Sumaira Chowdhury ’98

To whomever it was who thought to invite Barbara Bush as the 1990 Commencement speaker: THANK YOU. You changed the course of my life – as did she, with the grace with which she handled the controversy, and of course the graduating seniors, with their initial protests but eventual embrace of her tour-de-force speech.

I was a 14 year old girl at the time, living halfway across the world in Dhaka, Bangladesh, but reading the coverage in TIME magazine moved me so much that it inspired me to apply to Wellesley years later. That a group of young people – young women – could stand up publicly for themselves, stand up for their right to be thought of something other than spouses, deeply resonated with me, as did the First Lady’s message of the importance of “human connections” whatever path one chose. Thank you also to Wellesley for enabling me to choose mine.