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President's Remarks
Remarks
for the 99th Annual Commencement of Trinity College
May 19, 2002
President Patricia A. McGuire
Sister Mary Ann Cook, Judge Clark, distinguished guests
and families, and members of the Class of 2002: Greetings
on the occasion of the 98th annual commencement of Trinity
College!!
Every year at Commencement, it is customary for the
president of the College to comment on the state of
the academy and the world into which we are sending
our graduates today. I am pleased to report that Trinity
College is well and healthy, an institution whose ongoing
transformation to ensure its relevance in the 21st Century
is a remarkable story throughout higher education. Before
you leave campus today, please take a stroll to the
middle of the campus to see the Trinity Center for Women
and Girls in Sports rising, a great affirmation of Trinity's
renaissance. Dramatic as the new athletic facilities
are for our campus, they are not the only noteworthy
building program this year. We have built new programs
that have great value and importance for our city and
nation.
Major grants from America Online, the Kimsey Foundation,
the U.S. Departments of Labor, Education and Defense
have made it possible for Trinity to develop new programs
to educate teachers and the workforce to use new technologies
productively. Grants from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations
support the Carribean Project and research on Haiti
through our enlarged International Affairs Program,
and soon, a Fulbright Scholar will add to our intellectual
talent. In the fall, Trinity will launch new programs
in computer science and information technology, a Master's
in Business Administration, and a Master of Science
in Information Assurance.
These are but a few of the exciting developments at
Trinity as we continue to build this institution as
a place that truly serves the educational needs of our
society, still proudly focused on our historic mission
to serve women in the College of Arts and Sciences,
and now expanding our reach more broadly than ever before
to coeducational programs for women and men of all ages
in the School of Professional Studies and School of
Education.
But Trinity's progress stands in stark contrast to
the sad state of the world beyond Michigan Avenue. Terror
is the new modality of war on this planet, and all of
us are its victims. We have moved on from September
11 but the tape keeps playing over and over in our heads,
and if we get through a day without thinking about it,
we can sure count on the nightly news to remind us.
A nation that has to invent a color-coded warning system
for possible acts of terrorism is not a nation that
sleeps well at night.
We stand, appalled, before the massive destruction
of evil's dark soul, but we cannot stand in place; we
have to ask ourselves what responsibility is ours, individually
and institutionally, to take action against such corruption
in the human heart?
We must be astute about the conditions that foster
the violence. As students of history we must surely
know the remote and immediate causes of most of the
world's wars and revolutions: tyranny maintained through
denial of basic freedoms and human rights to citizens;
a deliberate strategy of ignorance by denying education
to women and children, in particular; adopting religion
as the most dangerous weapon of all when used by the
tyrant who holds souls hostage in the name of God, Muhammed,
Yahweh.
Of all of the threats to peace, the one most likely
to succeed within American society is the insidious
ooze of intolerance, pitting people against each other,
in the name of security, on the basis of race, religion,
gender, language, culture, social class, national origin.
America's very strength, our huge diversity as a nation,
is also our greatest vulnerability if we are not careful
stewards of the values undergirding this vast free society.
The enemies of freedom always seek to exploit the climate
of tolerance and openness, perceiving weakness in the
very conditions that make us a free people, exploiting
our differences to pit us against each other, employing
just enough violent intimidation to provoke our own
leaders to place restraints on the very freedoms they
are sworn to protect.
New rules about international students and scholars
at universities clearly indicate that even our cherished
academic freedom is not quite so free in the post-9/11
world. We are all treated as suspects in various places.
What is our defense against the tactic of terrorism
that leads a free people to view each other as suspects?
Our defense resides in the very freedom that is in jeopardy,
our freedom to study and learn without government interference,
our freedom to associate without surveillance, our freedom
to travel, to believe as we wish, to speak what we want,
unfettered, unafraid. These freedoms are in serious
danger today; we in the university community have a
particular responsibility to defend the freedom of speech
and thought that is the entire basis of our work.
We must also see strength and freedom in the very diversity
that some will try to exploit for bad ends. That same
diversity that makes us vulnerable also makes us strong.
We have to remember the sad and tragic lessons of American
history, and renew our resolve not to repeat the moral
iniquities of our own past; not to let the impulse to
evil divisiveness prevail against our diversity. There's
a trial going on right now in Birmingham, Alabama, that
should be required watching and reading for every person
in this nation; it's the last trial of Ku Klux Klansmen
responsible for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street
Baptist Church that killed four young black girls, a
horrific act of racial terror. The trial of Bobby Frank
Terry is a painful but necessary reminder of the consequences
we will suffer anew if we retreat from the advances
in racial tolerance and simple justice we have made
as a society since those dark and bitter days four decades
ago.
