Contact information: Allyson Algeo at (207) 725-3961 or page at 1-800-498-0077 PIN: 3708
Bowdoin college awarded honorary degrees to a former senator, a South African activist, a poet, an art historian and the College's retiring president when Maine's oldest college held its 196th commencement exercises Saturday. The College also awarded more than 400 bachelor'sdegrees.
Since 1806, Bowdoin has given the honor of speaking at commencement to graduating seniors, rather than celebrities. This year one of the speakers was Bowdoin's oldest graduating senior, Christine DeTroy, of Brunswick, Maine, who is 72. She first became familiar with the college when her husband was a student on the GI Bill after World War II. She graduates from Bowdoin, 51 years after her husband did (and 31 years after her son). The other student speaker was Nathaniel Vinton of Salt Lake City, Utah. (complete transcripts of the student speeches are available on the Bowdoin Web Site at http://sun.bowdoin.edu)
Bowdoin awarded honorary degrees to Theodore Stebbins of Brookline, Mass., authority on American art, former curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and curator at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum; Mamphela Ramphele, South African national now in Washington D.C., doctor, activist, former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town and managing director of the World Bank; Maxine Kumin of Warner, New Hampshire, Pulitzer prize-winning poet and former poet laureate of New Hampshire; Paul Simon, of Carbondale, Ill., politician and former United States senator; and Robert H. Edwards of Brunswick, Maine, retiring president of Bowdoin College, lawyer, administrator, and zealous supporter of liberal arts education.
Following are excerpts from the honorands remarks and the text of the student speeches:
Paul Simon: "You have created an improved Bowdoin, and now comes the much greater test. Can you create an improved world?...You will be leaders...Leaders can appeal to the greed, the selfishness, the beast in us, or they can appeal to the noble in us. I urge you to appeal to the noble in us--We all change history, either positively or negatively or through indifference by turning it over to others. I want you graduates here to change history positively."
Ted Stebbins: "If you will let them, works of art can teach you more about the human condition than all the prose in the world...Collections are not luxuries. They represent the human need to gather and preserve knowledge."
Mamphela Ramphele: "Since arriving near midnight on Thursday in the House of Bob and Blythe, I've been reflecting on what it means to connect, what it means to feel that you belong. I've never been to this part of the world before, but I felt at home the moment I got out of the car...I have come to the conclusion that what makes us feel like we belong is the recognition of the I in You and the You in I."
My Bowdoin Education Began in September of 1947Christine Anne DeTroy, '01
Speaker Saxl, Honorands, Mr. Kurtz, President Edwards, Distinguished Guests, Members of the Bowdoin Community, and Friends:
My Bowdoin education began in September of 1947. It was the month when my husband Pete, a veteran of World War II, matriculated at Bowdoin, and it was only a few months after I had arrived in this country from Germany. My education, although it did not take place in a Bowdoin classroom, began by becoming a part of the College community, getting to know the faculty and students at social functions, becoming a member of the Bowdoin Wives Association, a group of women whose husbands were attending Bowdoin College on the G. I. Bill, and getting involved in volunteer activities. I tutored some of my husband's fellow classmates in Beginning German, wrapped Christmas presents in the bookstore, and worked in the Art Museum during on semester break. It was a brand new world for me, a time of learning and listening, reading and discussing, and late night typing of my husband's papers on an ancient manual type writer.
Everything about Bowdoin and Brunswick was new and exciting for me after the years of the oppressive Hitler regime, the years of World War II and the post-war years. Here was no fear, here was no hunger, at least not from my limited perspective. There were people who smiled, people who wanted to be friends, people who helped me to adjust to my new environment. There was that famous Bowdoin hello, a greeting one extended to those one knew well and to those one barely knew. It was an amazing experience.
But it was also a time when I learned about segregation and racism, even at Bowdoin. Although, of course, it was not sanctioned. The institution of segregation between the races in the United States was something about which I knew nothing when I arrived here in '47. Having read the Bill of Rights, I did not question that equality among the races was a commitment that all United States citizens freely acknowledged. I was very young and naive, eager to believe in democracy's promise of universal equality and justice..
What did I learn at Bowdoin while my husband worked toward his degree? I believe I matured and learned to have self-confidence in my ideas, self-confidence to express myself, self-confidence to go against the grain of set behavior and traditions if they were contrary to my principles. Having grown up under the dictatorship of the Third Reich during World War II, my life had been based on survival, which included quiet obedience to public commands. Even as a child I was aware of the regime which not only controlled all information and action, but which actively encourage spying, even among children. In school and on the playground I had to look around and check who listened before I could open my mouth. Listening to a foreign radio station was a punishable crime and when we did turn to the BBC station our radio was put on a pillow, the sound turned way down, my sister would listen with the ear right next to the speaker, while on of us looked through a slit in the curtain to make sure no one was standing out near the house. Now, living in a new world, I was not willing to live in silence ever again and I must acknowledge my husband's understanding of my need to speak with an unfettered voice.
