The Wellesley College website is currently in transition. This temporary site is for current Wellesley College community members. If you're a prospective student or employee, please go to our new site at www. Thank you so much. Thank you, Diana. Thank you, students. Thank you, my friends and fellow trustee members.
Thank you, faculty. I thank particularly the committee of students that selected me and greeted me so very warmly last night, and this morning delivered me this green feather boa, by police escort no less, just before the procession. It is such an honor to be here. I tremendously wish to address you today. Anyway I am really so grateful for the gift of the opportunity to speak to you today. It is such a particular delight to be here because I missed my own graduation from Wellesley, Class of I had an opportunity to travel with friends, so I threw my love beads and Afro-pick, all the novels of Hermann Hesse, and an extra pair of bell bottoms into my macrame satchel and took off, for Copenhagen, I think.
It was a different era. It was a time when tradition was being challenged, and indeed there were a lot of traditions that needed to be challenged—first and foremost were those beanies! My little challenge was not going to graduation, and I suppose it was a small thing as personal declarations of independence go, but it disappointed my parents.
They are here in spirit and their spirit is strong. I feel them here, their pride, then and now. Being here now is the complete fulfillment of what my parents wished for me, for the graduate I was then and now, a little over 30 years ago to this moment. But of course, more importantly this moment is the fulfillment of your dreams. It is a moment to celebrate your accomplishments, the culmination of your hard work.
But it is a good moment, let me assure you, to really wallow in all the love of your families, to take stock of the generosity and encouragement and support and pride from your parents and siblings and the extended family gathered here. This is a passage. But it is toward a new level of independence. Here is the point at which you really and truly enter adulthood. And the exuberant power of this moment is your grounding for the future, a source to draw upon.
