I remember my dad's car pulling away from the curb close to four years ago as I began my Dartmouth journey. There was a slight drizzle in the air. I soon walked down to the Choates and prepared for a few days of hiking with my DOC group. Like many, perhaps most, my heart was filled with a mixture of trepidation and expectation at what the next days and months would hold. Packed into that initial anxiety and anticipation were concerns, excitement, and questions about roommates, classes, the social scene, friends, majors and future vocations. Well, many of those things have come and gone as the days and months soon turned into years and we arrived at end of the line of our Dartmouth careers. Majors were declared long ago. Lifelong friendships were forged. Many have discovered the paths they will take in life. As we embark on new journeys I wanted to reflect briefly on the great gifts we've been given here at Dartmouth and the grave duties and responsibilities that come with those gifts.
Dartmouth has done much to educate us in genuine citizenship. Whether in DartCorps volunteer days, Tucker Fellowships, political debates, Rocky events, or the great ideas presented in political theory or philosophy classes, Dartmouth has taught us about some of the minimum requirements of a virtuous polity: concern for the other, a knowledge of moral good and evil and educated discourse. These are great benefits of a Dartmouth education. Perhaps more important are the opportunities a Dartmouth degree will afford to each of us. Earned or unearned, Dartmouth's name itself is a key which opens many doors.
These opened doors and other gifts given us by Dartmouth can be used for good or ill. It seems that we have a great duty and responsibility to use them for good. And though many of us still are left with that unresolved question as to our futures, we nevertheless can discern some general areas in which these gifts can be put to use. One area which many of us have and will have particular gifts is economic development. Economic development is pointless if it does not expand the circle of opportunity for all peoples.
Wealth for its own sake is nonsensical. It falls to us and those of our generation to find creative and innovative ways of bringing the gifts of the poor and marginalized more fully into society and helping to lift them from destitution. This aid will take many different forms but it must always have the genuine interests of the poor in mind, not some pie in the sky utopia.
The coming years will also see an increase of vexing moral questions. As biotechnology and the other sciences move more and more quickly to new procedures and breakthroughs we will be pressed to figure out the correct ethical norms for these developments. These questions will be added to the already difficult problems of abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, sexual promiscuity, divorce and the violence of our culture.
Not only should we take an interest in them, but we must actively seek solutions and answers to the various moral dilemmas of the day. Our Dartmouth education puts us in a special place to take these questions on.
And these duties can be lived out in tangible ways in whatever field each of us happens to land in. The academic, the investment banker, the writer, the priest, the mother, the father, the husband, the wife, the lawyer, in short, all have a specific role to play in bringing about a more humane culture. We've been given the gifts to play these roles. Now it is our turn to live out our duties.
