Presiding
Dr. Peter T. Mitchell '67
President of the College

Greetings
President Mitchell

Welcome to the 167^th Commencement Exercises at Albion College.   Today we celebrate the intellect, the heart, and the spirit of 348 remarkable men and women, the Class of 2002.  Four years ago, you started together on a journey to discovery and self-discovery, in a pursuit of knowledge and virtue, wisdom and understanding.  Today you leave this place, enlightened, inspired, and confident Albion College alumni.  

Your time at Albion has been marked by significant individual achievement and considerable institutional success.  You entered a tier three school, but you graduate from a tier two school that is headed toward tier one status.  During your tenure Albion has achieve national recognition for its Foundation for Undergraduate Research, its First-Year Experience, its interdisciplinary studies, and its information technology as the 7^th Most Wired College in the Country.  

You have also persevered through and been strengthened by one of the most dramatic tragedies of the past 50 years.  The events and aftermath of September 11^th will define your undergraduate experience, perhaps even your generation.  Your leadership during this national crisis was a testimony to your character and your compassion.  If September 11 was the most important test of your college career, you passed with excellent marks and your resolve in the face of adversity gives all of us hope for the future.

Indeed, the sun shines brightly on our Albion College and may it continue to shine brightly on the lives of these 348 graduates.  This class will always be very special not simply because of what you have accomplished, but because of who and what you are and will become – generous, thoughtful, compassionate, enthusiastic leaders of the 21^st Century. 

On behalf of Albion College and the Class of 2002, allow me to pay tribute to those who have steadfastly supported these graduates, morally, spiritually, and financially.  To the parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles of the graduates, without you this day would not be possible and because of you it is a joyous celebration of life and learning and love.  Graduates, please rise, face the audience, and join me in giving a round of applause for your families and friends for their love and support.

One of the traditions of an Albion graduation is to pay tribute to retiring faculty.  Today, we are saying farewell to six individuals who have given dedicated service to Albion College.  As I read your name, please stand and remain standing until all have been acknowledged and please hold applause until all are introduced.  These six individuals have committed a cumulative total of 186 years of service to Albion College.  A marvelous testimony to our motto, Liberal Arts at Work.

Vera Wenzel is retiring after having  directed our Center for International Education for the past eight years. Under her leadership, the program has grown both in the number of students served and the number of academic majors represented.  Of this year’s graduating class, 39 percent participated in an off-campus semester. Mrs. Wenzel has been a wise and trusted adviser and an eloquent advocate for the importance of off-campus study as part of our students’ total educational experience. Prior to directing our off-campus programs, she taught in our Foreign Languages Department for 17 years. 

Professor of mathematics Ron Fryxell introduced computing as an academic discipline at Albion College and has been involved in computer science course development ever since. As a guest scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dr. Fryxell pursued his interests in artificial intelligence and robotics. More recently, he has focused on innovations in statistics, which he has incorporated into course work in that area. Many of his students have gone on to work in applied mathematics, and he has taught numerous elementary and secondary school teachers, college professors, and computer scientists. 

Professor of biology Richard Mortensen was the first recipient of the Albion College Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, in 1972, and has consistently been regarded as a “teacher’s teacher” by the students. All together, he has been honored four times by the College for his teaching and advising. Dr. Mortensen has guided numerous students to successful careers in medicine and biological research, and has himself contributed significantly to the understanding of Great Lakes marine life.  He served as assistant dean of the faculty and dean of the summer college from 1974 to 1976.

During his tenure in the foreign languages department, professor Max Noordhoorn has helped develop the study of German at Albion College from a “language and literature” program to a more comprehensive German studies program, bringing cultural, historical, and artistic studies into the German major. A scholar of various 19th and 20th century German poets, Dr. Noordhoorn has also been very active in helping current high school teachers of German refine their skills.  Dr. Noordhoorn actually will return to campus in the fall, to teach one last first-year seminar on the Middle Ages.  

Professor of physics John Williams has incorporated a 19th-century telescope, 21st-century equipment and technology, and two distinctly different observatories into one excellent program in astronomy. Dr. Williams also deserves special recognition for his simultaneous service as the College’s first director of academic computing, where he guided faculty and students to understand and then realize the potential of the digital age.

