Vermont singer and songwriter Grace Potter received an honorary degree and surprised graduates with a performance of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” at Middlebury College’s commencement on Sunday, May 28. Photo by Brett Simison.
Vermont Business Magazine The 552 graduates of the Middlebury College Class of 2017 basked in a splendid spring morning on Sunday, May 28, to celebrate the formal conclusion of their undergraduate careers. Thousands of friends and family gathered in the main quadrangle for Commencement, as the temperature hovered around the 70-degree mark, to hear from two guest speakers, watch as five honorary degrees were conferred, and cheer as the graduates crossed the platform one-by-one to receive their diplomas.
The student chosen to address the class, Jackson Adams ’17, from Towson, Md., spoke about having the courage to do the right thing in the face of adversity. He told of the Russian submarine commander who, in 1962 at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, insisted on surrender rather than fire a torpedo armed with a nuclear warhead.
That commander, Vasili Arkhipov, “saw an opportunity to prevent needless human suffering, and did not surrender to the hysteria of the moment. He did what was right,” Adams said. “And what I see in this story is that greatness does not require pre-planning. People are not born to be great, nor must one be a fearless superhuman to achieve greatness. Greatness requires accepting fear and doubt and isolation, and doing the right thing anyway.”
President Laurie L. Patton opened the ceremony and said the graduates assembled before her had “worked tremendously hard” to get to this moment, and that they did it with the support of their parents and grandparents, friends, and relatives. The president also announced that the graduates had raised over $40,000 to create the 2017 and 2017.5 Memorial Scholarship Fund in honor of two classmates who had died, Nathan Alexander and Murphy Roberts. Both statements from President Patton were met with thunderous applause.
Students line up for the processional to Commencement.
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Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, gave a 20-minute Commencement address.
The former editor of Newsweek said, “It is incredibly tempting to feel superior to the past. But as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., once said, self-righteousness in retrospect is easy, but it is also cheap. So while we are right to condemn posterity for slavery, or for Native American removal, or for denying women their full role in the life of our nation, we need to pause and think: What injustices are we perpetrating even now that will one day face the harshest of verdicts by those who come after us? What can we do to right these wrongs in our own time?”
Meacham said passionate partisanship is the defining feature of the America we live in today. “Too many of us are given to reflexively reacting to whatever unfolds in the public square, not according to our reason but to our ideological and tribal predispositions. I want to be clear about this. Partisanship is not intrinsically bad. It’s in the nature of things, in the nature of human beings, to hold fast to views and allegiances, and heroes and creeds, to the exclusion of other views and other allegiances, other heroes and other creeds.
“What is worth avoiding is reflexive partisanship as opposed to reflective partisanship. The point of America is not for all of us to think alike; that’s impossible and undesirable in any event. Autocracies are about total agreement, or at least total submission.
“The American republic is founded on the notion that even the person with whom I most stridently disagree might have something to say worth hearing and heeding. The only way I can figure that out is by listening to that other person, by weighing the relative merits of what is said, and by then, and only then, making up my mind. … We should not concede to the primacy of passion; give reason a chance.”
Members of the board of trustees presented five candidates for honorary doctorates:
- Cartoonist Alison Bechdel of Vermont, author of the graphic novel Fun Home, which was made into a Tony Award-winning musical, recipient of a Doctor of Letters;
- M.I.T. research specialist Kate Darling, an expert on social robotics, intellectual property law, and the economic incentives of copyright and patent systems, recipient of a Doctor of Science;
- Vermont singer and songwriter Grace Potter, who, in addition to her music, has done charitable work for WhyHunger and the Alzheimer’s Association, recipient of a Doctor of Arts;
- Fred Swaniker, the Ghanaian leadership development expert whose Global Leadership Adventures and African Leadership University is transforming the continent, recipient of a Doctor of Humane Letters; and
- Presidential historian and author Jon Meacham, the Commencement speaker, recipient of a Doctor of Letters.
The speeches and honorary degree presentations were prelude to the awarding of degrees to the Class of 2017, with each recipient also receiving a replica of Gamaliel Painter’s cane. In keeping with Middlebury tradition, the first diplomas were presented to the valedictorian, Evelin Eszter Tóth, of Budapest, Hungary, an environmental studies major, and the salutatorian, Noel Jean Antonisse, of Silver Spring, Md., a double major in mathematics and economics.
Commencement concluded more than two hours after it started with three songs: Grace Potter on acoustic guitar performing “I Shall Be Released,” the singing of (and tapping along to) the song “Gamaliel Painter’s Cane,” followed by the alma mater “Walls of Ivy, Paths of Beauty.”
Associate Chaplain and Rabbi Ira Schiffer, in one of his final acts before he retires next month, delivered the benediction and recited the poem “Each of Us Has a Name,” by the Israeli poet known simply as Zelda. At long last the sky was filled with sailing mortarboards as the graduates whooped and cheered, soon to be reunited with family and friends who joined them on this day.
Source: MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – 5.28.2017