2005 Commencement Remarks
President Shirley M. Tilghman
May 31, 2005
Before I begin my address, I would like to take a moment to express my
own gratitude -- and that of the entire University community -- to Bob
Rawson, the University orator, as he leaves the Board of Trustees,
whose executive committee he has chaired for the last 14 years and
after 20 years of service. Bob has served three presidents with great
distinction, and he has provided extraordinary leadership as he helped
shape and realize dramatic improvements that have transformed this
University. All of us are greatly in his debt. I ask you to join me in
thanking him.
* * * * * * *
It is a great pleasure for me to perpetuate Princeton's longstanding
tradition of allowing the president to have the first word at Opening
Exercises and the last word at Commencement. To my fellow members of
the great class of 2005, you will always have a very special
significance for me, for we began our freshman year together. It seems
just yesterday that I greeted you for the first time in the Chapel, and
told you that orange and black were about to become the dominant colors
in your closets, the tiger would never be an endangered species in your
minds and the classmates around you would become your lifelong friends.
All those predictions, I know, have come to pass. On that day, the
majesty of East Pyne and Chancellor Green was hidden by construction
fences and language classes were being held in trailers affectionately
known as Dillon Court, the Lewis-Sigler Institute was a hole in the
ground and Dod Hall was getting an internal face lift. Today those
projects are blessedly completed and the buildings are in full use, but
I can assure you that the quintessential Princeton experience of
getting a daily wake-up call from a construction truck moving in
reverse will greet the class of 2009, when it arrives in your place
next fall.
Two days after Opening Exercises our world changed forever when 19
terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City, the
Pentagon in Virginia and flew a plane into a field in Pennsylvania. The
true colors and spirit of the Princeton student body were plainly in
evidence in the days following that tragic event. Rather than being
paralyzed, you organized blood drives, collected blankets and food,
planned events for the children of the families who had lost loved
ones, and as is most fitting in a university, you sought ways to
understand what had happened by engaging in discussions in seminars,
colloquia and classes. I was deeply proud of the way this campus
community responded during those dark months in the fall of 2001.
In a matter of minutes you will pass through the FitzRandolph Gates for
the first time as Princeton alumni. I hope you will leave with pride in
your accomplishments, leavened with a sense of responsibility to use
your hard-earned education to make this world a safer, more just and
more compassionate place for all of its people. For this world needs
you to embrace our informal motto and to serve this nation and all
nations -- whether you work to improve the quality of K-12 education,
develop treatments for intractable diseases like Alzheimer's, reduce
the growing gap between the rich and the poor all over the world,
address the deterioration in the quality of our global environment,
provide inspiration, insight and solace through the creation of art,
increase economic prosperity through invention or through
entrepreneurship, or find peaceful solutions to divisive political
problems. There are many ways to serve, but all require that you define
your life in terms that are larger than yourself.
Today we conferred Princeton's highest tribute -- an honorary degree --
on six individuals who have used their extraordinary talents to leave
the world better than they found it. This is the reason we award
honorary degrees -- to publicly recognize men and women who embody the
very qualities of mind and character that Princeton University seeks to
develop in all its students. I would like to take a few moments to
reflect on those qualities that I hope you will continue to cultivate
once you leave this truly privileged place.
Vera Rubin's curiosity about the natural world was simply unquenchable.
She followed her passion for studying the stars with passion,
determination and courage at a time when women were actively dissuaded
from becoming scientists. She refused to conform to the 1950s
stereotype that presumed women do not belong in astronomy, and went on
to make enduring contributions to our understanding of the universe.
Discovery requires an engaged mind, a curious mind, an open mind and
certainly a persistent mind. Through our emphasis on independent work,
we have sought to provide you with the training and opportunity to
follow your own passions and satisfy your own curiosities. And, of
course, finishing your senior thesis or your Ph.D. dissertation called
upon all the persistence and the determination you could muster. May
each of you continue to nurture your own unquenchable curiosity and the
habit of independent thinking.
Through his sheer virtuosity as a musician, Yo-Yo Ma has brought joy to
millions around the globe. What sets him apart from other musicians,
however, is his cosmopolitanism -- his appreciation that great music
knows no geographical boundaries. Far from being restricted to the
Western canon of classical music, he has introduced music lovers to the
sounds of Brazil, Mongolia and the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa,
to name but a few of the musical traditions he has explored. Today the
globe is truly interconnected -- whether the connections are fiber
optic cable, satellite communications or jet planes -- and to
participate fully in the 21st century, each of you will have to follow
Yo-Yo Ma's example and become genuinely cosmopolitan in your
perspective. As a great American university with an international
perspective, we take our responsibility to prepare you for this world
seriously. We are working to broaden the horizons of all our students
through expanded study abroad and summer language training programs,
the creation of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional
Studies, strategic relationships with universities all over the world,
and postgraduate programs such as Princeton-in-Asia,
Princeton-in-Africa and Princeton-in-Latin America. I hope you will
adopt the perspective of a world citizen, and live your life
accordingly.
