I hope and trust you will wear with pride for the rest of your lives). It’s a pleasure, too, to greet all who have accompanied you today on this pilgrimage: parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, companions of all ages and functions.

This ritual embarking for college is one of the great rites of passage still remaining in our modern secular culture. Traditional societies had practices that structured life’s big transitions, infused them with drama and meaning and took the edge off the pain, confusion, and sense of dread that I suspect is welling up in many of you as you anticipate taking your leave and setting off on your new paths -- separate paths that will take you places you can’t yet see or imagine.

You are about to embark on a major life transition that will pose challenges of different kinds for everyone assembled in this chapel; your experience will be unique and you will make your own sense of it. And yet you are all in the throes of a similar process, one in which, more and less consciously, each of your families has been engaged for many months. And the culminating moment is close at hand.

I’m certain that this impending moment of separation has lurked just under the surface this summer as you’ve found yourselves, paradoxically, at times drawing closer together, at times pulling farther apart, as if to rehearse the leave taking that everyone here knows intuitively is going to break your hearts. In the flash of a poignant summer that has vanished all too soon, you have experienced dozens of subtle endings and as many small beginnings, for such are the cycles of transition, something dies so that something new can take root and grow.

Meanwhile, here at Wellesley, we’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival, preparing busily for it, and now that you are here, we can begin another year in the life of a proud and successful college that is yours now to pilot and tend with us, adding your distinctive talents, your ambitions and dreams. Every year since its founding in 1875, the college has begun anew as another incoming class has arrived to begin a new life here. This is why our founders, Henry and Pauline Durant, chose for the seal of their new college (on the pages of an open book) these three words quoted from Dante: Incipit Vita Nova, here begins a new life.

I am going to reflect with you for just a few moments on this image of a new life, as it applies to the incoming first year class, and to their families as well. First, though, I want to recognize all those who have been planning for many weeks to make this arrival as smooth as possible:

• the hundreds of student volunteers and student leaders who have worked diligently on all aspects of orientation;

• the scores of professional administrators and support staff (from every department and division) who have prepared the campus and the programs and mentored the student volunteers;

• the many members of the faculty who have been refreshing and renewing their academic offerings and anticipating a new class.

The Student Life Division, in particular, has been working to ease your transition in every way they know how, and the head of that division, your Dean of Students, Kim Goff-Crews, is almost as new here as you are. She started August 1, so you can think of her as an honorary member of your class. And you can be sure that you will always occupy a special place in her heart.

Now, to this question of endings, and of new beginnings. I want to speak, first, to the families -- and especially the parents -- of the phenomenal women of Wellesley's Class of 2007. I do know that many of you will be leaving here not only with your cars still full of all the paraphernalia that no amount of muscle would wedge into your daughter’s room, but also with a large lump in your throats as you turn your backs and make your way back home without her.

I have a daughter – our only child – a young physician living with her husband near San Francisco. She will turn 30 next month so it has been some time since my husband and I negotiated this wrenching passage confronting you today. And yet I recall it as vividly as if it were yesterday. My heart goes out to you all. I remember feeling disoriented and lost, and so very sad, far longer than I expected, being stunned at how quiet the house had suddenly become (amazed to find myself wishing that the phone would ring), and wondering where my husband and I would find the energy and light – and the sense of shared purpose – with which our daughter had infused our marriage from the time of her birth.

I’m here to bear witness today to the miracle that the new relationships you'll develop over time with your daughters (and with each other) will evolve and deepen in surprising and touching ways in the years ahead. I offer you that reassuring thought as you grope for the words to express your feelings of loss and gratitude on this emotional day. This is a time to be gentle with yourselves and one another, a time to protect a space for new possibilities to germinate. We're deeply grateful to you for sharing these accomplished young women with us; we do know how blessed we are to have them for a time, and we will work very hard to be worthy of your trust. We thank you for it.

And now, to the Class of 2007, you sense already, I suspect, that as Wellesley women much will be expected of you, not only while you're here on campus, but, importantly, throughout your lives. I know you have high expectations of yourselves; they have brought you here to take your place, and inscribe your story, in the unfolding narrative of an extraordinary institution. Your college -- Wellesley College -- has for 128 years been redefining what constitutes effective leadership by making it truer to women: to the gifts we have for the world and to the hopes we have for the future.

