The Class of 2006
Author Francine du Plessix Gray Urges "Passionate Commitment" to Ideals in Address to Graduates
Defines A "Feminized" Notion of Courage: Heartfelt Commitment, Stoic Fortitude, Compassionate Patience
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Francine du Plessix Gray, winner of the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Them: A Memoir of Parents, urged the 550 graduating women of the Class of 2006 at Barnard College, her alma mater, to embrace a "feminized" definition of courage -- represented by heartfelt commitment, stoic fortitude, and compassionate patience.
Barnard's Medal of Distinction honorees, from left: Audra McDonald, Linda Greenhouse and Francine du Plessix Gray |
Du Plessix Gray, The New Yorker contributor and author of novels, biographies and essays, received the Barnard Medal of Distinction, the highest award of the liberal arts college for women, at the ceremony in upper Manhattan (the traditional outdoor graduation on Barnard's leafy NYC campus was moved indoors due to soggy weather). Joining her as the College's newest Barnard Medalists were the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent Linda Greenhouse, and four-time Tony-winning actor Audra McDonald.
In an address titled "The Courage of Commitment," du Plessix Gray (Barnard Class of 1952) contrasted two forms of courage and valor: one, associated with men, military might, aggression and the battlefield, and the other, involving endurance, commitment, and stoicism, values that she said have long been associated with women. [ To see video of the address, click here. (16:16) To read the full text of her speech, please click here.]
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Pointing to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and his close friend, the Rev. William Sloan Coffin, who recently died, du Plessix Gray said their non-violent protests against segregation and the Vietnam War during the 1960s "forced us to re-evaluate the two opposite forms of courage." Further, she said, "many of us have come to believe that the stoicism needed to survive internment in a Soviet gulag or a Nazi concentration camp may well be an even more exemplary form of courage than the traditional martial valor of excelling as swordsmen, riflemen or bomber pilots."
"So we're experiencing a curious convergence of the public and the female view of courage: we are witnessing a displacement of traditional male notions of bravery by those more subtle forms of courage -- those of endurance and commitment-- that had traditionally been associated with the female gender."
Du Plessix Gray said these female virtues "are finally being recognized as equal or superior to the Homeric martial model of bravery in armed battle."
She warned the graduates, though, that "passionate commitment is a hard value to come by these days, and it may incur great solitude."
"For we're living in a cesspool of information revolutions, which constantly beckon us, like an ocean filled with sirens, to alter our beliefs for the sake of careerism and popularity-- a cesspool of hedonism and escapism increasingly polluted by the entertainment industry," she said.
Pointing to the example of Burmese peace activist and Nobel laureate Ang Sen Suu Kyii, she urged the graduates to look to her demonstrated valor, heroism, and commitment for inspiration in their own lives and "give hell to entrenched power when it violates our notions of human justice."
"There are never enough troublemakers fighting for justice so go out there and give them hell to create a better world for you and your children to grow into," she said.
President Judith Shapiro with a graduate |
President Judith R. Shapiro, a cultural anthropologist, shared with the graduates her perspective on the relationship between privacy and community in a world where communications are instantaneous and relentless. [To read the full text of her speech, please click here.]
"Communicating with those who are not actually present with us carries the cost of failing to communicate with those who are," she said.
"It is important to bear in mind how virtual communities can undermine face-to-face communities. Moreover, what may seem to be the wide open spaces of the Internet can, paradoxically, turn into a cyberworld of very narrow spaces indeed, an ever-proliferating universe of virtual gated communities, in which information is filtered through rather parochial shared beliefs - surely, the antithesis of the diverse community we seek to create at Barnard.
Dean Dorothy Denburg |
"Ideally, the relationship between privacy and community is such that each is the precondition for truly achieving the other," said Shapiro, president of Barnard since 1994. The independence, strong sense of self, courage of your convictions, willingness to march to your own rhythm section - these hallmarks of a Barnard woman - mean that you have so much to bring to your equally strong desire to learn from, to care for, to be responsible to, one another. There is a healthy pulsation between solitude and togetherness - like the systole and diastole of our hearts contracting and expanding to pump the life's blood through our systems."
The 550 graduates of Barnard received the B.A. degree in a ceremony moved indoors due to rain. They were joined by an audience of 2,500 family and friends at the gymnasium of Columbia University, Barnard's academic partner, in upper Manhattan. Members of the faculty, deans, and trustees joined the academic procession across Broadway.
Barnard, one of the original Seven Sisters, is the most sought-after independent women's college in the United States and highly regarded among all liberal arts colleges in the country. Barnard established its most competitive admissions season this year, with record-breaking applications (4,599) while admitting just 24 percent of those who applied, the best rate to date.
Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of Writing Mary Gordon with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Anna Quindlen, chair of Barnard's Board of Trustees (Click here to read Quindlen's opening remarks to the graduates.)
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Barnard is known for groundbreaking achievers in many fields, particularly those that have been male-dominated. The College has produced more MacArthur "Genius" fellows (nine) than any other. Notable Barnard graduates include author and journalist Anna Quindlen (chair, Barnard Board of Trustees), entrepreneur Martha Stewart, Chief Judge of the State of New York Judith Kaye, choreographer Twyla Tharp, and Nieca Goldberg, M.D., the pioneer in the physiology of women's heart disease. [Click here to read about Barnard's tradition of great writers.]
Biographical Sketches of Commencement Honorees
Francine du Plessix Gray (Barnard '52) is the author of novels, biographies, essays, and her recent memoir, Them: A Memoir of Parents , which celebrated the glamorous Manhattan lives and careers of her mother, the hat designer known as "Tatiana of Saks," and her stepfather, Alexander Liberman, the artist-photographer who for decades was king of Conde Nast Publications. Her novels include Lovers and Tyrants, World Without End and October Blood. She has written biographies of Louise Colet, the French writer and feminist, the Marquis De Sade, and the French philosopher Simone Weil. Her reporting, essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and other major publications. [Please read the Barnard Medal of Distinction citation here.]
Linda Greenhouse has been the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times since 1978. She was initially hired by the columnist James Reston as his assistant, after graduating in 1968 from Radcliffe College, where she was editor of The Harvard Crimson and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. For her coverage of the Supreme Court, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (beat reporting) in 1998. She wrote a bestselling biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Becoming Justice Blackmun, which was published last year. [Please read the Barnard Medal citation here.]
Audra McDonald won four Tony awards in 11 years: her first, in 1994, as Carrie Pepperidge in the revival of Carousel (the first African-American woman to perform the role); in 1996, as Sharon in Terrence McNally's Master Class; in 1998 as Sarah in Ragtime; and in 2004 for her portrayal of Ruth Younger in the revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.
In addition to her impressive stage career, McDonald, a graduate of The Juilliard School, has acted in film and on television, including Having Our Say--The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, as Bessie in her twenties; The Last Debate, as a journalist; the ABC production of the musical Annie, as Grace; and Wit, the adaptation of Margaret Edson's play, for which McDonald received an Emmy nomination. She has performed concerts worldwide, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Joe's Pub, Atlanta Symphony, Harvard University, and the Lincoln Center. [Please read the Barnard Medal Citation here.]
For more information, please contact Suzanne Trimel in the Barnard Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037, strimel@barnard.edu
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