Anne d'Harnoncourt has dedicated her life to collecting, conserving and
interpreting the visual arts. To wander the galleries of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art is to travel through centuries and cultures
-- from the ceramics of the Ming dynasty to the stained glass of
medieval Europe to the abstract images of Marcel Duchamp.
D'Harnoncourt's work reminds us that the treasures of the past and the
movements that have shaped them should always inform our thinking as we
look to the future. A sense of humility and a deep respect for the
achievements of those who have gone before us is an essential quality
of an educated citizen, for as the great physicist and mathematician
Isaac Newton said in 1675, "If I have seen further than certain other
men it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." All who teach and
study here stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, for
the mission of the University is not unlike a museum of art -- to
preserve the knowledge of the past and to transmit it to the next
generation, while at the same time fostering the discovery of new
knowledge and the creation of new art that will deepen our
understanding of the human condition. I hope these twin imperatives
will find full expression in your lives.
Over this Memorial Day weekend we have been celebrating a different
kind of continuity -- that of the Princeton alumni family. Beyond the
pageantry -- and this year the excitement -- of the P-rade and the
quaint charm of the class garb, the entire Reunion experience provides
us with an annual opportunity to acknowledge and express our thanks to
those who have paved the way for all of the graduates sitting on the
front lawn today. Like so much else at Princeton, Reunions make a
tangible connection between past and future -- in this case between
alumni born as many as 100 years ago and all of you, who become alumni
in a few minutes. I hope that you will carry on this grand tradition of
loyalty to your alma mater, with an abiding sense of responsibility to
provide for the next generation.
J. Lionel Gossman is a Renaissance man whose devotion to ideas -- as
expressed in the history and the literature of 17th-, 18th- and
19th-century Europe -- is legendary. At the same time Professor Gossman
has educated and inspired generations of students, using his lively
Scottish sense of humor to set students at ease, and never allowing his
scholarly attainments to intimidate or overwhelm young minds. He is the
quintessential Princeton faculty member -- one who is able to combine
imposing erudition with a devotion to passing on that wisdom to the
next generation. Those of you who intend to pursue the life of the mind
and create new knowledge will be following in the footsteps of Lionel
Gossman and all others who hold that knowledge is among the most
important gifts that one can give another human being.
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka is a celebrated writer whose plays, poems
and essays have captivated readers throughout the world. He is also an
outspoken voice against tyranny who has struggled to survive in a
four-by-eight-foot prison cell, sustaining himself by scribbling words
on cigarette packs, toilet paper and between the lines of smuggled
books. His commitment to human freedom and his belief in the
fundamental dignity of every man and woman have never wavered. During
your time at Princeton, many of you have been moved to speak out on
issues of social and political importance, from the moral significance
of a pre-emptive war, to the pros and cons of senatorial filibusters,
to the needs of low-wage workers on our campus. You have encountered
and debated historical injustices -- from racial segregation to the
horrors of the Holocaust. As you prepare to leave Princeton, I trust
that the social and political consciousness you have cultivated here
will give you the conviction and the courage to take a stand against
tyranny and injustice wherever it arises.
On June 12, 1951, Jack Bogle sat where you find yourselves today. In
some respects, his was a different university: Women were nowhere in
evidence, and one of the first African-Americans to earn an
undergraduate degree from Princeton, Joseph Ralph Moss, was a member of
Bogle's class. Yet then, as now, Princeton planted seeds that led its
graduates to commit their lives to the service and well-being of
others. Jack Bogle drew upon the findings of his senior thesis to
change the face of the investment industry through the introduction of
low-cost mutual funds, and to champion the interests of individual
investors. He also drew upon the values that were nourished here. For
example, since 1893 Princeton's honor code has symbolized the
importance we place on integrity -- requiring each member of our
community to assume personal responsibility for his or her academic
work. Words and ideas, after all, are the coin of the academic realm,
and it is essential that we uphold the value of our currency. But as
former Sen. Bill Bradley of the class of 1965 said at an assembly on
Cannon Green in 2003, "You'll need your moral compass long after you've
signed your last honor pledge at Princeton. It takes a lifetime to
build a reputation but only one false step to call it into doubt." I am
also reminded that at that same assembly, Professor John Fleming
exhorted you as follows: "Integrity is an excellent thing. You should
all have it. If perchance you lack it, you should get it as soon as
possible." Good advice, John. I hope that in years to come, the
principles and standards to which you have been held here will guide
all your actions. You are certain to be tested in little and not so
little ways, but as Jack Bogle demonstrates, it is possible to pass
these tests with flying colors and still achieve worldly success.
And so, as you walk, skip or run -- whatever your preference may be --
through the FitzRandolph Gates today, as educated citizens of this and
many other nations, I hope you will carry forward the spirit of
Princeton and all that this place has aspired to teach you -- a
determination to follow your passions in service to the common good, a
respect both for tradition and for progress, an openness to new ideas
and a willingness to share them with others, the courage to stand up
for your beliefs and the rights of others, a global sensibility, a
lifelong devotion to justice and freedom, all informed by the highest
standards of integrity and mutual respect. And I fully expect you will
continue to do as you have done at Princeton -- to aim high and be bold.
My warmest wishes go forward with you all!
