July 6, 2005: Features

2005 Commencement

Photographs by Ricardo Barros

In his Latin oration during this year’s Commencement, Class of 2005 salutatorian Graham E. Phillips joked with his classmates about their exploits on Prospect Avenue, informing guests in the audience that “quod Princetoniae accidit Princetoniae manet” (what happens in Princeton stays in Princeton). But after receiving his diploma on Cannon Green, Phillips’ thoughts turned to more serious matters. This month, the history major from Brookfield, Mass., begins basic training in the U.S. Army at Fort Knox, Ky.

His decision to enlist, he said, was influenced by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and by a belief that individual soldiers can make a difference. “[After Princeton] I wanted to try something that was challenging in a completely different way,” Phillips said.

New challenges abound for the 1,126 undergraduates and the 688 graduate students who received degrees May 31. And while few will follow Phillips’ path to the armed forces, many will remember Sept. 11 as a formative event during their time at Princeton.

“I think [Sept. 11] really defined us as a class,” said Rachel Lyon ’05 of New York City. “It brought everyone together.” President Tilghman recalled in her Commencement address that students had responded to the terrorist attacks with action. “You organized blood drives, collected blankets and food, planned events for the children of the families who had lost loved ones, and as is most fitting in a university, you sought ways to understand what had happened by engaging in discussions in seminars, colloquia, [and] classes,” Tilghman said.

While the past was an important part of the University’s 258th Commencement program, Tilghman and valedictorian Varun K. Phadke ’05 devoted their addresses to the future. Phadke, a molecular biology major from Syracuse, N.Y., advised his classmates to use humor to help overcome life’s inevitable setbacks. “Ultimately, we will all make mistakes or meet failure at some point or another, whether in the laboratory, or the office, or the classroom, or on stage in front of 6,000 people,” said Phadke, who will attend Harvard Medical School in the fall. “How else are we to survive these and other far less serious mistakes if we don’t stop to laugh at ourselves? By bringing a refreshed sense of humor to work every day, we not only will have more fun, but we are more willing to try the hardest things again and again.”

With a nod to the people who helped graduates reach their goals in the classroom, the University honored outstanding teaching, presenting four awards to New Jersey secondary school teachers and four President’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching to Princeton professors. The Princeton faculty honorees were João Biehl (anthropology), Robert Cava (chemistry), Beatriz Colomina (architecture), and Michael Wood (English).

The University also bestowed honorary degrees on six men and women who “embody the very qualities of mind and character that Princeton University seeks to develop in all its students.” (See story on opposite page.) Tilghman advised the graduates to draw on those qualities to “aim high and be bold.”

For proud family members and friends in attendance, Commencement was a ceremony for individuals, but to many adorned in robes and mortarboards, the event captured a sense of community. W. Brooke Joyce *05, one of the University’s 277 Ph.D. recipients, returned to campus to walk in the procession after receiving his diploma in January. “I’m glad I came back,” he said. “It gave me a chance to reconnect with people in a way I wasn’t expecting.” For Karen Li ’05, a molecular biology major from Cincinnati, Commencement and the preceding week of bonding with classmates made her realize that moving on would not mean the end of her Princeton friendships. “Places change,” Li said, “but people, hopefully, stay in touch.”

By B.T.

Baccalaureate

Toni Morrison: Refine the world

The modern world is engulfed in chaos that “we can confront ... with our own humanity,” Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison told the Class of 2005 during her Baccalaureate address. She warned against focusing merely on personal happiness, calling on students to work for social justice. “Perhaps 100 years from now we’ll gasp and recoil at our own history,” she said. “Perhaps we’ll not. Your generation and generations inspired by you will have a world refined by you.” Morrison, a Princeton professor since 1989, also urged seniors to lead original and creative lives without blindly accepting popular beliefs or media-influenced labels. “Your life is already a miracle of chance just waiting for you to shape its destiny,” she said.

By Brooke Stoddard ’05

To the Class of 2005

“There are things that you learn from your classmates and friends that you will not find in any classroom. This is the Princeton education you don’t read about in the admissions viewbook and the education for which we won’t be receiving a diploma today. But it is no less important.”

Valedictorian Varun K. Phadke ’05

“In four years we have worked hard, played hard, and made friends who will last a lifetime. Now we have finished our exams and our magnum opus; all that remains is to walk out FitzRandolph Gate toward future success. But in the years ahead do not forget Princeton, our alma mater. Do not forget your real mother, either, unless you like nagging phone calls.”