In February of 1950, a few months before my husband graduated from Bowdoin, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his crusade against Communism in this country, actually a crusade against anyone who did not share his political fears. Using the tactics of guilt by association and casting doubt among people about what it meant to be a "loyal" American, he created uncertainty and distrust. People everywhere began to be afraid to discuss progressive ideas because they might not be considered to be a loyal American. Even Bowdoin was affected by the presence of McCarthy, although discussions among some students continued freely. McCarthy and his methods of intimidation and persecution frightened me, not because of the issues themselves, but because the division he created within the United States threatened open discussion and the freedom to disagree. Was I intimidated by McCarthy? No, I had feared speakers like the Senator in Germany, but now my personal fear was gone. I know that my ideals were seeded and nurtured by my mother and our friends in the artist colony in Northern Germany where I grew up, but certainly Bowdoin was the first environment where I was able to test my beliefs and where I could express my thoughts on the major issues of justice and freedom.
After my husband, and our two children, and I left Bowdoin in 1950, we moved to Wesleyan University, from there to Columbia University, back to Brunswick, and many other locations around the country until my husband and I returned here in the fall of 1989. In the intervening years our family had grown to include seven children and all of them grew up with a sense of political independence, which was an essential component of our family. Yes, we marched for Civil Rights and for peace and human rights in Washington and Chicago. Yes, I insisted that even as children they be aware of injustice and oppression and accept the consequences of an unpopular stance. I hoped that the voice I had to struggle for should be equally important to them, not to be taken for granted or ignored.
After our sojourn of forty-eight years, years spend in tending to our family and the public and private causes which moved our spirit, our return to Bowdoin was a homecoming for both of us! Within the year my husband was attending math courses at the College and I was working at the Career Planning Center. With the financial assistance of a Bowdoin employee benefit program, which allows staff members to attend classes and matriculate, I embarked on a course of study which has brought me to this point - a member of the graduating Class of 2001. Pete has been my inspiration all these years. That he is not with us to share in the joy and excitement of this day is a source of great sadness, but although absent in body, Pete's spirit has always been present - as it is today, even though he could not respond to my please for help during late night struggles with difficult reading and essay assignments: I would say, "Pete, why aren't you here to discuss this with me?"
My classroom education has been a singular experience for me. Yes, I knew that I had a lot to learn, but I did not know that I knew so little. My experiences had been in the practical worlds, wife, mother, and activist plus a few jobs outside the home. It was time to back up my ideas and ideals with sound knowledge.
What has been most remarkable for me in my course of study ahs been the self-knowledge that I have gained over the past six years. German being my native language, but actually knowing very little about German thought and imaginative writing, I began my classroom education at Bowdoin in the German department and chose to be a German major. My study of German literature has given me insight into myself and has broadened my understanding of myself within my native culture. I have accepted that, for better or for worse, I did not create the person who I am, but that I was impacted by German culture and the events and experience during the Nazi regime. I acknowledge that the Holocaust ahs been and continues to be the singular and most painful part of my German heritage. I submit that I cannot do anything but grieve for the innocent victims of the Holocaust, for nothing can alleviate or erase the pain it has caused.
The knowledge I have gained in my German literature courses, in the courses of African-American literature and history (I am an Africana Studies minor), and other courses, have added immeasurable to my life. How will I use this learning? No, I am not embarking on another career, but I shall return to community activism with a deeper understanding of the issues that face all of us. Primarily, I am interested in working with young people, a field in which I had been engaged for several years before our return to Maine. Some of my most meaningful years were spent directing a community center in east Norwalk, Connecticut, and I would like to be involved in a similar program again. I envision a center in Brunswick for and with young people, which does not focus on conformity, but on individualism within the context of self-respect and common concern. Did I mention that I have twenty-two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren? I would like to spend many more hours with them so that we can get to know each other better.
Why have I told you my story? Not to offer anyparticular wisdom I may have gained along the way, but to encourage my fellow students, as well as their families, actually all of us all around the campus today, to use our education beyond the marketplace, beyond the golf course and the racquet club; to know that you have a voice with which you can speak up, in common cause with people everywhere. My personal advice - longingly given: be inclusive and liberate yourself from selfishness and elitism; apply the insights you have gained through your education in all situations, but do not assume that you education automatically entitles you to a leadership position; do not believe that an individual nor a nation is singled out to be a leader among others because of wealth and power; contribute your learning and who you are to achieve equality and justice among your neighbors and people everywhere. This is what our liberal arts education has prepared us for!
It's been nearly fifty-four years since I first arrived at the College and began my Bowdoin education. Today I am thrilled to be able to stand before you as a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. I thank God and the whole Bowdoin community for those wonderful years.
"Maine's Absent Presence"Nathaniel Chase Vinton
Speaker Saxl, Honorands, Mr. Kurtz, President Edwards, Distinguished guests, Members of the Bowdoin community and Friends. Today the "proud company" of our Alma Mater gets even prouder.
Four years ago I was drawn here at least in part because I was star-struck by Bowdoin's alumni rolls-by names like Joshua Chamberlain and Joan Benoit. Their accomplishments are so varied, and so extraordinary. But today I think many of my classmates will agree that the idea of joining our names with these is rather daunting.
