Selected Speeches
2006 Opening Exercises Greeting and Address
President Shirley M. Tilghman
September 10, 2006
Greeting
Good afternoon. I am delighted to welcome you to Opening Exercises, when we officially usher in the new academic year.
I would like to extend a special welcome to the undergraduate Class of
2010 – all 1,230 of you – and to our 580 entering graduate students.
You come from many places, cultures and traditions, but today you sit
together as budding Princetonians, united in your anticipation of the
opportunities for discovery, creative expression, friendship and public
service that await you. I am pleased to report that our freshmen come
from 47 states and the District of Columbia, as well as 43 countries,
with hometowns as different as Grapevine, Texas, and Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam. Fully 38 percent of our newest graduate students hail from
other nations, so it is no exaggeration to say that the world has come
to Princeton, helping all of us to become true cosmopolitans.
I would also like to take this opportunity to greet the 47 scholars who
are joining our faculty this fall. Their scholarly work, in fields
ranging from Near Eastern studies to mathematics to comparative
literature, addresses some of the most compelling questions of our
time, and I hope that many of you will have a chance to explore these
issues with them. Finally, I would like to extend the warmest of
welcomes to new members of the staff, who do so much – often behind the
scenes – to sustain this University community.
Walking down the aisle of the chapel this afternoon, looking into your
faces, I am struck by the enormous potential that resides in each and
every one of you, and by what a tremendous opportunity you now have, in
this truly privileged place, to realize your dreams and to soar. I look
forward to watching you fulfill those dreams, making Princeton and, in
time, our world a better place for all.
It is now my pleasure to invite Dean of the College and Professor of
History Nancy Weiss Malkiel to recognize the academic achievements of
five exceptional undergraduates.
Address
Today marks the beginning of a great adventure for the members of what I have every reason to believe will become the great
Class of 2010. And it is to you, in particular, that I want to direct
my words this afternoon. In the course of the next four years, you will
find that there are more ways to look at the world than there are books
in Firestone Library; you will learn that the pursuit of knowledge is
both liberating and demanding; and you will discover your capacity to
grow as scholars, citizens and classmates.
Now all of this may seem a little nebulous as you fret about the
sleeping habits of your roommates or debate the wisdom of your course
selections or try to navigate the campus without looking as bewildered
as you feel. Yes, you may be thinking, it’s great that I am going to
Princeton, but the questions that concern me most right now are “Will I
survive?” and “How?”
I can answer the first of these questions with a simple yes. You will
survive. For we have chosen you with care, and you, I know, have looked
us over thoroughly as well. All of you are exceptionally gifted in one
way or another, or perhaps in more ways than one; all of you have shown
a clear determination to use your talents to the full; and all of you
bring something different – and something special – to your class and
to our campus. Once you find your academic sea legs, you will do much
more than survive – you will thrive, exploring new fields of
knowledge, delighting us all with your artistic and athletic prowess,
challenging us with your original world view, forming lifelong
friendships, and finding ways to be of service to others. In time, the
butterflies you feel today will be just a distant memory, and your
confidence in your abilities will match the faith that we have placed
in each and every one of you.
How to make the most of your time at Princeton requires a longer
answer, but I think it can be boiled down to five essential ingredients
– the keys to a truly successful undergraduate experience.
First and foremost, find and then follow your passions. This is not the
time in your life to play it safe or to rest on your laurels. This is a
time to be adventurous and to be honest with yourself about what really
gives meaning to your life. Perhaps you are a closet poet but have
never had the confidence to share your verse with others. If that is
the case, sign up for a course in our Program in Creative Writing where
outstanding poets and teachers like Paul Muldoon and C.K. Williams are
ready to work with you. Perhaps you have been inspired to understand
and find cures for intractable diseases. Then chart a course for the
Lewis Thomas Laboratory, where Professor of Molecular Biology Yigong
Shi is unraveling the molecular mechanisms by which cancer cells make
the decision to grow or die, or for the Lewis-Sigler Institute, where
Professor Manuel Llinás is exploring the life cycle of the Plasmodium
parasite, the cause of malaria, which claims some 1.5 million lives a
year. Or perhaps you want to understand and contribute to the fragile
ties that hold our global community together. If this is your passion,
then I recommend you visit the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, where Professor Gary Bass is exploring the
efficacy of humanitarian interventions and Professor Jennifer Widner is
examining how failed states can be effectively rebuilt. And if you are
a budding engineer, who wants to use technology to change the world, I
suggest you gravitate toward Professors of Computer Science Larry
Peterson and Jennifer Rexford who are inventing the next version of the
Internet.
Or perhaps you are one of the many students who arrive on your first
day at Princeton without having committed yourself to any one subject
or pursuit. You are not only in luck but you are in the majority,
because past history tells us that 70 percent of you are going to
concentrate in a discipline other than the one you declared on your
application to Princeton. For you, our course offerings contain a vast
array of possibilities from which to begin your search for what
fascinates you. Indeed, what makes this University and this point in
your lives so wonderful is that there are very few subjects you cannot pursue. The greatest difficulty you will face, I predict, is narrowing your choices to four or five each semester.
Being true to your passions now may take you in directions that
have little to do with the career you will ultimately follow, but I
want to assure you that this is not a problem. Princeton is not a trade
school where young men and women are groomed for specific occupations.
Rather, the purpose of a liberal arts education – at least the
Princetonian version – was, to my mind, best captured by Woodrow
Wilson, our 13th president, almost 100 years ago. He wrote:
“What we should seek to impart in our colleges, therefore, is not so much learning itself as the spirit of learning. It consists in the power to distinguish good reasoning from bad, in the power to digest and interpret evidence, in a habit of catholic observation and a preference for the non-partisan point of view, in an addiction to clear and logical processes of thought and yet an instinctive desire to interpret rather than to stick to the letter of the reasoning, in a taste for knowledge and a deep respect for the integrity of the human mind.”
