Commencement Speakers Ask Graduates to Find a Higher Calling
May 21, 2011
Speakers at the 2011 College Commencement ceremonies reminded graduates that although their time as Georgetown undergraduates is ending, more work remains for them once they leave the Hilltop.
As the sun shone down on the graduates and their families assembled on Healy Lawn, Commencement speaker Dr. Paul Farmer, who was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters for his work combating infectious disease in impoverished nations, gave the students words of advice for making global change. He asked that they “Try not to forget the broader social world around us, and the past upon which it is built.” Dr. Farmer learned this lesson when, as a recent college graduate, he traveled to Haiti and saw its complex social ills firsthand. In those months, he learned that no problem could be solved without understanding the many forces—social, natural, and political—that made up their causes.
“If humans have a wonderful ability to remember, we also have an unnerving ability to forget,” Dr. Farmer said. He asked that students begin to think “fractally, or on several scales at once” to understand that the world’s growing inequalities stem not just from unlucky natural disasters, but from social injustices like poverty, political instability, and lack of education. Students can make change by reflecting on the world’s challenges and choosing to serve others. “One of the chief lessons from my work as a physician is that we can do great things when we pull together, when we are connected.”
In her citation of his honorary degree, Associate Professor of Biology Heidi Elmendorf explained how Dr. Farmer and his organization, Partners in Health (PIH), provide a model for Georgetown students. “Partners in Health took a problem of staggering proportions and succeeded by doing the unthinkable: working with unstinting effort to save one person at a time,” Elmendorf explained. “And in doing so, Paul Farmer has lived a life true to Georgetown’s emphasis on the Jesuit value of ‘cura personalis,’ the principle of attending individually to meet the needs of others, respecting the circumstances and concerns of each person, and appreciating each for his or her particular gifts and insights.”
German and Chinese double major Andrew Coflan understood Dr. Farmer’s perspective. “Georgetown broadens your horizons in a special way, because so many people study abroad—there are people from all over the world here—you can’t leave with the assumptions you came in with,” he explained. “Sure there’s academic training, but there’s also a sense of being among the world. That’s definitely one of the best things I’ve taken from Georgetown, is realizing there’s a big world outside of the front gates.”
Speakers at the College’s 92nd annual Tropaia awards ceremony, held the day before the College Commencement, also asked the senior class to keep striving for personal and social change. Assistant Professor of Government Matthew Carnes, S.J.—who was awarded the prestigious Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Award for Faculty Excellence—told students that as they leave the university setting, "You will recognize all the more your own great calling, your deepest and best self, your connectedness to our world and its needs, and you will find the resources—intellectual and spiritual—to meet those needs."
At the College’s Tropaia (“trophies” in Latin) ceremony, the deans presented 41 academic awards and honored the 38 students who graduated summa cum laude, as well as the 322 students newly inducted into the College’s honor societies. Valedictorian Jennifer Rogers, who earned her degree in English and gave the traditional Cohonguroton Oration at Tropaia, shared her realization that even as a graduating Hoya, “there is still so much to learn.” Likewise, Government major and co-valedictorian Christopher Tosetti reminded his classmates, “in our future challenges, triumphs, and achievements, we shall continue the work begun at Georgetown—the cultivation of excellence in the entire human person in our ceaseless struggle to become higher human beings.”
As the senior class prepared to cross the front lawn for the last time as undergraduates, they reflected on how Georgetown prepared them for new world ahead. Coflan suggested, “Georgetown is a way of life in a lot of respects. There’s the academic side of it—all of us are trained by the best professors in the world to engage in academic topics we’ve never seen before, but there’s also how to engage with the world in a way that bridges the two things. So, it’s an application of the academic side in the classroom that we bring into the world. That’s what Georgetown is for me.”
--Jessica Beckman
