Matriculation Address 2006

Lawrence S. Bacow
Matriculation Address
August 30, 2006

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the faculty, staff and administration, the Board of Trustees represented here today by Bernard Harleston, and most importantly, to the members of the Class of 2010, welcome to Tufts! One long journey has ended, and another even more interesting journey is about to begin.

I know from experience that the college admissions process can be stressful: college tours, college essays, SAT exams, letters of recommendation, interminable questions from friends and relatives, the sometimes not so subtle competition between classmates seeking admission to the same schools, and then the wait for the decisive letter or email. Well the good news is you have survived this rite of passage. This is the day you have all been waiting for. Take a deep breath, and savor this moment. You are all now Tufts students and all of us - your families, and the faculty and staff - are incredibly proud of you.

Earlier today, my wife Adele and I wandered around campus witnessing a rite of passage that is unique to American higher education. It is called move-in day. Once a year, families engage in what can only be described as the ancient tribal rite of car stuffing. Judging from how much stuff some of you brought to campus, you must have believed that you were moving into seaside villas, not dorm rooms. But you will sort everything out and get settled. Then, just after this ceremony ends you will have "The conversation."

This is the awkward moment when you actually have to say goodbye to your families. I suspect both parents and students have been anticipating this moment for some time. Some of you may have even extracted promises from your parents to avoid emotional goodbyes. I must confess that as a parent, my sympathies are obvious. It is not easy saying goodbye to someone who has been the center of your life for the past 18 years. It is also not easy sending them halfway across the country or around the world to live independently for the very first time. So, to the parents assembled, I hereby grant you a special presidential release from all commitments to avoid emotional goodbyes. When the time comes, hold your kids close, give them a big hug, and cry if you want. I guarantee that no one will notice because they will all be doing the same.

College is a time of exploration, a time to learn much about the world and about yourself. In electing to pursue this journey at Tufts, you embrace a history and tradition that will shape your experience in profound ways.

Tufts was founded in 1852 by the Universalists. Our founder, Hosea Ballou 2d., was a Universalist minister as were the first four presidents of the College. We were named for our benefactors, Charles and Hannah Tufts, who donated the land on which the campus now sits. At the time, many religious denominations were building colleges to educate their young people in the ways of the church. Those colleges that accepted students from outside their faith typically required faculty and trustees to belong to the founding church. Tufts was different. Not only did our founders object to this policy at other institutions, they also stipulated that there would never be a religious test for employment or admission at Tufts, a truly radical notion at the time.

Writing in the leading Universalist paper of the day, a church elder said, "We go for universal education of the people - the poor and the rich - the farmer and the mechanic and seaman, as well as the lawyer, the physician, and the clergyman. Let all people be educated. The universal diffusion of knowledge is the only safeguard of our republican institutions."

These principles still guide us today. We firmly believe in universal education. It is one of the reasons we embrace diversity in every possible dimension. And we believe that with education comes responsibility. Those of you who are fortunate enough to study at Tufts have an obligation to use your education for the benefit of others. We believe that each of you must become an active citizen of this community and every community that you will inhabit in the future.

One of the responsibilities of citizenship is to vote. For those of you who are eligible, we expect you to inform yourself about the candidates and cast a ballot in the fall election. We have even made it easy for you to register, either here or in your home state. Just go to the Tisch College website for information.

Class of 2010, you are about to embark on a truly extraordinary journey that is certain to change you in profound ways. College is special for so many different reasons. For many of you, this is the first time in your life that you will be truly living independently. This is an opportunity to grow and learn as a person, to discover much about who you are, and of course, to make wonderful new friends. Each fall our alumni magazine, like many others, publishes pages upon pages of wedding photographs in which members of various Tufts classes gather to celebrate the marriage of their classmates. I suspect your class will be no different. Sitting among you are your future best friends, life partners, maids of honor, best men, future business partners, and people with whom you will share a good portion of the rest of your lives. Just think about how much fun it will be to discover these people in the next four years. What an incredible opportunity.

I am often asked how to make the most of one's college education. My answer is reasonably simple. Develop your capacity to listen - you cannot learn from others or engage in any meaningful form of conversation unless you are first willing to listen. Learn how to express yourselves clearly, both orally and in writing. Develop your critical reasoning skills. Immerse yourself in the great texts of our age. You can learn much from the great thinkers who came before you. Make sure you develop the creative side of your brain by studying art, music, drama, or design. Master a foreign language which will give you the capacity to appreciate at least one other culture different from your own. Study broadly so that you can participate intelligently in the great debates of our time whether you are discussing the ethics of stem cell research, public policy toward climate change, or the clash between those who embrace a modern way of life and those who seek to return to fundamentalist roots. Challenge yourself. Play to your weaknesses, not to your strengths. Get used to living outside of your intellectual comfort zone.