As a member of the Physical Education Department, Tim Williams has taught courses in health and wellness and in exercise physiology and has been department chair. Over the years, he has also served Albion as men’s cross country coach, women’s basketball coach, and men’s assistant basketball coach. During a leave from the College from 1983 to 1987, he served with the United States Army in Texas. Dr. Williams is passionate about health and wellness issues and began his second career, teaching health seminars, in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Winter Olympics. 

I am pleased to announce that each of these faculty members has been awarded the honor, professor emeritus, by the Board of Trustees.  Thank you for all you have done for your students and for Albion College.  We wish you all godspeed.  And now I ask the entire faculty to stand and allow the graduates and their families  to express their appreciation for the extraordinary job you have done as teachers, mentors, and friends.

Would you please stand for recognition so richly deserved.

At this time it is my privilege to introduce graduating senior Emily Thompson. Graduating magna cum laude, Emily majored in English with a specialty in creative writing. A former editor of Albion’s campus newspaper, The Pleiad, and of the literary magazine, The Albion Review, she earned departmental honors in English, and is a member of the national leadership honorary society, Omicron Delta Kappa. Please join me in welcoming Emily Thompson to address the graduating seniors of 2002.

Emily E. Thompson '02

President Mitchell, Platform Party, Seniors…Greetings!

The Saturday before our first day of classes for this year, I helped my friends move into the house that would grow to become their home for the duration of our senior year.  At the end of our junior year, my friends had been blessed with good fortune: they fared well in the disdained housing lottery and scored a much coveted annex—the white one, with the rather large front porch that sits smack dab next to Wesley Hall.

That Saturday before the first day of classes was a hot one, and we tired quite early from carrying boxes and futons, CD players and TVs up and down the stairs of the unfortunately un-air-conditioned house. 

So we took a break, sat on that rather large front porch and watched the goings-on at Wesley Hall.  The freshmen and their parents, exhausted and hot from moving their boxes and futons, CD players and TVs up and down the stairs of the building they would soon call home.  We watched and we laughed, remembering freshman year and how we brought too much, thinking every picture frame, every letter, every ounce of anything from high school would be too important to forget.  We remembered the simple fact of our parents helping with the move-in, and we were thankful those days were so far behind us.  Independence, it seemed, had finally settled it.  We watched and we laughed.  And we smiled, but felt a little ache inside. 

That day I sat among my best friends, and we said, “This is the beginning of the end.”

And so we remembered the beginning.

The WCW wrestling matches in an overcrowded Wesley Hall lounge, how a group of inventive guys from First West mixed a little stage makeup and a lot of imagination and brought us a new show every Monday, every Monday reminding us to “Smell what the Rock was cooking.”

Baldwin.  And Mary and Bev. And how if we asked really nice, they would let us click ourselves into the cafeteria.  

Those fire drills freshman year, and how they always seemed to come at the most inopportune times, like the night before a first semester final when in the midst of cramming the carbon cycle and reviewing American Democracy the last thing we wanted to do was remember to lock our doors, file out in an orderly manner, and wait to be let back into the building.  Most likely it was pouring rain or we were in our bathrobes; that’s the way it always seemed to work.

One of our own, Deja Creed, went on a softball team training trip, ended up meeting Bob Barker, and found out that the price was indeed right as she walked away with a brand new truck.

Kurt Medland made it to college Jeopardy and we watched in anticipation as he almost outsmarted even Alex Trebec.

Some of us pledged sororities and fraternities.  Some opted not too, each choice we made in attempts to find out who we were, who we would become.

We witnessed the evolution of our campus: the Mae Karro Village in all it air-conditioned glory, the Ungrodt Tennis Center, and the Ferguson Building, which, as I stand here now is simply striking.

We waged snowball fights. Sledded down Victory park hill at midnight. Played Frisbee on the quad and chased after black squirrels.  We celebrated 21^st birthdays at Cascarelli’s and Gina’s.

And amidst all this, we managed to get an education.  We took classes like Jazz and the American Culture, Organic Chemistry, Bowling, Ball Room Dancing, American Political Theory, Feminist Theory, Literary Theory…all because we had a choice: attend a college and get an education or attend Albion College and earn a liberal arts education.