Artists are familiar with a concept that I think might help our class to understand the tradition of which we are all about to become a small part. There is an artistic principle known as an absent presence-easy enough to understand intuitively. this is the theory that all works of art make implicit references. The absent presence is the idea that hides just beyond the margins of the canvas, of the tale, or of the symphony. The absent presence is invisible, but it is nonetheless the very thing which organizes a chaos of words and images into something meaningful-into a story or a painting or a life. For example, we might say that the absent presence in Herman Melville's Moby Dick is the slave trade, or that the absent presence of the TV series Star Trek is the Cold War, or even that the absent presence of the crashing and searing rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock was napalm. Yet I fear that I have misled you with these examples that the absent presence of every artful thing needs to be something horrific. If this were true, then we'd need to discount love poetry entirely. We'd need to discount Ferris Bueller's Day Off, because there is an absent presence operating indirectly on Ferris's life; his need to cut class and live for the moment is explained by his impending graduation. And graduation is not that horrific. Is it?
For me, the best evidence that the absent presence of something beautiful needs not be something awful is the fact that for two hundred years, graduates of this college have led lives that were courageous and meaningful. The intangible thing that has driven and guided the accomplishments of people like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Geoffrey Canada, and Ellen Baxter is something altogether grand and humane. Certainly these people have benefited from all the learning, all the tradition, all the concentrated talent that Bowdoin has to offer. But while one could make a case for any of these influences, I would propose that there is something else that leaves its impression on every member of this community. I want to say that there is something in the very air in Maine-a Maine sensibility-that functions as an absent presence in the lives of Bowdoin graduates. There is something unassuming but extraordinary about this state, and it has indirectly shaped all of the people receiving degrees today.
This fall I spent a good deal of time exploring the marshes of Merrymeeting Bay with one of our professors. There, when the tide rises, salt water starts pushing its way back up the streams that feed the bay. So if your timing is just right, you can float up any one of these streams and into the woods without even paddling. You ultimately arrive at the remote ponds which migrating ducks retreat to in foul weather. One morning, we were riding one of these streams back down into the bay, when my professor pointed out something that I had not noticed on the way up. Here was a dead tree that had fallen across the stream; on the way up, we had had to crouch down in the canoe in order to squeeze through a gap in its branches. But what I hadn't noticed until my professor pointed it out to me was that the gap in the branches was only there because someone had very neatly and very discreetly taken a saw to one of the tree's limbs, cutting it off right near the trunk. This had produced a space just exactly wide enough for an ordinary canoe to float through the deadfall. This meant that there had been no sound of wood scraping against the sides of the boat-in short, the person with the saw had saved us from scaring away the birds that we were looking for.
Absent presences. Heading back to campus later on, we drove along a very remote dirt road that circled around that part of the bay. This was the muddiest road I'd ever seen, and my professor was forced to drive slowly. Here were mobile homes, their yards packed with gutted trucks and rusted out washing machines. And now it was my turn to point something out, because in one of the yards was a camouflaged canoe lying beside a working pickup truck. In the back window of that truck was a gun rack. And sitting neatly in the gun rack was a small handsaw.
I tell this story about the handsaw because I think that it is emblematic of a certain sensibility that is native to Maine-a resourceful and inconspicuous practicality. I believe that this sensibility has been here since the conception of this institution and has always expressed itself in the actions of the people who have spent time here. Perhaps you already suspected this. Perhaps you, my classmates, already feel this sensibility working upon you, indirectly. But if you should happen to be skeptical-as all good Bowdoin graduates should be-then I would put before you the example of George Mitchell's role in establishing, in 1998, the Northern Ireland Peace Accords. Can anyone deny an inconspicuous practicality at work there? Or consider the resourcefulness that so dignifies Geoffrey Canada's creativity in the face of urban despair. We're talking here about people who are not afraid to tinker with their worlds, to take actions that make their community a better place for everyone to live. I'm quite sure that thousands of Bowdoin graduates are out there right now, doing equally great things and often without any expectation of recognition. They are writing plays, saving forests and curing cancer. They are the absent presences, thanklessly organizing the chaos of this world into something beautiful and meaningful.
All of the women in my family come from Maine. They would never allow me to forget that some of the people living in those remote trailers alongside Maine's coastal marshes are my own distant relatives. I grew up far from here, but Maine was always an absent presence for me. I was raised to believe that most of humanity's noblest achievements found their origin in the mud and the atmosphere of this place. My grandmother in particular will make the case that the prominence of Bowdoin's name in history has everything to do with the location of Bowdoin's campus in Maine. My grandmother told me, four years ago, that this was a sensible place that produced sensible people. She reminded me that the school colors were black and white.
The world outside of Bowdoin is rarely black and white; the world outside of Maine is not always sensible. It is a world full of dead trees falling across streams. But it is also full of a surprising number of people who have left these same steps armed with all kinds of tools, and who are now trimming away, discreetly-making passage easier for people they might not even know. And today you join them in that endeavor, and it is a noble endeavor, and you are sensible people. Good luck.
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