At Tufts, you will encounter classmates who are quite different from you. Seek them out. We learn from our differences. At times you may also encounter people who express ideas that you find offensive. Tufts is not a cocoon. While we expect you to treat everyone with civility and respect, we would not be doing our job if we isolated you from all that is unpleasant in the world. To the contrary, our job is to prepare you for the world you will encounter when you leave here.

If there is one universal predictor of whether you will have a great experience in college, it is whether you get to know at least one faculty member well enough so that you stay in touch for the rest of your life. Faculty teach at Tufts because they love students. Get to know them. Don't be intimidated. If you don't know what to talk to a professor about, ask about his or her scholarship. Faculty love to talk about ideas, especially those that they are currently exploring through their own research.

At Tufts, we make it easy to get to know faculty. Most of you will have dinner tonight with your faculty advisors. Invite a faculty member to have coffee at the Tower Caf? in Tisch Library. Anything the two of you order to drink together is on the house. Not a bad deal. Consider becoming a Summer Scholar. This program provides stipends to undergraduates to collaborate with faculty in the summer on research at all seven of our schools and our four affiliated teaching hospitals.

No doubt, some of you are entering college with a pretty good idea of what you want to do with your lives. Some of you are certain that you want to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, or whatever. There is nothing wrong with making plans. But as the old line goes, "Man plans and God laughs." Keep an open mind. You may discover your passion in unexpected places. I thought I was going to be a lawyer when I entered college. But a chance conversation with a professor turned me on to economics. With his encouragement, I pursued a Ph.D. and became an academic. It is a decision I never regretted.

I suspect that the vast majority of you don't have a clue what you want to study while you are here. My advice is to relax. You will have plenty of time to figure it out. One of the great virtues of a liberal education is that it provides a wonderful foundation for life. Although it may sound like heresy for a university president to say this, it really does not make all that much difference what you choose to study as long as you do it well. If you don't believe me, just consider the careers and majors of the following Tufts graduates:

• Jeff Kindler, CEO of Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, was a double major in English and political science at Tufts;
• Tracy Chapman, Class of 1986, Grammy award winning singer and songwriter, was an anthropology major;
• Abby Kohnstamm, who recently retired as Senior Vice President of Marketing worldwide for IBM, studied dance when she was a student here;
• Jim Stern, CEO of the Cypress Group, a major private equity firm, studied civil engineering;
• William Hurt, Academy Award winning actor, was a religion major for three years until he switched to drama in his senior year;
• And Joseph Hoar, four star Marine General, studied psychology while at Tufts.

I could go on. What is important is that you find your passion during your next four years. Your career will reveal itself to you in due course.

Some of the most valuable lessons you will learn at Tufts will occur outside the classroom. You will soon encounter literally hundreds of opportunities to get involved in this community. Some of you will spend a considerable amount of time competing for one of our varsity sports teams. Others will volunteer in the community. Still others will become engaged by one of the many student organizations on campus. Each of these activities represents important learning opportunities - opportunities to acquire life skills gained from getting a diverse group of people to work together for a common purpose. Moreover, some of your best teachers at Tufts will not have professor in their title. They will be your coaches, trainers, directors, and other advisors. The wise person truly learns from all people.

Boston is one of the world's great cities. Get to know it well. Take in a concert at Symphony Hall. Visit the Museum of Fine Arts - admission is free for Tufts students. Make sure you explore Boston's neighborhoods - the North End, Chinatown, and Charlestown, just to name a few. Also take in Fenway Park, maybe the best place in the nation to watch a baseball game. Even Yankee fans are welcome.

Medford and Somerville, our host communities also are rich in history. Medford is the fourth oldest city in the nation. Many of the clipper ships that helped support a thriving maritime trade during the early days of this country were built just a few blocks from here on South Street. The first American flag in the colonies flew over Somerville in 1776. Davis Square is also home to maybe the best used bookstore in the U.S. McIntryre and Moore is a browser's paradise. It is easy to lose yourself in it.

The Revolutionary War began just seven miles from here with the battle at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Today, the third Monday in April is always celebrated in Boston as Patriot's Day. Not only do you all get the day off, you can spend it by helping to cheer on the Tufts team in the Boston Marathon. Each year, Tufts enters the largest collegiate team in the Marathon. 200 students, faculty, staff, alumni and parents join me as we make the 26.2 mile trek from Hopkinton to Boston. We train together as a team throughout the winter. It is great fun and anyone who has ever run the Boston Marathon will tell you it is the experience of a lifetime. If you are interested in giving it a try, check out the President's Marathon Challenge website.

One tradition that we honor at Tufts is that each generation helps the next. You have already seen this at work as upper-class students have helped you unpack and get settled in your rooms. You will soon meet your peer advisors, fellow students who have come back to school early so they can help your faculty advisor with the advising process. In the future, you will have the opportunity to continue this tradition, and I hope you will do so selflessly and willingly as others have done before you.

As you sit on this Hill today, you have already benefited from the collective efforts of the 82,000 Tufts alumni represented today by Sunny Breed, President of the Alumni Association. They have interviewed you, supported scholarships that underwrite your education, and they have literally helped to build this university. In the future, they will help you with career advice, internships and contacts. Wherever you go in the world, you will find fellow Jumbos ready to help.

Class of 2010, in a few hours you will say goodbye to your friends and family. You are going to be on your own - with lots of support, but on your own nonetheless. If you want to sleep in and skip class, no one will tell you to get out of bed. No one is going to ask if you have done your homework. If you get sick, it will be up to you to get yourself to Health Services. Part of what you are here to learn is to make these choices responsibly. We have great confidence in your ability to do so.

If you look hard enough, you will find many temptations on a college campus - and Tufts is no exception. We admitted you because we thought you had good judgment. Please do not prove us wrong. Your Tufts ID does not entitle you to flout the law or behave in ways that would get you arrested elsewhere. Tufts is not a consequence-free zone. As an adult, you must accept the consequences of your actions. We expect you to be the type of person you described in your application. The Dean of Admissions assures me that none of you claimed to be loud, obnoxious, drunk, or offensive to your neighbors. We don't expect you to behave that way here either.

You have been prepared well for this day by your parents, family, and friends. Many of your loved ones have literally sacrificed so that you may enjoy the privilege of a Tufts education. Honor their sacrifice by behaving responsibly, and making the most of this extraordinary opportunity.

Going off to college is a big adjustment for each of you, but in some ways it is an even bigger adjustment for your families. You have lots of people to help you through this transition - advisors, deans, counselors, and fellow students. By contrast, your parents are on their own. It is up to you to help them adjust to a life without you. Please keep in touch with them. Let them know how you are doing. It is even OK to ask them how they are doing. They will greatly appreciate email, phone calls, and even the occasional letter.

And now a word to parents: You should be enormously proud of what your sons and daughters have already accomplished. The fact that they are sitting here today is but one sign that you have done your job well. But I suspect that as you prepare to say goodbye, your hopes and aspirations for them are tempered by more than a bit of anxiety. You are probably asking yourself, "Are they ready for all that awaits them? Will they act maturely? Will they use good judgment?" We raise our children to be independent, yet when they reach the moment when they are ready to spread their wings, our natural inclination is to cling to them.

I must now ask you to do the hardest thing you have ever done as parents - let go. Let your kids fight their own battles. They don't need you to solve their registration problems, or to lobby to get a better housing assignment. If the refrigerator breaks on the floor of their dorm, they don't need you to intervene personally to get it fixed. Learning to deal with a large organization is another useful life skill that they will master at Tufts, if you let them. You cannot be everywhere for them, and I assure you your kids don't want you to be.

You must also trust your sons and daughters to make the right choices. Of course, they will make mistakes. Neither you nor I were perfect when we were their age. But you must give them the space and the opportunity to learn from their errors. Rest assured, they will remember the lessons that you, their first teachers, have taught them. And of course, we are here to help.

This is a good place, a caring place. All of us at Tufts are here to help your sons and daughters continue to grow and learn, to build upon the wonderful foundation that you have so lovingly provided to them.

So, members of the Class of 2010, your time has come. The next time you assemble together on this quad, it will be for your commencement. May the next four years bring you challenge, growth, excitement, passion, opportunity, and fulfillment. I know I speak for all those assembled here today - your families, friends, faculty, and staff - we look forward to sharing this extraordinary journey with you. Good luck to you all.