If there were a deity overseeing college commencements, I’d submit it should be Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, passages, and endings. He’s traditionally pictured as a noble-looking soul, and having two faces, looking both forward and back. How, being dual-headed, he might affix his mortarboard remains a mystery. I know mine defied logic.
After all the medieval regalia processing, the speechifying, and the general rejoicing, though, the question might be asked: Where is the permanency? Residence halls are vacated; cars packed; newly-degreed graduates head toward Life in myriad forms; third-year students take their places and the academic cycle begins again. Does anything endure?
I think Wilson alums would answer a resounding “yes.” From Wilson came knowledge acquired; decades-long
friendships; and the ability to think critically, all with the understood directive that we were to pass those gifts on.
These days, especially, when institutions of higher learning generally, and humanities studies in particular, seem under siege, I believe graduates of Wilson can, and daily do, testify as to the worth of their education and its continuing, sustaining power in their lives.
In the March 16 edition of the New York Times, Robin Kelsey, a former dean of arts and humanities at Harvard, maintained that “A humanist education teaches us to question dominant narratives, to recognize how certain ways of thinking rise to prominence while others fade from view. At the heart of the humanities,” he continued, “…is to practice the same skepticism, open inquiry and refusal of dogma that science is known for — while also addressing questions about meaning, virtue and ethics…”
All that sounds like a pretty heavy lift, as indeed, do the efforts to nourish and sustain Wilson herself, so future students can “find their Bold” and continue the Wilson legacy of graduating thoughtful, discerning women and men.
It’s a task to which we of the AAWC set ourselves.
And lest that sound a bit too formidable a subject as Summer comes upon us, let me relate a tale of five members of the Class of 1955 who marked their 70th reunion in May. Despite perhaps being a bit mobility challenged, time had clearly not dimmed the traditional can-do verve of these returning alums, one of whom warned organizers this Spring, “There are five of us coming and we need seven handlers!” Wilson graduates indeed!
A joyful summer to you,
Patricia W. Bennett ’68
President, AAWC
