Lauren RubensteinJoshua Krugman '14, Megan Cash '14, and Prince Carter '14 delivered "Senior Voices" speeches on May 24 in Memorial Chapel. Below is the text of Krugman's and Cash's speeches; Carter's was unavailable at the time of publication. Joshua Krugman When I got to Wesleyan I thought I could get everything I needed out of the world on my own and by my own effort if I worked hard enough. I enrolled in six classes. Every day after class I would go to the practice rooms to play the piano. Then I would walk back to my single in Butt B…
Sarah Mahurin, visiting assistant professor of English, visiting assistant professor of African American studies, delivered the following baccalaureate address during the "Senior Voices" event on May 24: Thank you all for inviting me to speak today. I’m honored to spend a little more time with the class of 2014. When I was asked to do this, I tried to find some literature about graduating college – as a source of inspiration, maybe a point of departure – and as it turns out, there’s not a lot out there. Plenty about college – plenty about starting college, or about being in…
“Don’t wait to change the world,” Theodore Shaw ’76, one of the nation’s leading proponents for civil rights, told the Class of 2014 in his Commencement address May 25. Shaw’s speech recalled a Wesleyan commencement 50 years earlier, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded an honorary degree and delivered the baccalaureate sermon to the Wesleyan Class of 1964. “Martin Luther King, Jr. was twenty-six when he led the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1963, children, some as young as five years old, filled the jails of Birmingham, Alabama protesting against segregation. School children marched against apartheid in Soweto in…
Theodore Shaw '76, one of the nation's leading proponents for civil rights, delivered Wesleyan's 182nd Commencement Address on May 25. Watch the video, or read the full text below: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO4Ac-lehhA[/youtube] "President Roth, Fellow Honorary Degree Recipients, Dr. Helena Chmura Kraemer and Hayden White, Members of the Board of Trustees, Faculty, Administrators, Staff, Members of the Wesleyan Community, Family, Friends and all who are gathered here, but above all else, to you, the Class of 2014. And if you give me a moment of forbearance, I have to go home and shout out to the Patrick-Shaw clan. Fifty years…
Wesleyan President Michael Roth '78 made the following remarks at the 182nd Commencement Ceremony on May 25: Members of the board of trustees, members of the faculty and staff, distinguished guests, new recipients of graduate degrees and the class of 2014, I am honored to present some brief remarks on the occasion of this commencement. Although American military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has been winding down ever since you arrived on campus, the scars of those conflicts will continue to be painful for years to come. On this Memorial Day Weekend, I begin by asking us all to take…
Olivia DrakeEvery year at Commencement, Wesleyan recognizes outstanding teaching with three Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching. These prizes, made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank G. Binswanger Sr., Hon. ’85, underscore Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers, who are responsible for the university’s distinctive approach to liberal arts education. Recommendations are solicited from alumni of the last 10 graduating classes, as well as current juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Recipients are chosen by a selection committee of faculty and members of the Alumni Association Executive Committee. This year, Wesleyan President Michael Roth honored Robert Steele, Petra Bonfert-Taylor…
Manon Lefèvre '14 delivered the Senior Class Welcome at Commencement on May 25: I want to talk about what it means to question. We are taught here at Wesleyan that we have a responsibility to challenge structures of power, to stand up for what we believe is right, to envision a better world for ourselves and for others. Brilliant ideas, challenging theories, and profound, radical ways of thinking thrive on this campus. I have learned more in my four years here than I could have ever imagined possible. And today, I am truly saddened to be saying goodbye to my community…
Bill HolderTheodore M. Shaw ’76, one of the nation’s leading proponents of civil rights, will present Wesleyan’s Commencement address on May 25, the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s address here. Wesleyan also will award honorary degrees to Helena Chmura Kraemer, whose work in biostatistics has had a transformative impact on medicine and psychiatry, and to Hayden White, a distinguished theorist of history. Theodore Shaw ’76 For decades Ted Shaw has been one of the nation’s strongest advocates for equity and inclusion in our society. In courts throughout the nation, including the U.S. Supreme Court, he has argued cases involving voting…