2004 Commencement Address
President Shirley M. Tilghman
June 1, 2004
Graduating students, honorary degree recipients, distinguished members of the faculty and staff, trustees, alumni, parents, family and friends:
It is a great pleasure for me to perpetuate Princeton's longstanding tradition of letting the President have the last word at Commencement. I recognize that those graduating today have probably been receiving lots of free advice from family and friends in recent weeks. At times you may have felt like a long distance runner streaming past the crowds that line the route of the New York Marathon. They applaud, shout encouragement, thrust bottled water at you, full of unsolicited advice – ease up, press on, take a break. Well, I am not going to begin with exhortation, but instead with praise.
I want to offer my heartiest congratulations to you all. You have met and ofttimes exceeded the very high expectations that we had for you when you arrived just a few years ago. Whether in the classroom, the laboratory, the studio, the playing field, the debating arena, or the stage, you have shown the kind of dedication, the intellect, and the heart that it takes to strive for excellence. Members of the Class of 2004, you have shown your concern for others in your Arts Alive project, which reached out to the children affected by 9/11, and you challenged each other to raise the level of intellectual discourse on campus. Your true stripes are indeed orange and black, and you have earned the right to be called the Great Class of 2004.
Members of the Graduate Class of 2004, you have inspired the faculty and your students with your passionate pursuit of learning and discovery. As you head to other universities and colleges to continue Princeton's tradition of teaching and research, the future of higher education seems bright indeed. For those of you who seek careers outside the academy, you go with finely honed intellectual skills that I know will serve you well.
With the growing hum of cicadas competing with me for your attention, I thought it would be appropriate to use this occasion to deliver a learned lecture on the life cycle of these strange insects, explaining the theories behind the mystery of their 17-year hibernation, interrupted only by a few days of frenzied aerial mating. I am sad to say, however, that this plan was vetoed by the officers of the senior class. Your student government at work!
But the cicadas inevitably bring to mind, as they have to many over this weekend, the Commencement of 1970, memorialized by one of that year's honorary degree recipients, Bob Dylan, in his composition, "Day of the Locusts." That Commencement will be remembered for another reason: it heralded the end of a tumultuous senior year for the Class of 1970, a year whose echoes reverberate in our own time. In 1970 we were at war, as we are again today, in a distant land whose language, religion and culture were different from our own. Whereas earlier wars of the 20th century had united and strengthened our country, the Vietnam War, like today's war in Iraq, divided us and raised fundamental questions about our policies and values.
In 1970 the civil rights movement was gaining momentum as institutions like Princeton increasingly opened their doors to students from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Today, marking the 50th anniversary of the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, we recognize how far we still have to go to make equal opportunity real in all our nation's schools. The third great issue of that day was the nascent women's movement calling for greater inclusion of women in the affairs of the world. That year Princeton awarded degrees to undergraduate women—eight of them—for the first time in its history. Today the number of women graduates in the senior class has increased seventy fold, yet we know there are still fields that women are discouraged from entering and in which they do not have fair chances for advancement.
What brought matters to a boil in the spring of 1970 was the invasion of Cambodia. More than 4,000 members of the student body, faculty and staff gathered in Jadwin Gym to protest and debate this escalation of the war. Although those times were tense, the campus community under President Goheen's inspired leadership rose to the occasion, and not only exercised its rights of free speech and assembly, but sought constructive ways to take part in the larger national discussion. Through their passionate engagement with the events of their times, the students of 1970 shouldered their responsibilities as citizens of a free democracy to speak out for what they believed.
Out of this maelstrom of debate came three lasting changes in the University: a more broad participatory governing structure that still includes such features as the U-Council, the Priorities Committee, the election each year of a graduating senior to the Board of Trustees; the institution of a fall break in late October to allow students to participate in election campaigns in their home communities; and the opening of FitzRandolph Gate. Until 1970 the Gate just behind you was kept closed all year except for special occasions like Reunions and Commencement. The Class of 1970 asked that the University permanently open FitzRandolph Gate to symbolize its recognition that Princeton should very much be part "of the world" and of its local community, and not stand aloof. To honor that commitment, the Class of 1970 inscribed their class numerals on the gates, with the inscription, "Together for Community."
The communal relationship between democratic government and an educated citizenry was clearly articulated by one of our country's founding fathers, John Adams, in the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1779. He wrote: