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Convocation Remarks
August 30, 2004
Judith Shapiro
Good evening Class of 2008. Welcome to Barnard and to Convocation - your first official gathering as a class and my first chance to tell you - in the midst of unpacking, getting to know roommates, hanging posters, finding your way around, and convincing your parents that you'll survive in their absence - how delighted we are that you are here. I look forward to meeting you, and learning about you and from you, over the next four years.
Tonight, we are bringing you together for the first time as a group, the Barnard Class of 2008. I hope you like the sound of it because this title will remain a part of your life history for as long as you choose to claim it. Ten, twenty, forty, seventy years from now you will all still be members of the Barnard Class of 2008. There are currently 30,000 living Barnard alumnae and we enthusiastically claim each and every one of them. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Look around at your classmates. Tonight is the official beginning of a new chapter in your lives, one that you will share, and we mark it with this rite of passage. The next four years will be both an individual and a collective experience - you create your own path but you do it in the company of like-minded peers - one of the unique benefits of college life.
In all probability, there were many different reasons, a slew of variables and situations, that coalesced to bring each of you to Barnard. But I know that all of you, the Barnard Class of 2008, made a highly informed decision based on careful thought and deliberation. And the fact is, you could not be in a better place.
Why do I know this? Let me count the ways...
One: Barnard is located in New York City - a fact unlikely to have escaped your attention. New York is a city of neighborhoods, of many small communities within the wider metropolis - the Village, the lower east side, the upper east side, the upper west side, Soho (south of Houston), Nolita (north of little Italy), TRIBECA (the triangle below Canal), and many others. And that's just Manhattan. Don't forget Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, and (my own borough of origin) Queens.
As for Barnard, we are located in Morningside Heights, often referred to as the "Academic Acropolis," in honor of all the major institutions of learning here. I can promise you that between your immediate surroundings and the greater New York area (all accessible via subway) you will never lack for adventure, culture, cuisine, and good times.
New York City has had a major role in countless poems, plays, works of art, and stories - There is Hart Crane's famous poem "To Brooklyn Bridge", and the Beat Generation's Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac at the heart of New York's counterculture in the '50s and '60s. There is Langston Hughes, nicknamed "poet laureate of Harlem", and New York City born Edith Wharton, whose novels explored the Gilded Age and Fifth Avenue. And of course, there is Audrey Hepburn's famous role as Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Woody Allen's many films (including "Manhattan" and "Annie Hall") and, of course, HBO's "Sex in the City" (Cynthia Nixon is a Barnard alumna, by the way).
If you're from New York you already have a sense of ownership, but for the rest of you, don't worry. The novelist Tom Wolfe promises, "One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years." So please, consider the city your home.
Advantage number two: You are dual citizens - with full membership not only in Barnard, but in the larger Columbia University community as well. This means far more than the use of the Columbia libraries. Barnard and Columbia students share classes and a range of social activities on both sides of the street; our athletes compete beside Columbia's on Ivy League Division I teams; and, of course, we have both Barnard and Columbia students to thank for preparing the excellent materials for your orientation.
The third benefit of being at Barnard: You are at a college with a firm and ongoing commitment to you - to women. This is something you will see every day, in every class, and in the overall life of the college. Barnard's dedication to the success of women is something that you will encounter in all fields of inquiry, from economics to classical studies to the history of science.
The outstanding Barnard faculty will be at the center of your experience. You will quickly learn that the partnership between faculty and students goes beyond specific classes to include research projects that will foster your own interests and enrich your experiences here. The possibilities are limitless. As a chemistry major you might work in your advisor's lab. As a dancer, perhaps you will choreograph under the guidance of a member of the dance faculty or have an opportunity to perform professionally. A history major might help her professor research a book.
And then there is the quality of the connections you will make at Barnard - with your classmates, with your advisers who are here to guide you through it all, with extraordinary alumnae who are everywhere doing everything and whom you will meet at many events on campus and off.
All of the above makes Barnard an exceptional learning community. That is really why you are here. You are women with high expectations of yourselves and of your futures. And you are now part of a college with 115 years of experience in educating women - women who are our leaders, our teachers, our scientists, writers, investment bankers, actors, politicians... Who knows? We may be nominating one of you some day.
As you go forward, don't limit your intellectual aspirations. Be expansive in your thinking and your choices. Pay attention to the details but don't lose sight of the big picture. Take care of your minds, your bodies, your dorm rooms... oh yes ... and each other.
Which leads me to a final point about the nature of Barnard as a community, and the fact that you are coming here not only to progress as individuals, but to thrive in one another's company. So, what does it take to create and maintain community?
I will make a brief geographical detour to southern Africa, where I was fortunate enough to spend part of the summer. In the course of reading a history of South Africa by Leonard Thompson, I came across this passage quoted from a Dutch survivor of a shipwreck who described the local Bantu-speaking population as follows:
"'In their intercourse with each other they are very civil, polite, and talkative, saluting each other, whether old or young, male or female, whenever they meet, asking whence they come, and whither they are going, what is their news, and whether they have learned any new dances or songs.'"
Now, we all know that tribal peoples were long considered to be less "civilized" than Europeans. But we see here how very civilized they were compared to the social situation these days in our cities and on our college campuses. Do we see people greeting one another as they pass? Well, actually, we are far more likely to see people racing along speaking into their respective cell phones, oblivious to those who are actually in their presence and sometimes even bumping into them. The ratio of cell phone contact to actual interpersonal contact is at an all-time high.
So, when you are out and about, keep those cell phones for emergencies, or for apologizing if you are late for an appointment and risk keeping someone waiting, or if you have lost a friend in a crowd. Otherwise, look around you and be a part of the scene.
And a lively scene it will be. Let me wish you this for the next four years: learning, growth, friendship, romance, wisdom, and success - and more wonderful experiences than all the lights in Times Square. |
