News
"I Wish For You the Life of an Artist"
President Sharon Herzberger
Charge to the Class of 2008
May 23, 2008
A few months ago, my husband and I were visiting our younger son in Chicago and we ambled over to the Art Institute to see the exhibit of Winslow Homer's exquisite watercolors. On one wall was a quote that captured the essence of what I want to tell you today. Homer said: "The life I have chosen gives me full hours of enjoyment ... The sun will not rise, or set, without my notice, and thanks."
You, sitting before me, have many years ahead and full lives to lead. I wish for you that you live these years productively, compassionately, artfully, and above all, consciously.
As I walked around with my son that day, I happily remembered him as an infant, as a child, and — yes— even as a teenager, and now in seemingly no time at all he had become a young man, leading me around a city where he lived quite independently of me.
Your parents are probably experiencing the same emotions and memories today. They remember you crawling onto their laps, walking alone into your classroom on the first day of school, laughing with friends, and applying to college. Where did time go? How did you become the adult you now are?
As you leave this stadium today, know that the pace of life will quicken and that events that you anticipate eagerly and seem so far away in time will pass in a flash. One day before you know it, you'll be returning to Whittier College for your twenty-fifth reunion and then your fiftieth.
Those will be joyful occasions, but in the meantime, I wish for you the life of an artist. Above all else, the artist quietly observes and in observing, slows down, appreciates, and consciously notices and experiences the beauty of the world.
My favorite times as president of this College have been when I have noticed things about you. I have watched you ringing handbells, playing drums, singing solos, and singing together as a choir. I have consciously enjoyed moments observing you shoot baskets, score goals, swim lengths, swing racquets, fling Frisbees, and win The Shoes.
I have noticed your artwork in Mendenhall and Wardman, your writing in the Quaker Campus, your research presentations and posters and poems. I paid attention when you received an academic honor, or were praised for exceptional scholarship. I have noticed your good deeds: planting bushes and flowers on Helping Hands Day, serving children through Fifth Dimension and other service projects, and serving each other through clubs, societies, and organizations. I have consciously enjoyed your amazing talent and poise and fun on the Shannon Center stage. And I have noticed every time you showed up for an early morning walk with me, and each time you didn't. (You know who you are.) And I am not alone. Your faculty have noticed too, and through our noticing, our own lives have been enriched immensely by your presence.
On this 105th commencement day, I charge you, the graduates of Whittier College, to notice the sunrises and the sunsets of your life, and to pause to go through your days thoughtfully and with deliberation. And when you return to our beautiful campus five years, ten years, fifteen years, and fifty years from now, your life will have been enriched too.
I charge you as well to remember, throughout your rich life, that you are a Poet. You were privileged to attend a college that stands for something. Take pride in this College, named for and modeled after the life of John Greenleaf Whittier. Never doubt that the education you received here has helped you develop respect for community, for service, and for learning, working, and living with people of all backgrounds and all circumstances, and for finding common ground.
Congratulations to the Class of 2008.
