Thank you for the introduction. It's a pleasure to be back here at Wellesley, where the memories are good, the welcome is warm, the campus is lovely, and all the students have good posture. To the class of 1995, I say congratulations. Today is the payoff for all your long hours of studying, late nights in the library and exam .
Graduation is one of the four great milestones in life.
The others are the day you were born, the day you die, and the day you finally pay off your student loan. In the years ahead, you will look back upon this commencement ceremony and realize that this was the very day and hour you began to forget everything you learned in college. You will find slipping from your mind the carefully memorized names of 18th century composers, European monarchs and the various body parts of dissected frogs. But as your hopes for hitting a jackpot on Jeopardy fade, you will find that the more profound aspects of a Wellesley education endure. According to the Wellesley brochure, students develop here a sense of history, a capacity for critical reasoning, an awareness of differing cultures and a passion for justice.