The true liberation of American society through the
struggles of the 50's and 60's --- the civil rights
movement, the women's rights movement, the antiwar movement,
the social upheaval that occurred with particular enthusiasm
on college campuses --- led to a genuine revolution
in the ways in which we construct our communities, workplaces,
social and educational institutions in the modern society.
True: racism, sexism, segregation, various forms of
discrimination and oppression certainly continue to
exist in spite of clear statements in law and public
policy against them. But when we look around the world
and observe the massive intolerance that is at the source
of so much of the conflict elsewhere, we realize that
our conscious, earnest and continuing efforts to manage
our differences peacefully and legally truly separate
this society from much of the rest of the world.
In constructing this more peaceful and just society,
diversity in educational institutions has played a very
significant role in teaching new generations of students
how to accept and accommodate difference as something
normal and unremarkable. The most powerful catalyst
for this profound change in American life was the 1954
Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
that declared segregated schools inherently unequal
and unconstitutional. Four decades and countless court
opinions later, however, the true integration of American
schools, colleges and universities remains elusive,
a great success in some places, a non-existent goal
in others.
Just last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th
Circuit ruled that the University of Michigan Law School
may consider race as a factor in admissions in order
to achieve the desirable goal of diversity in the student
body. The fact that such cases still must be litigated
manifests the American culture's continuing vulnerability
and confusion on the issue of diversity and justice.
The case also reminds us, among other things, that the
rule of law and role of courts in this nation remains
hugely important in ensuring the achievement of our
social goals. In honoring Jeanette Jackson Clark today,
our own alumna who has earned her place on the Superior
Court of the District of Columbia, we lift up an example
of the strong commitment of Trinity College to the achievement
of justice for all.
Here at Trinity, we did not need court opinions to
force or protect the great diversity of our student
body, but, I dare say, we would not behold the beautiful
scene on this front lawn today without the heritage
of the struggles for freedom, civil rights, women's
rights and religious tolerance in this nation. The "Re-Invention"
of Trinity College has gained some public attention
recently, but in fact, the courage to change drew strength
and inspiration from our founders, those courageous
Sisters of Notre Dame who were the original liberated
women and change agents. We must never forget that Trinity
arose out of the denial of women's basic right to education;
if we think that, somehow, this historic fact has lost
its meaning or urgency, we have not been paying attention.
Far from being over, the revolution has barely begun.
Sure, women have more opportunity now in this nation
--- except in all of those places where they continue
to be excluded, the board rooms and war rooms and Congressional
back rooms and White House situation rooms and clubhouses
and executive suites where women's presence remains
minuscule even after all of these years. But, far, far
worse, around the world women continue to be denied
the most basic opportunities to achieve even minimal
literacy or economic subsistence.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn recently said
that "There is no single more important issue in
the whole field of development than education of women
and girls. You cannot succeed in development unless
you deal with that issue, and you have to do it as a
matter of morality." Trinity's fundamental historic
and still urgent commitment to women's education is
also the wellspring of our commitment to diversity as
a matter of justice in education. We have the Sisters
of Notre Dame to thank for our passionate commitment
to women's education, justice and freedom; in honoring
Sister Mary Ann Cook today, we lift up an example of
the Notre Dame community's centuries-long devotion to
the education of women and girls, service to the poor
and stewardship of the Gospel.
Trinity gives witness each day to the fundamental values
of freedom and tolerance, openness and respect that
are the antidote to the intolerant rant of the terrorist.
We live by the moral light of our Catholic faith tradition
that teaches us that all life is sacred, that social
justice cannot be achieved without, first and foremost,
a profound reverence for human life and human dignity.
Let me say another word here about our commitment as
a Catholic college. This is a painful time for the Catholic
Church, and here at Trinity, we need to extend ourselves
to our friends and colleagues in parishes and schools
like never before to come together for healing and renewal.
As part of the vibrant community of Catholic higher
education in this nation, we can and will extend our
traditions of academic freedom, intellectual rigor and
pastoral ministry to the search for solutions; we can
be pastors as well as professors to a Church in pain.
This can be a moment of grace, an opportunity for a
new aggiornamento for the Church in America, and Catholic
institutions of higher education, including Trinity,
can lead that renewal if we heed the call to action
forthrightly. The Century of the Laity is upon us; let
us heed the call to leadership.
Commencement is the academy's traditional ceremony
of hope. The ancient ritual and rhetoric of this day
is purposefully designed to lift you up as our hope
for the future. The hoods around your necks mark you
as people of higher learning, blessed with the gift
of knowledge, a talented few whose life's work will
bring joy and hope to so many.
May your witness bring reason to the madness of evil;
may your life's work be a source of bountiful good for
this world, hope for future generations and faithful
stewardship of the gifts you have received here at Trinity.
May the work of your lives be a labor of love, sustaining
your families, enlarging your friendships, enriching
your souls, giving honor and glory to God in abundance.
May the strength, wisdom and love of the Trinity go
with you, always.
Congratulations, Class of 2002!
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