Early morning in Hanover is a special time, regardless of the season. In a community of late-risers, the dawn is greeted most often only by an all-encompassing aura of peace.
For the last week, though, when the sun's first rays fell upon the Hanover Plain, there has been a certain sense of expectancy. In the cool, damp air of early morning, thousands of chairs arranged on the Green to accommodate today's graduates and their guests seemed to be waiting.
Waiting, just as you -- the graduates -- are and have been. You've been waiting for this day your whole lives, and the silent, empty chairs have since the beginning of the week provided a very visible sign that Commencement was fast approaching.
Today you will become fully independent, fully adult, a full contributor to society and fully responsible for your actions. In the "real world," questions of rent and career will replace questions on tests and those about the Homeplate special.
Just writing those sentences is intimidating. If you or any of your fellow graduates -- anonymous in a sea of black mortarboard caps and gowns -- manages to avoid a moment of panic at some point during today's ceremony, I congratulate you. You're one of the few.
Yet the moment will pass. Tomorrow, when you step out into the world as a Dartmouth alum, you will be able to draw on your time at the College. You've learned volumes, literally, from your classes and professors. But Commencement is more than the official sign of the end of one -- for some the last -- phase of academic education. Commencement also puts the finishing touches to what Dartmouth can give you in terms of an education in life.
For Commencement has brought each and every one of you face to face with the fact that what you make of your life is entirely in your control. Whether you liked it or not, you have had to decide what is really important in your life, be it friends or family, career, happiness or service.
During this last week, freed of responsibility for classwork and studying, you have been engaged in learning the final lesson that the College has to offer you: that what life is really about is the people with whom you interact.
For most of you, the stress of finals has already faded. What remains are memories made during the last years, the last term and the last week that will last a lifetime.
When you consider your Commencement -- for this is in fact your Commencement -- 50 years from now you won't remember the speeches. You will remember the people, the friends and family by whose presence alone this day comes to have meaning. You will be remembered by the people and the place for as long as "vox clamantis in deserto" rings out from the College upon a hill.
This morning, when the sun rose above the White Mountains of New Hampshire to spill its illumination down upon the Hanover Plain, you were Dartmouth undergraduates -- Dartmouth was your home, or at least your home away from home. By the time the sun sinks behind the Green Mountains of Vermont this evening, you will be Dartmouth alumni.
Tonight, when the sun sets, the chairs will no longer be waiting. Neither will you.
Congratulations.
