By Roger Segelken
It's all about character, Cornell President Hunter Rawlings told the nearly 6,000 graduates, their parents, friends and faculty, who didn't let a morning rain deter them from the university's 129th Commencement ceremonies May 25 at Schoellkopf Field.
"Character, an old-fashioned attribute, is
what links action to intellect, and it is exactly what
you, as new graduates, need most in a rapidly changing, tightly networked and
unpredictable world," Rawlings told the joyful students, before conferring
some 4,200 undergraduate and approximately 2,400 master's and doctoral degrees.
Following university tradition, the graduates, faculty members, trustees and administrators marched to Schoellkopf in a procession from the Arts Quad, while family members and friends -- numbering about 30,000 -- filled the stadium's stands.
During his address, the president followed another Commencement tradition by asking graduates to applaud those watching in the stands who, he said, "encouraged you and supported you through these long years at Cornell." The parents and other family members set aside their video cameras, banners and umbrellas and rose to receive the warm ovation.
The president also acknowledged six members of the Cornell Board of Trustees finishing their terms: Eleanor Applewhaite, an alumni-elected trustee for four years; J. Thomas Clark, who will move from alumni-elected trustee to trustee fellow; Kety Maria Esquivel, a graduating senior completing two years as a student-elected trustee; Ichiro Inumaru, a four-year trustee fellow; Sanford I. Weill, a trustee fellow since 1988; and Stephen H. Weiss, chairman of the board of trustees since 1989, who is stepping down from that post and from the board. He will be succeeded as chairman by Harold Tanner.
Rawlings paid special tribute to Weiss: "His 24 years on the board represent a
level of service and commitment to Cornell that goes far beyond what one would expect
for someone engaged in a demanding Wall Street career -- as he has been for his
entire tenure as a trustee....He has given extraordinary amounts of time and
resources to the university, and he has encouraged others to join the board and to participate
in university affairs."
Weiss, in his service on the board, as well as thousands of devoted Cornell alumni and the members of the Class of 1997, who contributed toward a scholarship enabling others to follow them here, display "the qualities that make Cornell so compelling," Rawlings said.
Likening the university to Athens in the time of Pericles, the president and classics scholar said Cornellians become vitally interested and involved in the world's and the community's affairs.
"We throw open our city to the world," Rawlings quoted Pericles saying of Athens. "We trust less in system and policy than in the native spirit of our citizens."
"Cornell is similarly open to the world," Rawlings said. "It is not just that students and faculty members come here from every corner of the globe; it is also that Cornell canvasses new ideas, differences of opinion and unconventional approaches to knowledge."
The president praised this year's graduating class for its activism, both in volunteer service and intellectual achievement, pointing out examples of the graduating class's notable community involvement and academic awards.
"Cornell is a place where students are full members of the community, not just learners," he said. "Whether in the Student Assembly or with a microphone in front of the Straight, whether in newspaper columns or in volunteer service, students engage as full citizens in the debates and issues of our campus and our town."
One newspaper in particular -- the student-led Cornell Daily Sun -- displayed an example in its pages this year of what Rawlings called "the union of action, intellect and grace of Cornell" in response to a divisive campus controversy. After the appearance of an article that many found offensive in another student publication -- and after the ensuing "rapid and robust" campus reaction, which ranged "from peaceful protest to civil disobedience to resolutions before the Student Assembly that would have limited free speech" -- the Cornell Daily Sun encouraged "informed and patient discourse," Rawlings pointed out. The Sun's editorial staff presented its views in a two-column editorial, which read, in part: "Without the full spectrum of views presented, debate, dialogue and education cannot occur. These rewards are surely worth the price we pay."
"That editorial is a demonstration of character," Rawlings said.
Independence and versatility are keys to character, the president observed.
"It is independence of spirit that enables Cornellians to hold their values and their hard-won truths and to open new ground," he said. "And it is versatility that enables Cornellians to succeed as space shuttle astronauts, Supreme Court justices, Nobel Prize-winning physicists, investment managers and all the rest."
And although character can't be taught, it can be learned from observation and association, Rawlings said, acknowledging four faculty members who were named Weiss Presidential Fellows (see story, Page 3): Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of human development and family studies; Debra Ann Castillo, professor of Romance studies; David Feldshuh, professor of theater arts; and Clifford R. Pollock, professor of electrical engineering. Those faculty members and many others, Rawlings told the students, "made you partners in their scholarship while mentoring you and encouraging you to go beyond what you thought you were capable of."
Cornell, during the years the new graduates were here, was a challenging place, Rawlings said, as a result of the vision of those who came before, including Livingston Farrand, Cornell president from 1921 to 1937. "'The great task for us,'" he quoted Farrand as saying, "'and for those who come after us is to see to it that the Cornell of the future shall have a spirit, a quality and a character worthy of its opportunity.'"
"In the shifting sand of our culture, where everything is turned into a problem for debate rather than a value to live by," Rawlings said, "character will be one of the most important things you can take with you from Cornell."
The full text of President Rawlings' Commencement address, as prepared for delivery, can be found at http://www.news.cornell.edu/general/May97/commenceaddress.html.