Williams College Awards 545 Degrees at Commencement
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"Rules are overrated. They need to be changed every generation. That is your most important mandate: If it's not broken, break it," sculptor Richard Serra told them. "One way of coming to terms with the prevailing language of a cultural orthodoxy is to reject it."
Serra, famed for his monumental metal works, exhorted the class to be true to themselves and to others and to ingore the voices that would "quell your aspiration."
Speaking from beneath a broad green-and-white striped canopy as dark clouds scudded overhead, his commencement address to the college's 219th class was echoed by the distant rumbling of thunder.
Serra urged the class to be obsessive - in persistently searching for solutions, in the face of odds and in their own helplessness. "To follow the arc of your own path and not be dissauded takes a certain amount of confidence, passion and intensity, for how you do what you do will confer meaningfulness on what you have done."
But work doesn't mean always mean a constant repetition, he said. "Playful activity provides an alternative way to see, to imagine, to do, to make, to think otherwise."
He cautioned the graduates not to simply "experience by proxy" through the virtual world.
"Don't let the rhetoric of simulation steal away the immediacy of your experience. Keep it real, keep it in the moment."
Commencement exercises began Sunday morning with the traditional procession, led by Berkshire County Sheriff Carmen C. Massimiano, down Main Street. It ended at West College Lawn as the marchers walked past 37 national flags representing the lands from which the class of 2008 had gathered.
Luckily for the hundreds of graduates, friends and family seated on the lawn, the rain held off although the temperature cooled considerably after the sun disappeared behind threatening clouds.
Along with hats and gowns, a score or more were bedecked in leis, a warm Hawaiian island custom brought to the chilly climes of New England by a group of graduates.
"We figured we'd bring something from the West Coast," said a multiple-lei-wearing Thomas A. Gill of Honolulu, who had just earned his degree in chemistry. A number of graduates were wearing — and sharing — leis of purple, yellow and red flowers and vines.
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The 510 seniors were called to the stage to receive their diplomas to the accompaniment of cheers, applause, cow bells and air horns. Master's degrees were conferred upon 11 graduates in the History of Art Program and 24 fellows from the Center for Development in Economics.
Class speaker Gordon I. Phillips of McLean, Va., ruminated on how parents, Williams and the millions spent by the federal government had failed to prepare them - parents with kindness, college by being too easy and peers by being too nice.
"We just aren't ready to be kicked out of our rooms and thrown into the real world," he said, telling his classmates to search for direction from their predecessors: "swallow your egos, and admit to someone older or wiser that you have no idea what you're doing and see what they have to say."
His 100-year-old grandmother gave him the best advice, he said, when he asked her what a college graduate should know about the world. "You're beautiful," she replied.
Phillips said it was wonderful advice. "Find the beauty in everything and everyone as best you can."
For Phi Beta Kappa speaker Erika K. Williams of Fairport, N.Y., it was 1980s sci-fi movies that provided inspiration for her speech. Citying cult hit "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension," she noted how the characters "just do what they do because that's who they are. ... We are getting a chance to break out our own versions of black spandex, sequined dinner jackets, flux capacitors and oscillation overthrusters."
And as her class faces the intimadating choice of what it will do next, she was heartened by a sentence in the pages of her contract for the capuchin monkey research she's doing next.
"The sentence reads: The project also has machetes to give out. These you keep over the year as well," Williams said. "To me it meant this: If you want to cut your own way, you can find people who will, quite literally, give you a large jungle knife in order to do so."
Classmates should not worry that they are stepping out into isolation, but can know that others are also taking this journey and that there's help along the way, she said.
Valedictorian Zachary T. Thomas of Pelham, N.Y., extolled the virtues of Williams' liberal arts curriculum, one that allowed him to investigate the linguistic role of "there" and the artistic wonders of Persia at the cusp of the modern era.
"I wanted to attend a college where I could study both physics and history ... and Williams more than fit the bill."
Armed with double majors in some cases, or at least having been able to explore topics in depth or at least leisure across a broad canvas, Williams has armed its graduates for the career twists and turns ahead.
"We have all heard the statistics about the number of different careers the average college graduate will hold before retirement, each potentially requiring a different skill set and knowledge base," said Thomas, citing the example of Robert Engle, who earned his degree at Williams in physics but was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics.
He urged the graduates not to forget that grounding in liberal arts and to remember those subjects outside their majors that got them excited. Read for fun, he said, and continue to engage in intellectual conversations. "Who knows what you'll learn from those outside the Purple Bubble."
Honorary degrees were given to Serra; to journalist, author and former management editor of the Economist Frances Cairncross; to longtime business management leader and JP Morgan Chase senior adviser Robert I. Lipp (1960); to Dr. Nawal Nour, who has fought against the cultural rite of genital cutting of young girls; and to George P. Shultz of Cummington, Marine, scholar, author, lecturer, businessman and former U.S. secretary of the Treasury, Labor and State.
The William Bradford Turner Citizenship Prize given in honor of the 1914 graduate killed in action in World War I was awarded to Danielle Callaway of Birmingham, Mich.
Area students receiving degrees were:
Adams
Adam J. McKay, son of Brian and Janice McKay.
Majored in astrophysics with honors and in math; elected to Sigma Xi and a Class of 1960 Scholar in astronomy
Nicole L. Tetreault, daughter of Lee Assante.
Majored in psychology with honors and served with Public Health Alliance.
Bennington, Vt.
Allison R. Seyferth, daughter of Eric Seyferth and Sara Reynolds.
Majored in political economy and graduated cum laude.
Florida
Hannah K. Noel, daughter of James and Jane Noel.
Majored in American studies, concentration in Latino studies with honors; graduated cum laude. Conducted field research on Mayans living in Indiantown, Fla., and studied overseas.
Lenox
Daniel Yudkin, son of Jeremy and Kathryn Yudkin.
Majored in psychology, with honors, and philosophy; graduated cum laude. Class of 1960 Scholar in psychology; winner of the G. Stanley Hall Prize in Psychology and the William W. Kleinhandler Prize for Music.
Pittsfield
Sean R. Hayes
Majored in art.
Erin J. Peaslee, son of Steven and Linda Peaslee.
Majored in math and psychology and a Class of 1960 Scholar in pyschology. Was a teaching apprentice at Williamstown Elementary School.
Sheffield
Kyle W. Campbell, son of Robert Weitz and Gwen Campbell.
Majored in computer science and English; graduated cum laude.
Williamstown
Megan E. Bailey, daughter of Duane and Mary Bailey.
Majored in art and chemistry.
Scot W. Beattie, son of Donna and Eric Beattie.
Majored in political economy.
Mary Burr, daughter of Andy Burr and Ann McCallum.
Majored in art; graduated cum laude. Won the Bruce Sanderson Prize in Architecture and named a Class of 1960 Scholar in art; studied in Paris.
Benjamin J. Kolesar, son of James and Alison Kolesar.
Majored in art and concentrated in international studies; graduated cum laude. Named a Herbert Lehman Schlolar for academic achievement, won Frederick M. Peyser Prize in Painting, and studied in Mongolia, Uganda and Nicaragua.
Charlotte V. White, daughter of Jane Nichols and Alan White.
Majored in Japanese; won the James A. Linen Grant for summer study in Tokyo.
Erik R. Wobus, son of Reinhard and Sherry Wobus.
Majored in political science; Class of 1960 Scholar in environmental studies. Wrote for the student newspaper.
