W&J holds 217th commencement
Congressman John Lewis gives the keynote address during Washington & Jefferson College’s 2016 commencement ceremony.
Congressman John Lewis gives the keynote address during Washington & Jefferson College’s 2016 commencement ceremony.
Congressman John Lewis receives an Honorary Doctor of Laws from W&J President Tori Haring-Smith.
Members of Washington & Jefferson College’s Class of 2016 process from Old Main to the commencement ceremony.
Members of the Class of 2016 walk from Old Main to the commencement ceremony in the lawn of Olin Fine Arts Center Saturday at Washington & Jefferson College.
Members of the Class of 2016 process from Old Main to the commencement ceremony.
Graduates of the Class of 2016 are greeted by professors at Old Main following the commencement ceremony.
Washington & Jefferson College President Tori Haring-Smith conferred 287 bachelor degrees to the 2016 graduating class on a rainy Saturday morning under an enormous tent that spanned the lawn of Olin Fine Arts Center.
The college presented honorary degrees to Congressman John Lewis; Imam Khalid Latif, executive director and chaplain for the Islamic Center at New York University; Dr. Jean Berko Gleason, a pioneer in the field of linguistics; and Dr. Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for NASA.
Haring-Smith welcomed the students and guests to the 217th commencement ceremony and congratulated the graduates before introducing Lewis, a nationally recognized leader during the Civil Rights Movement who delivered the keynote address.
Lewis’ address to the graduates focused on their responsibility to unite the world and promote peace and justice.
“This is your day. Enjoy it, take a long deep breath and take it all in. But tomorrow, you must be prepared to roll up your sleeves because the world is waiting for talented and smart men and women to lead it to a better place,” Lewis said.
He recalled growing up on a 110-acre farm his father, a sharecropper, purchased for $300 in 1944, and the segregation he encountered as a child in Troy, Ala. He told the graduates when he asked his parents and grandparents why he and other black children had to watch movies at the theater from the balcony instead of on the first floor where white children sat, they explained, “That’s the way it is,” and warned him not to get into trouble.
He talked about being spit on by whites, and having hot water and coffee poured on him and cigarette butts extinguished in his hair.
“But hearing about Rosa Parks and listening to the words of Martin Luther King inspired me to find a way to get in the way. I got in the way, I got in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble,” said Lewis, who encouraged the graduates to stand up for justice and do what is right. “I say to you graduates, congratulations. But you have a moral obligation with your learning and your education to find a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble. When you see something that’s not right, not fair, not just, you must speak up, speak out, be brave, be very brave, be courageous, be bold.”
Lewis, who despite facing more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries remained devoted to the principle of nonviolence, concluded by telling students they must help the world pull together.
“In the final analysis, we are all one people, we are all one family, we are all one house. We all live in the same house, not just the American house but the world house. Maybe our foremothers and our forefathers all came to this great land in different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now,” he said. “We must look out for each other and care for each other. It doesn’t matter if we’re white or African-American, Latino, Asian-American or Native American. It doesn’t matter whether we’re straight or gay or transgender. You must hold our house together … we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will, as Dr. King said, perish as fools. Dream dreams, keep the faith and never hate, for hate is too heavy a burden to bear.”
Natalie Gill, an English major with minor in communication arts, delivered the senior address.
Lewis received an honorary Doctor of Laws. On March 7, 1965, he helped lead more than 600 peaceful protesters across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in what later became known as Bloody Sunday. He has received many awards, including the Medal of Freedom, presented by President Barack Obama, and a John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for Lifetime Achievement. Lewis was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in Georgia in 1986 and has been re-elected 14 times.
An honorary Doctor of Divinity was presented to Latif, who is co-founder of the Of Many Institute and was named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.
Stofan, NASA chief scientist since 2013, received an honorary Doctor of Science. The daughter of a NASA scientist and a science teacher, she serves as principal adviser to the NASA administrator and senior officials on agency science programs, planning and investments.
Gleason, a professor emerita in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, received an honorary Doctor of Science. She conducted breakthrough work on language acquisition in children and is the inventor of the Wug Test, which uses nonsense words to study children’s understanding of simple language rules. She is fluent in several languages, including Sanskrit, Russian and Norwegian.