And so that’s what we did.  We took classes that might not have always fit our individual majors or courses of study but that would teach us something, about how the world works and why.  I am an English major, but I stand here today and tell you I would not be the same person had I not taken Wes Dick’s the 1960s, studied abroad or learned how to canoe.

We attended guest lectures by Howard Zinn and Doris Kearns Goodwin, Rubin Hurricane Carter and Kurt Vonnegut because we would be better people for it, because the classroom can’t teach everything.  Because sometimes all it takes is a good lecture or concert of day spent running through Victory Park to teach you how to be human. 

We did all of this, yes.  And we survived adversity.  I couldn’t talk about our senior year and who we are today as we’re about to receive our diplomas and leave this place without mentioning the September 11^th tragedy.  That day came, and we were left befuddled, dumbstruck at how the world works, and why.  For days, we wondered, what sort of world are we living in? And are we, “the future,” ready to handle such hardship?  On September 11^th we lost too many to something that was simply out of our hands.  And on the days and months after September 11^th, we lost best friends and mothers, friends and family.  If we learned anything outside the classroom this year, we learned about loss.  

And so what do we do with this?  We keep on keeping on.  Because even when life is painful, there is simply no point in losing sight of your dreams.

I ended my college career with Dr. Collar’s Contemporary Literature course.  In that class, we read a novel that I will forever consider a gift to me, because it just couldn’t have come at a better time…during those last days when the weather finally turned nice and the end was so close, like a carrot in front of a cartoon rabbit, dangling just out of reach, and all I wanted to do was call it quits, forget about graduation, forget about the future.  Arundhati Roy’s novel THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS just couldn’t have come at a better time.  In it, Ms. Roy quotes those rock icons the Rolling Stones and their song RUBY TUESDAY.

“Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.”

If I am to leave you, my classmates, with any bit of wisdom, it is that.  Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.  To tell you the truth, there was a time right around September and October when I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave this place, enter the world and strive for any sort of dream.  

But today I can tell you this: We are together now, one last time as Albion College’s class of 2002.  And we are about to walk across this stage and away from this place and attend law school, med school, enter the teach for America program, enter Americorp, work for non profits, work as economists and accountants, poets, writers, chemists and artists.  Become husbands and wives.  Wait tables?

(Talk about diversity).

And we’re going to do these things because they’re part of our plans and dreams, the big picture, and because every thing we do, no matter how small it seems, everything we do matters.  So whatever you do, whether diving into your life head first or just sort of waiting around in the kiddy pool until you’re comfortable, please do it with your whole self.  Because we are the future, and our dreams are everything.  So don’t forget them.  No matter what happens, don’t lose sight of what it is you really want to do.  As a class, I think all we can ask is that each of us finds something that makes us happiest.  Don’t let yourself get muddled down in the job for the sake of the job.  Hold out for what you want.

Albion college has provided us with the tools to do so, an education to fight back against ignorance, terror, violence and apathy, and to keep fighting and working until we have reached our dreams.  Please utilize these tools. 

And please don’t forget what you have learned here.  And don’t forget who taught you.  The Albion College faculty, their willingness to share, their love of learning, their emotion and friendship.  We have had professors and coaches open up their homes to us, treat us like family.  Please join me in thanking our teachers for our invaluable education.

And don’t forget to thank your family.  Had it not been for my parents, I certainly would not have had the financial backing to attend this institution.  More important were their constant love and support.  I simply do not have the words to thank my parents and family; I am certain you feel the same way.

And let me tell you about friends.  Hands down, there is no way I would be here without the four years of understanding, love, support and utter acceptance from my best friends.  My friends have shaped my life in ways I could not have foreseen on my own.  And so, they’ll remain my best friends for life.  And I am sure you feel the same way about yours.

So. Please remember to be thankful to each person who has helped you become who you are.  And be proud.  Be so proud.  Because you are an Albion College graduate, and you are about to enter the world and change the world.  If I could do the impossible and use one word to describe our Albion College educational experience, that word would be extraordinary.  Simply extraordinary.  And if I were to do the impossible and use one word to describe us, the graduating seniors of the class of 2002, I would use that same word: Extraordinary.