This is the reason we place so much emphasis on a multidisciplinary
education – one that encourages scientists to study the novels of Toni
Morrison and the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, and humanists to
study Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Albert
Einstein’s theory of relativity. A liberal arts education is not, as a
literal translation might suppose, a leftwing curriculum for artists.
On the contrary, it encompasses a breadth of academic study that is,
according to the Latin derivation, “proper to free persons.” In
medieval times, education was limited to a small elite, but today the
liberal arts are pursued by all who wish to exercise their minds,
freely and openly, in order to acquire the intellectual grounding they
need to excel in life, regardless of their profession.
This brings me to your parents, who are understandably anxious to turn
the generous investment they are making in your education to good
account. Thanks to the cell phone and e-mail, not to mention text
messaging, you have instant access to your parents, and they have instant access to you.
I can hear them now: “A course on ‘Women and Film’? How is that going
to pay the bills? Will that get you a job?” Such questions, although
perfectly understandable, should not be allowed to drive your
intellectual agenda here. Always remember that a Princeton education,
no matter how impractical it may, at times, appear on paper, is more
than the sum of its parts and will always open doors in the world
beyond the FitzRandolph Gates. Two memorable students of mine in the
Class of 1999 powerfully make this point. The first was a molecular
biology major who won the senior thesis prize in molecular biology for
work she conducted in my lab. She is now a divinity student in Boston.
The second was a classics major whose passion at Princeton was Homer.
He took my introductory course on genetics and evolution to satisfy the
science distribution requirement. Today he is a physician in Tennessee.
In other words, past is not prelude, and now is the time to do what you
are compelled by your intellectual curiosity to do. The future, with
Princeton degree firmly in hand, will take care of itself, and your
life will be richer for it.
My second piece of advice is to be bold and to explore uncharted
territory. Important though it is to follow your longstanding passions,
you should also take this opportunity to embrace the unfamiliar, to
leave your comfort zone, and study subjects or participate in
extracurricular activities that are all but unknown to you right now.
The curriculum is designed so that you can look at the world through
many different prisms: from the behavioral models of psychology to the
moral dilemmas of philosophy; from the universal theories of physics to
the cultural immersion of study abroad. This also entails seeking out
students and professors who differ from and with you, listening to
widely divergent points of view, and questioning your own assumptions.
If you only talk with those who look and think and sound just like you,
you will learn painfully little about your fellow human beings and the
worlds they represent. That is why diversity of every variety is so
much more than a fashionable catchphrase – it is essential to your
intellectual and personal growth and is fundamental to a Princeton
education.
The third thing you should do is pace yourselves. I have given you a
sense of the myriad opportunities before you and, of course, I want you
to take full advantage of your years here, but you can’t do everything
at once or even everything you want to do in four fast-moving years.
Taking on too much in your freshman year is just as problematic as
leaving too much until your senior year. Instead, you need to make wise
choices about how to spend your time, which sometimes means sacrificing
one thing in order to do something else well instead of superficially.
What I am trying to say – and here I may actually win some points with
your parents – is that you need to keep your eye on both the forest and
the trees, but alas not all the trees, or at least not all the trees at
the same time.
A fourth key to success is to understand and embrace the sense of responsibility that comes with an education at an institution like this one. The distinctive qualities of a Princeton education – with its emphasis on independent work conducted in close collaboration with internationally renowned teachers – are possible only because of the loyalty and devotion of generations of Princetonians who have gone before you. They expect that you will not simply be consumers of education, but that you will be users of your education to go out into the world and make a difference; that you will advance the world’s knowledge and understanding; that you will increase its health and well-being; that you will expand its commitment to fair treatment and respect for others; that you will define your lives in terms that are larger than yourselves. Like Wendy Kopp, Class of 1989, whose senior thesis was the genesis for Teach for America, a nonprofit organization that places college graduates in teaching jobs in impoverished schools across the country. Or Paul Volcker, Class of 1949, who as chair of the Federal Reserve Board, rescued the economy from runaway inflation in the ’80s. Or Jeff Bezos, Class of 1986, who invented an entirely new way to conduct commerce by founding Amazon.com. Their contributions, and those of thousands like them, justify the investment we – and you – are about to make in your education. In return, we ask that you begin by asking today – as you begin your lifelong Princeton journey – how you can embody our informal motto, “Princeton in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations.” Whether you become a Big Brother for a local school child or spend a fall break building houses with Habitat for Humanity or simply give a helping hand to a fellow student who is struggling, becoming a Princetonian means adopting service to others as a part of who you are.
Last but not least, I want your years at Princeton to be fun. Yes,
you heard me, fun! I hope you will take the time to enjoy the beauty of
the campus and its surroundings, the lights of New York and the
treasures of Philadelphia, and the talents of your classmates,
teammates and friends. As long as what you do does not pose harm to
yourself or to others, I give you free license to be as silly and
inventive as you like. You won’t have either the time or the freedom to
explore yourself and the world in quite this way ever again, so please
enjoy these years as fully as you can. Yes, there is plenty of work to
do while you are here, but this is a place to live as well as to work,
and a place to learn how to live life to the fullest. Princeton is
serious, but it is not somber; it is a place that values beauty and
freshness and light and the renewal that comes from times of reflection
and times of joy. So I hope you will embark on the next four years with
a light heart and in high spirits.
Now you have your homework for the next four years. Pursue your
passions, venture where you have never ventured before, pace yourself,
serve others, and have lots of fun. If you can do all this – and I am
confident you can – your lives will be forever shaped by the
experiences you will have and share over these next four years. Good
luck to you all –I’ll be watching!