Penn Baccalaureate 2015 |
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May 26, 2015, Volume 61, No. 35 |
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Penn President Amy Gutmann’s Baccalaureate Remarks given in Irvine Auditorium on Sunday, May 17, 2015.
Baccalaureate Welcome 2015
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Amy Gutmann |
Parents and families, friends and colleagues, welcome to Penn’s Baccalaureate Ceremony! My warmest congratulations to the great Class of 2015, whom we’re gathered here to honor.
Commencement weekend is a wonderful and exciting time. These are days of well-earned celebration filled with many traditions, some of which are quite ancient.
One such tradition—the Commencement ceremony itself—was in ages past nothing short of an endurance test. More than two hundred years ago, Penn’s Class of 1789 filed into a sweltering hot church house on Race Street for a Commencement that lasted two whole days.
It was July, and the graduates sweated through not one or two, but 17 speeches in all. Some were in Latin.
I think I see some of you sweating now at just the thought.
Fortunately for all of us, our traditions have evolved, and we’ve learned a thing or two. We know now that when it comes to Commencement weekends, briefer is better and suffering does not refine the spirit.
This baccalaureate ceremony we celebrate today, however, is a tradition intended to uplift the soul. This is a quieter and more intimate opportunity to reflect.
Our students—this remarkable Class of 2015—have learned and grown and advanced in so many ways in the past four years. I have been fortunate and proud to share their journey and watch them grow. I know they are a potent force for good that we are about to send into the world.
This is our opportunity to give thoughtful attention to all they are capable of achieving—and our heartfelt thanks for all they mean to all of us.
Members of the Class of 2015: an ending is in sight, but so too is a thrilling beginning. Know that wherever you go, whatever good you do, you’ll always have a home and a family here at Penn.
So, on behalf of everybody at the University of Pennsylvania, I applaud you for what you have achieved.
I salute you for the good that you will do.
And I’ll go ahead and accept your thanks for not delivering my remarks in Latin.
Congratulations and enjoy. |