You are part of a new generation – the first generation truly -- of women whose leadership may actually mean something more radical and more promising than just a reflection of the dominant culture, or a reaction against it. If you’ve visited Clapp Library, and seen the portraits of my 11 predecessors, you’ve observed one of Wellesley’s signal features, its unbroken succession of woman presidents. The portrait gallery heralds the college’s historic belief in the potential, indeed the necessity, of women’s leadership, going back to a period in the United States, not so long ago, when such a belief was eccentric, risky, really unthinkable. It remains so, still, in many parts of the world.

When I was approached in 1993 to consider leaving an endowed professorship at Harvard to become my alma mater’s twelfth president, the revolution in women’s life options had progressed sufficiently far that the case I had to make – first to myself and then to others – was that an all-women’s education remained a compelling cause. This is the case you’ve had to make to yourselves and to your friends. “Why would you go to a girls’ school?” they have asked with an edge, and you’ve had to explain that it’s a women’s college. We’re not a girl’s school without men, one of our favorite T-shirts proclaims, we’re a women’s college without boys. Now that you’re here you’ll discover that traveling in the company of the amazing women you’ll meet today and over the next four years is going to be quite a trip. Yet there will be low points, too, especially at first, times when you’ll worry that you may have made a mistake.

Trust me, you haven’t. For in my 10 years as president, I’ve had a front-row seat watching our students develop and model their own special philosophies about how to lead peacefully and well, about how to craft lives of meaning and of beauty, about how to explore their differences with curiosity and courage. I’ve watched them develop the qualities of mind and of character that will enable them not only to enjoy their lives and make a difference in the world, but also to play their part in making a different world – a safer, saner, fairer and more hospitable place for us all.

Wellesley women are literally transforming the world from the inside out -- in families, in communities, in corporations, hospitals, court rooms, classrooms, government agencies, research laboratories, nonprofit organizations, in every sector of human endeavor. And we have an uncanny ability to find and support one another.

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. We are women who demand more of ourselves than they do of those around us. We are women who become the kinds of leaders who absorb pain and who don't inflict it. We are women who craft creative ways to be of service, another motto the founders selected for the college, engraved here on the nave: Non ministrari, sed ministrare, not to be served, but to serve. So 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 lyrical 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 wide-ranging 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 (and only you can work out what that means for you), if you take risks (but not dangerous ones), if you stretch your wings and challenge 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 poem about finding a voice -- how growing up in a male world and internalizing subtle but searing criticism can produce a self-censor that silences a woman's voice. "Unlearning to Not Speak," her poem is called, and some of you will be taking up that task, will succeed here by discovering your voices, asserting yourselves, doing the hard and important work of learning to speak your truth.

Others will succeed by stilling your voices for a time, learning to modulate them so that you can unlearn to not listen – or learn to listen with every ounce of honesty and empathy 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 and consolidate that growth, mark where it is you are -- intellectually, socially, spiritually:

Keep a journal, meditate, take long walks, dangle your feet in the lake, write poems or letters or email messages 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 traditions or from new ones you will discover 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. Make sure the dreams you dream are big enough to be worthy of you.

You'll succeed if you ask yourself what you need from this college to develop into the finest, truest, 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 us know if you're not finding it. I don't promise that we’ll be able to fix everything, 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, our raison d’être) is to facilitate the healthy and creative growth of every member of this community.

It’s not going to be easy. I hope you’re ready for that. There will be times of struggle and distress, times when you will feel anxious, confused, overwhelmed. That is an essential part of the journey you begin today. As you cast yourselves adrift of much of what you think you know, you will at times feel as though you are drifting, alone, at sea, and lost.

Don’t blame yourself when this 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 for yourself, to think critically, learning to examine yourself and your deep beliefs as you bring your inner reality into alignment with a world “out there.” Learning to honor the humanity and diversity of others and to find your own home 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 – and it is work you owe yourselves, and our culture’s collective future.

And that brings me to one last obligation we all share -- one other measure of our individual and collective success. We must all ask ourselves regularly 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 faithfully and well. I know we can count on you.

I know, too, from stories I hear from 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 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."

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 global learning community, to the powerful legacy of this College which is yours, now, to inherit, reshape, and extend into the future.

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

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