Seniors, welcome to our commencement.  Thanks for four fabulous years.  Good luck and Godspeed. 

Address
Edmund L. Jenkins '57
"Your Albion Experience—Prepared for the Future"

President Mitchell, members of the faculty, fellow honorary degree recipient, Dr. Riecker, fellow graduates and your parents and friends, it is a sincere privilege for me to be with you today at my alma mater on this beautiful campus on a beautiful spring day.  I shall treasure this day and the honor you have bestowed on me more than you will ever know.

This is a great day for the graduates of this fine college.  You can be proud of what you have accomplished and all of us associated with you today are proud for you.

You are fortunate, I believe, to have studied in a liberal arts atmosphere - - one that has permitted you to explore a broad landscape of subjects, thoughts, and ideas.  As an Albion graduate, I too am a product of a liberal arts education and it has served me well - - both in my professional career, as well as in my interests in public service.  As a trustee here at Albion I continue to observe that graduates benefit from their liberal arts education.  You will not be exceptions to those advantages.

At this stage of your lives, it’s not so much what you have learned, although that certainly will be useful, it’s more that you have developed skills, techniques, and a mind set that will let you learn on your own as you go forward.  You have learned how to learn.  You have the skills to ask the right questions and find the right answers.

Life in general and success in your chosen profession is a continuing process of exploration, testing, and learning.  Remember that much of what you will need to know in the future isn’t known today.  What worked for my generation and even for my children’s generation likely won’t work for you.  You have to figure it out for yourselves.

Even at the most practical level, your liberal arts education should provide you with advantageous tools to succeed.  In my experience I found that it was crucial to success to have the ability to analyze the results, and articulate both orally and in writing a defense of positions taken in a persuasive and logical fashion.  In a way that was convincing to others.

You have learned during your years at Albion how to succeed in the same way.  I’m proud of my Albion liberal arts experience and you should be too.

You also have gained at least one more thing from your years at Albion- - friends.  And, a campus like ours has provided a size and atmosphere that facilitates developing friendships.  From your freshman roommate, to your favorite professor and mentor to the love of your life, you have, I trust, friends that are well worth keeping.  As my wife and I have transferred from place to place over the years, we have gained many new friends, but we always have tried to maintain our old friends.  I’m very pleased that my Albion room mate from more than 45 years ago and his wife are here today.  Friends are a constant to be relied on in a changing environment - - a source of comfort and advice.  They are non-judgmental in an all too often judgmental world.  But maintaining friends as we scatter over the world requires an investment.  Like any other asset, friendships must be nurtured and maintained.  But, investments in friends are good investments.  So, spend the stamp, the phone call, the time for an email or the occasional plane fare to keep in touch.

    * * *

During your senior year you have experienced two events that will likely have an impact on you - - and all of us - - for the rest of your lives.  The first was the September 11^th terrorism attack on the United States.  The second was the implosion of Enron Corporation.  While starkly different, with the September 11^th much more tragic in its loss of lives, there are many similarities and lessons involved in these two events.

Both reflect greed, intolerance toward others, a lack of concern over one’s fellow human beings, a failure to be responsible for the consequences of one’s actions and a loss of lives or livelihoods for many.

What is the message for the future for us from these two highly publicized and perverse events?  What have we learned from our experiences at Albion that will help?

Well, I believe we have developed a personal sense of integrity and ethics at Albion that causes us to respect each other as individuals, that subsumes greed with fairness to all and that has no place for intolerance toward anyone.           Most of us have been or will be involved in endeavors, professional, commercial or social, where we are responsible to and for others - - employees, investors, customers or patients.  We have learned at Albion that our responsibilities are to treat all with respect and fairness - - to not put ourselves first or above others on issues of equitable treatment.  We can understand that success is not measured by getting one’s own way at all costs.  Success goes well beyond monetary measures.  Success is not measured by destroying lives through terrorism or by misleading others.

Every so often in your lives there will be tragic events like September 11^th or Enron.  We all would wish those things never to happen, but when they do, it will be your responsibility as educated leaders of the future to learn from those events, to apply your Albion liberal arts learning skills and your integrity and ethics to cause change for the better.

