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O say can you see
By the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched
Were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there
Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free
And the home of the brave?
Brunonia!
[APPLAUSE]
Even if you never have before, pray with me.
Who, like us, have trod Van Wickle's path
In and out to this hallowed ground at First Baptist?
Brunonians. Pilgrims on this College Hill path
of centuries. Imbued with eternity's vision
Fusion of fierce irreverence and convention
and capacity with scholarship, whose metric
is precision and compassion. Brunonians,
dancers of engagement, defiance, proposal, delight
dazzling intellect and gentle gesture. Brunonians
Today, Brunonians, the deeply grateful,
we who receive so much
dare to raise a common prayer
as we begin these final measures of this work.
We call to mind Daniel David Sharpman,
Jacob's dad, lost to us in life as is true
for some of the rest of your families and parents.
We are mindful of those as we gather here
and we call them to heart and to witness.
As of old, this beloved class of 2013
you arrive anew, bearing ever true your offerings
of gratitude, learning, and memory -- the substance of Brown tradition,
the articulation of this rising generation's motto:
"In God, we hope."
Strangers once, we clasp one anothers' hands dearly.
The haunts of College Hill, once enigmatic, now the daily labyrinth
of study, research, culinary adventure, and deep friendship.
At all hours, in all weather, in myriad pursuits,
we trammelled Brown's paths from Sidney Frank
to the Sci Li, and back again, and again. From
Health Services to the OMAC, with new tape.
We practiced ballroom steps between T.F. Green
and Alumnae Hall, and we joined a shimmering circle
of tinfoil friends on a new path, spouting
Shakespeare's couplets on the Green and beyond,
balancing between the trees of the Green, literally,
assembling and dismantling the daily round
of tables and posters on the Main Green.
Delighting in every spring and Dave Binder on Wriston,
at stirring speakers and performance at Solomon, in Sayles and Granoff.
Pursuing and computing. Writing, and writing, and writing.
Speaking fluent Brunonian and then that
dazzling dialect of transparent letters, like
BRIGHT and BUDS and BRCC, NOIP, CIT, BDH,
UFB, TWC, SWDC, LGBT, BMSCUH,
all marks of our time spent in the land of Brunonia
a sojourn that changed everything about the way we talk
the way we think, and even our dreams.
In this reverie, we find our minds taken
by the faces of two dear classmates, lost to our circles.
This diminishes our joy, and we call to mind and say aloud
the name Avi Schaefer and Sunil Tripathi.
They taught us too soon of the brevity of life,
and the importance to teach peace and to pursue it.
But always, when we name ourselves, we will name them,
our fellow Brunonians, and their place in this circle
and family will be ever true.
Keep clear the strains of the Hutchens voting at midnight,
The coach and the coxswain at dawn, arch sings and competitions,
daily prayer and the silence of contemplative practice
above the Green's distant tones of bagpipes and drums.
Keep bright the reviving blaze of daffodils, the purple haze
of the red buds on Wilson's path, the magnificence
of our magnolias. May all that we have
known here, the inches and miles of
Brunonia's halls; these streets; these fields;
these books; these labs; these faces:
may they go with us, but remain.
May the vivid clarity of our present sight
never dim, even as it softens. Our rejoicing this
glorious Commencement morning comes amid
a season set in our nation to remember lives
lost in the service of the nation's protection
and our liberty. We honor these, each
and all, praying compassion for their families
and we anchor our gratitude to attend carefully,
to secure the many cries for rescue that rise
in our nation and the world, and make of these
our life work. We pledge our nation's abiding
committment to good, and give thanks for all
those, who enact in every profession at great
sacrifice, committment to this value on our behalf.
We pledge anew the learning of our great university
to ameliorate injury caused by conflicts, crisis
and calamity, which exact too dear a price, and
ask of each of us: to whom do we belong?
Infuse our deeds with compassion and imagination,
may we perseverate in generosity. May Earth's
insults melt in the healing of discernment and
the doing of good. May this rising generation of
Brunonians find renown in their capacity to
express gratitude to their families, their faculty,
their teachers, their coaches, their benefactors, and
all who make of this dear place on College Hill all that it is.
In same measure as we cherish coexistence and the care
of the good and wide earth, building our vocations
with planks of justice and loving kindness. May their blessings
and all that we've received be bound together
to make of us a blessing, always, in the life of the world you love.
This day, and always, 2013s and beyond, may peace be your blessing,
and may we ever true say "Amen."
[APPLAUSE]
By the authority vested in me
by the Charter of Brown University and the
Board of Fellows of the Corporation,
I hereby declare the 245th Commencement of
Brown University convened.
[APPLAUSE]
Good morning!
