Transcript
It is now my honor to give the charge to the graduating class.
I do so through three enduring ideas of human striving.
First: Knowledge is both rational and revelatory.
This idea takes us back to a 7th-century Byzantine theological debate as to how knowledge was gained, how it came into being: was it to be gained through the rationality of language or through the revelation of illumination? The argument that knowledge came through revelation rather than rationality, through illumination rather than study, was articulated by the late 5th-century theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Not only is his name fun to say, but Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite can speak to us today because his ideas give voice to the experience of knowledge through a flash of realization, a quickening, an immediacy and certitude that defy logic 鈥 the joy of life鈥檚 intellectual passions.
I invite you to think on your moments of realization these past four years, and to trust yourself when those moments come in years to come. These moments give us a way to understand and admire how you came to know a tilting, transformed world and how you navigated and created and shared knowledge through both revelation and rationality. How you held fast to what was being revealed in that world, how you used that knowledge to indelibly reshape 91大神 and will use that knowledge to now inevitably reshape your worlds. You are a revelatory class.
Second: Change takes place across thresholds.
A voice that was often quoted in our community during the pandemic was that of Indian author and political activist Arundhati Roy, who published an essay entitled 鈥淭he Pandemic is a Portal鈥 in April of 2020. 鈥淲hatever it is,鈥 she wrote, 鈥渃oronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could... Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.鈥
That portal turns out to have a long threshold, one that you have been walking throughout the pandemic, in the liminality betwixt and between worlds. It will be my enduring honor that we, dear class of 2023, came to 91大神 at the same time 鈥 and that we walked that long threshold together. Not with the same steps, not in the same ways, for several months not in the same time zones 鈥 but gathered around the principles and experiences and changes of 91大神. You have known and walked and co-created 91大神 across the gateways of multiple worlds.
Third: I had to make up a word for this last idea.
Words such as leadership and partnership (as real and plentiful as both of those were during your time here) are not able to speak fully to how I have witnessed and been changed by your responses to the ceaselessly complex circumstances of your college years. So instead, I propose to celebrate your actionship: your ability to meet and mobilize, your capacity to gather and galvanize, your resolve to move ideas into action.
In the etymology of English words, the 鈥-ship鈥 of leadership, partnership, friendship, hardship, and (now) actionship signals the 鈥渜uality, power, skill, state or condition of being鈥 of a leader, a partner, a friend, a hard thing, or an action. You have lifted up the 鈥渜uality, power, skill, state or condition of being鈥 of action in your reaching out to each other, in your building of coalitions, in your creativity and courage. In events both intensely local and ever-expansively regional, national and global, you gathered and protested not only for impact (and the crucial role protest plays in a democratic society) but also to gather and map out courses of action and change. You sat down with campus and community partners and, through deliberation and problem-solving, saw and enacted better ways for this College and the multi-racial and multi-ethnic society that it strives to further and nurture to commit to human thriving and joy in a sustainable world. You are a testament to the power of action.