Salutatorian Graham E. Phillips ’05

Perfect fit

(Photograph by Frank Wojciechowski)

Alice Storch *05, who received a master’s degree in public affairs, gets her academic hood from John Fleming *63, the Louis W. Fairchild ’24 Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Two hundred ninety-five advanced-degree recipients participated in the hooding ceremony May 30 at McCarter Theatre. The ceremony was first held 11 years ago.

Honorary degree recipients

Six people received honorary degrees in recognition of their achievements. (Italicized quotes are from their citations.)

John Bogle ’51, Doctor of Laws. Founder of Vanguard Capital Management and president of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. Known as a pioneer of index-fund investing, he is an unrelenting crusader against high fees and hidden costs and an outspoken advocate for intelligent investing. Honesty is an integral element of his management strategy, reflecting his precept that character counts, in investing as in other walks of life.

Anne d’Harnoncourt, Doctor of Laws. Director and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Under her leadership for nearly a quarter-century, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has grown in scope, accessibility and influence ... Fostering outreach and education, she sees museums not as places where art is confined, but as places where art engages, enlightens and inspires — helping us to picture our past, and begin to sculpt our future.

J. Lionel Gossman, Doctor of Humanities. M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, emeritus. This contemporary heir of those enlightened Scots who were our founders has combined commanding gravitas with lithe intellection and agile prose in his penetrating investigations of the fundamental monuments of modern European thought. Renowned scholar, venerated teacher, colleague nonpareil, he has for many decades set up his shop at that busy historical crossroads where reason and rhetoric meet.

Yo-Yo Ma, Doctor of Music. Cellist. He began as a spellbinding cellist; he has grown into the world’s foremost ambassador of music. Collaborating with musicians from the Kalahari to Brazil, and along the fabled Silk Road that binds Europe with Asia, he teaches us that the surest way to hear and understand people from different cultures is to share their music. The bridges he builds lead always to the same place: the place where music performs and celebrates humanity.

Vera Rubin, Doctor of Science. Astronomer and senior fellow at the Carnegie Institution. Through meticulous observations, she revealed the presence of vast quantities of a mysterious, unseen substance called dark matter. Her research leaves us with the unsettling yet inspiring conclusion that all the familiar materials of our Earth and sun – hydrogen, oxygen, even gold and silver — are but minor players in a universe made mostly of matter we can barely fathom.

Wole Soyinka, Doctor of Humane Letters. Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, political rights activist, and 1986 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. The worlds of the ancestors and the unborn join the world of the living to celebrate his heroic achievements as writer and citizen. On the page and on the stage, he has courageously wedded the many traditions of Nigeria and traditions beyond Africa’s borders to create a new kind of literature — rooted in his homeland but in dialogue with the universe of letters.

On the Web

An archived webcast of the Commencement ceremony is available on the University’s WebMedia site: www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/. Also available for viewing on the site are the hooding ceremony for advanced-degree candidates, the Class Day ceremony, the Baccalaureate service, and President Tilghman’s Reunions “town meeting” with alumni.

Chevy Chase, left, with Class Day co-chairman A. Shoum Chakravarti ’05 (John Jameson ’04)

Class day
Chevy Chase h’05

Keep laughing — “otherwise you’ll go through life with pimples on your back and have a nervous breakdown at the age of 40.” That was the advice of Class Day keynoter Chevy Chase, an original cast member of TV’s Saturday Night Live. The actor, who was made an honorary member of the Class of 2005, has a Princeton bloodline that includes father Edward ’41, daughter Cydney ’06, and sister Cynthia ’75, the University’s first female valedictorian. Chase, whose talk received mixed reactions, followed well-received addresses by seniors Margaret Johnson (available at www.princeton.edu/paw), Bradford Lyman, and Patrick Cunningham. Said Johnson: “Let us dare to put our fingers in many pies, but one at a time, to make sure we catch the flavor of each.”

By Jordan Paul Amadio ’05

Senior awards

Harold Willis Dodds Achievement Award (to the senior who best embodies Dodds’ qualities of scholarship and service): Matthew Shapiro

Allen Macy Dulles ’51 Award (to a senior whose actions fulfill Princeton’s informal motto of service): Joseph Robinson II

Frederick Douglass Service Award (for contributions to “a deeper understanding of racial minorities”): Antoinette Seaberry

The Class of 1901 Medal (awarded by the class to the senior who has done the most for Princeton): Matthew Margolin

W. Sanderson Detwiler 1903 Prize (awarded by the class to the senior who has done the most for the class): Azalea Kim

Priscilla Glickman ’92 Memorial Prize (to students who demonstrate “independence and imagination” in community service): Meridel Bulle and Brandon Nicholson