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June 15 , 2007
I am excited to share this occasion with you. I am honored
that you have asked me to speak. Congratulations to the graduates. It has taken much
hard work to get to this point, and I admire you for it. Congratulations to your
families and friends, who have supported you through your time at Clarke, with love
and encouragement. Congratulations to your teachers, who have shown so much devotion,
knowledge, and skill in educating you. And congratulations to Dennis Gjerdingen,
who is completing 26 years as Clarke’s President. You have given so
much to the school, and you have been such a visionary and caring leader.
Smith College
and the Clarke School have been closely connected throughout their histories. Indeed,
you might say that Smith owes its existence to Clarke. The founder of Smith College
was Sophia Smith, who willed her fortune to establish the college for women that
bears her name. However, her first intention, as described in her first will, was
to found a school for the deaf. She herself was very hard of hearing. In fact, you
can see the ear trumpet that she used now on display in the town museum in Hatfield,
where she lived. Because of her own experience, she had a great deal of compassion
for deaf children and wanted to found a school for them. But John Clarke, a Northampton
merchant, who was also very hard of hearing, beat her to it. A short time after the
Massachusetts legislature appropriated funds for an oral school for the deaf, John
Clarke offered $50,000 if the school would locate in Northampton. That may not sound
like much now, but it was a fortune then. The school moved from Chelmsford, Massachusetts,
with its five students, to downtown Northampton, and moved up to Round Hill Road
a few years later. There’s a story that John Clarke tried
to get Sophia Smith to match his donation of $50,000 and that she refused, but nobody
knows whether that’s true. All we know is that she changed her will, and that’s
why I’m standing here today.
So, in Northampton, in the last quarter of the 19th century, were two brave,
new, fragile schools -- Clarke and Smith. They were both revolutionary -- an
oral school for the deaf, whose mission was to teach deaf children to speak, and
a college for women, at a time when most colleges were only for men.
As one might expect, their histories were frequently intertwined. Early presidents
of Smith urged college alumnae to give money to Clarke -- a custom that seems
to have disappeared, although maybe incoming Clarke president Bill Corwin would like
to revive it. Beginning with William Allen Neilson, Smith’s third president,
presidents have served as trustees. But the most important link has been the education
program for teachers of the deaf. Initiated in 1889, it became a formal degree program
of the college in 1962, 45 years ago. It’s a source of pride to the
college -- a jewel in its crown -- and a source of pride to Clarke.
I tell this history because I think it’s important to know to understand how
we got where we are today. Now, I want to speak directly to the graduates about your
leaving Clarke and about your journey ahead.
In giving you advice -- for what would a graduation speech be without advice -- I’d
like to tell you a story. I came to Northampton, to be president of Smith, five years
ago, from California. I had lived in California for 30 years, and certainly never
had been president of a college, so it was a huge change for me, and one that made
me a little apprehensive. A short time before I moved, I visited Minneapolis to meet
some Smith alumnae. A woman I met there, Marilyn Carlson Nelson, gave me some advice
I found very helpful, and I would like to share it with you. She said that whenever
she was facing a big change in her life, she thought about her grandparents’ journey
when they emigrated from Sweden to the United States. This was in the 19th
century, before airplanes, before telephones. They knew that they were leaving forever,
and they could take only one small trunk. Marilyn Nelson still had that trunk, and
she told me that she often looked at it, imagining her grandmother trying to decide
what to take, knowing she could only take what would fit in that one small trunk.
Marilyn told me that whenever she was facing a big change in her life, she would
imagine packing that trunk, choosing only those things most precious and most useful
in the journey ahead.
Here’s what I hope you take in your trunk from Clarke. You will take the power
of hearing and the power of speech. To hear allows you to listen, to try to understand
the ideas, the perspectives, and the experiences of others. It enlarges our own perspective
and experience when we understand others, particularly those who are different from
us. When you leave Clarke, most of you will go to larger and more diverse schools.
Your ability to listen and to learn from the perspectives and experiences of others
will teach you much.
Likewise, the power of speech gives you the opportunity to use your voice. I hope
you take the confidence that you have gained at Clarke to state your opinions, your
perspective. You will be bringing a special experience and perspective to the schools
you will enter in the fall. I still remember vividly the first deaf student I taught;
her name was Lila Farazian, and the class was a seminar in children’s literature.
I was at first reluctant to let her into the class because I didn’t know how
she could participate in discussion. How wrong I was. She was one of the leaders
in the class, and one of its best students who taught us all so much from the uniqueness
of her perspective and experience. I hope you take from Clarke confidence in yourself,
in your abilities, and the many contributions you have to make.
I hope you take curiosity, the desire to learn, from books, from teachers, from the
natural world around you, from other people. If you have curiosity, if you nurture
your curiosity, you will never stop learning.
I hope you take discipline from Clarke. As I am sure each of you knows, things worth
doing are not always easy. It takes a certain strength of character, a commitment
to keep working at it, even when you are discouraged, to get good at many things,
whether in sports, or in the arts, or in schoolwork.
Finally, I hope you take warm-heartedness. A few short weeks ago, the Dalai Lama,
the spiritual and political leader of Tibet, came to speak at Smith. His message
to us all was that the intellect is not enough, that it must be guided by the warm
heart. I know from my visits to Clarke how warm-hearted a place this is, how much
love there is here in this community. I hope you take that warm-heartedness with
you to the next school you attend.
For all of the years that I have been attending Clarke’s graduation, I’ve
enjoyed hearing the graduates recite Robert Frost’s wonderful poem, “The
Road Not Taken.” Your roads are now diverging, and you will take your separate
paths. I wish you the best of luck on the next stage of your journey. |
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