Something else happened during your senior year - - a recession.  And, I know it has been difficult for many of you to find employment.  You are not alone.  All across the country graduates are finding jobs tough to come by.  That’s the bad news.

But, there is good news too.  The recession is ending; business is picking up.  The Conference Board recently announced that its index of business confidence shot up in the first quarter and both Ford and GM have increased production schedules.  And, as mentioned earlier, the skills you have learned at Albion should help.  You have learned to be resourceful and you have strong interpersonal skills.  You know how to learn new things and new ways of doing things.

You can take initiative and use those skills to find and consider options you may not have considered earlier.

And, be persistent; don’t let out-of-sight mean out-of-mind for a prospective employer.  When you have an opportunity, accept it, even if it’s not your first choice.  You will learn things that will help you achieve your first choice.

Good luck and have patience.  And, to your parents, have patience too.   

    * * *

This truly is the first day of the rest of your lives.  That’s why this day is called “commencement day” and not “accomplishment day”.  Your future activities need to be multi-faceted.  While most of you are thinking about your next step into a job or graduate school, I urge you also to look further and to look broader at a whole spectrum of future activities and interests.

You and your peers around the world have unlimited potential.  How you use that potential is up to you.  But don’t limit yourselves.  Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, “Not to participate in the action and passion of the times is to risk the judgement of not having lived at all.”

I have little doubt but that you will make significant contributions to society through your work in whatever profession you choose.  But, to truly “participate in the action and passion of the times” you will want to do more.

Public service, particularly in the Albion community, has been a part of the Albion experience for many of you.  Public service is an important part of a full life, and I urge you to participate in some way throughout your lives.  It’s a win-win situation.  Society will benefit from your contribution, but you will gain even more.  I have found my activities with Chicago Child Care Society - - providing adoption and foster care services for difficult to place children - - to be as valuable and rewarding as my work in the accounting profession.  I have found my years of service as a trustee of Albion College to be of great satisfaction. Through these and other public service activities, I gained leadership skills, developed friendships that I would never have had and significantly broadened my insights and understandings of social issues in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.

You can and should begin your public service now.  Start by helping your church, or by mentoring a child, coaching a little league team or by helping Albion with its annual fund.  You will find, as I have, that such involvement makes you feel really good.

U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd from Connecticut said this about social responsibility; “...It’s not a burden to be reluctantly shouldered.  It’s simply an invitation to enjoy life.”

    * * *

You have the advantage of youth.  Use it - - but in a constructive, not an arrogant way.  I have always found it advantageous to be associated with young people - - those with fresh ideas who don’t have enough experience to always play it safe.  Working together, it’s a great combination.  So you should always value the contribution you can make even though you are young and inexperienced.  Be quietly confident of your value.  And, don’t be afraid to fail.  Winston Churchill, who had plenty of experience with both success and failure, said, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”  LeeAnn Womak in one of this past year’s most popular songs, sings “If you get a choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.”  Well, I too hope you dance.

Maintaining a youthful approach and attitude will serve you well in your life’s work, in public service, and in all that you do to serve the public interest. 

    * * *

Finally, I hope you will always endeavor to enjoy life.  Work is often, well - - work, but if you can follow the advice of Confucius it doesn’t have to be.  This is my very favorite admonition:  “Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”  I have been fortunate always to have had that experience, and I hope you have the same opportunities.

    * * *

Gary Trudeau, the Doonsbury cartoonist, explained that commencement speeches, “. . .were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.”  In fear that that might actually happen today, let me close by saying that I concur with what Alan Greenspan said to a recent graduating class, “You have made the best investment there is - - education.”

Your minds, your reputations, your integrity, and your friends are your most valuable assets.  Given the events of this past year - - September 11 and Enron - - never have those assets meant more.  Invest in them and protect them and you will have a rewarding and fruitful life.  As you leave today, you commence on a journey that is in your hands.  Your Albion experience leaves you well prepared.  Go - - and have fun.  Io Triumphe!

Thank you.

Click here for a biography and press release about Edmund L. Jenkins.