Welcome to this historic place on this
increasingly beautiful day. These will be your
very last academic exercises as Brown students
and the commencement of your distinguished
careers as alumni of the great Brown University Class of 2013.
It's worth asking: why do we conduct this part
of our ceremony here, at this Baptist meeting house,
a building that, formally, is not even part of the Brown campus?
As with all simple questions, there are several answers.
The first is that this meeting house, built in 1775, has deep historic ties to the university.
As you heard yesterday, the purpose of the building was explicitly stated at the time
of its construction and is noted on a plaque inside:
“For the Publick Worship of Almighty God and also for holding Commencement in.”
With a few exceptions, Brown Commencements have taken place here ever since, and in its
early years the building was able to accomodate
the entire student body, faculty, staff,
as well as interested members of the Providence community,
who apparently liked to come.
In 1776, the first year a Brown Commencement took place here,
the entire student body was comprised of 40 students.
Now, only part of our ceremony is held at this meeting house,
and we meet outside because the corridors,
as you probably noticed yesterday, have become
a bit tight. But this continues to be the most
important part of the ceremony, because it
is the point at which your degrees are actually conferred.
The second answer to the question of "Why here?"
is a little bit more complex. This building,
a place of worship, evokes all that Brown
University represents. At first blush, this may
seem like an odd thing for me to assert.
Over the years, Brown has become a decidedly
secular institution that celebrates all ways
of thinking and all faiths. It is anything but
a small Baptist college. However, upon
consideration, I think the answer does make sense.
The Baptists who conceived of the idea of
a great university in Rhode Island were not
narrow-minded or parochial. Instead,
they were informed by the ideals of tolerance
and liberty that had shaped Rhode Island itself.
From the start, this college was open to
other denominations, and from its inception
included leaders from a number of religious
traditions: Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists.
An early act of the Brown Corporation was
to clarify that Jewish students were also welcome here.
[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]
The founders of this college believed in the power
of education to transform lives and nations,
and they welcomed a diverse group to
participate in this education. Furthermore, they
believed quite strongly that the purpose of
education was for the betterment of society
itself, preparing students for lives of usefulness
and reputation through the cultivation of
open and independent thought. How have
we changed as a university since the time
this meeting house was built? I believe that
we have taken the initial ideals of our founders
and built on them, making a university that is
stronger and better equipped to serve the
original mission. Since the time of Brown's founding
the diversity of voices to be found on College Hill
has only multiplied to include students and faculty,
men and women,
[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]
from across America and across the world.
The original idea of a college devoted to open inquiry
was the root of a great university that fosters
creative scholarship and rigorous learning about
the world's most pressing challenges. And
finally, the original aim of preparing students
for lives of service is still strong, and this
is where you come in. Although Brown has
progressed and the world has changed, we
are still beset by enormous problems. These
include international and domestic security issues,
problems of urban poverty and education,
religious tensions in the United States and abroad,
questions about the stability of our economic system,
and very serious concerns about climate change
and environmental sustainability.
I have no doubt that over the course of your lives,
new challenges will emerge. My best hope,
for each and every one of you, is that you
take ownership of these problems, even if
they weren't of your own making; that you recognize
that your education puts you in a position of responsibility
to make positive contributions to the world; and that you approach
these tasks with the same independence,
thoughtfulness, and creativity that I have seen you exhibit
each and every day over my past year at Brown.
Above all, I hope you do so with the same degree
of tolerance and open-mindedness that
characterized the founders of this great university.
I know these ideas aren't new to you.
They're what attracted you to come to Brown.
Since that time, nearly four years ago, when you
marched through the Van Wickle gates, you have
been engaged in an intense period of learning and discovery
aimed to prepare you for lives of usefulness and reputation beyond Brown,
and now that you've marched out of those gates,
it's time to begin. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Sócii honorándi: Júvenes quos ad grádum Baccalaúrei
idóneos compérimus, vóbis praesentámus,
et éos ad hunc grádum promovére líceat rogámus.
My fellow has to respond! Yes!
Candidáti ad grádum Baccalaúrei Auscultábunt.
And this is the important part.
Auctoritáte míhi commíssa, vos ad grádum Baccalaúrei admítto,
omniáque júra ac privilégia ad hunc grádum pertinéntia
vóbis concédo. In húius réi testimónium
diplómata véstris conlégis in Collégii Grámine trádam.
[CHEERING]
Congratulations!
You may now move your tassel to the left side of your mortarboard!
[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]
Please remain in your... ahh!
Please remain in your places until the platform party
has exited the stage and await further
instructions from the marshalls.
We look forward to seeing you back on the College Green
for the rest of the ceremony. Congratulations!