It is a great pleasure to be here with you this morning in this very beautiful place. I offer my warmest congratulations to my sister and brother honorees, and to those seniors who have survived all of the torments and trials of their undergraduate years to be here today to receive well-earned diplomas. Cheers for the Mount Holyoke faculty who have survived their own torments and trials but are here today wondering how they will manage next year without the class of 2000.
Commencements are as tribal rites go, peculiarly paradoxical occasions.
I hasten to assure you Joy that that particular 'routine' never actually crossed my mind. The box, it is reported, was lined with newspaper, and stories of President McKinley's wife's illness and the birth of the Czarina of Russia's fourth daughter helped set the scene. We should all have stock in the blue book company, as blue books are the one sure connecting link between generations of college. It was the phrase 'as you have greater opportunities' that caught my attention. I cannot remember the time when I was not sure that studying and going to college were the things above all others which I wished to do.