At our formal welcome to this school, on a sunny morning in late September, the incoming student body president greeted our class in a speech I now regret sleeping through. He predicted that our time in college would be the "most fun four years" of our whole lives. He has been right to date, at least if my own experience serves as a remotely accurate bellwether for our class. I've had a blast.
It is difficult to encapsulate what has been so meaningful about a Dartmouth education because, even after four years together, our class remains so different. Some of us shone in the classroom and others pursued extracurricular feats. Some of us excelled on the fields and on the courts, and others of us have yet to attend a football game. The Dartmouth experience is a sundry one, probably more so now than ever before in the College's history.
But surely our time at Dartmouth bore something in common -- we were all outlandishly lucky enough to take part in probably the greatest liberal arts college education available on earth. We met friends, made enemies, and found mentors here. We made a home here. And I hope we leave here more skeptical and more curious than when we arrived.
But as we prepare to graduate, we cannot help but wonder how it could get any better. Much of our anxiety at the end of college may revolve around the need to get a job and make a life, but I think we all harbor a more disquieting fear that college really is the best it gets -- that the future may present original pleasures and novel opportunities, but we will never have it as good as we did in college.
Perhaps there is some truth to this. Most of us will not encounter an environment as intellectually rigorous as this one in the future, where the possibilities are so obviously endless. We will likely not read Chaucer, Kant or even Catullus ever again, and most of us will never take another course in mathematics, biology or computer science.
It will never again be possible for you to model your life after "Animal House" or "Old School," and you will earn only uncomprehending stares and strident disapproval from your friends and loved ones if you try.
But your time at Dartmouth should not be the most fun, instructive, or momentous four years of your entire life. If it is, you will have failed.
The future holds different but greater pleasures -- the opportunity to excel in a chosen field, in friendship, in love, and in parenting. As we thank our own mothers and fathers over the next several days, we would do well to take a few minutes to watch any parent of a small child interact with his or her progeny. If you are anything like me, you will realize you have absolutely no conception of their joy.
In the introductory letter to the Aegis yearbook in 2001, an economics professor offers some excellent advice -- I urge you to read it (Google "Official Guide to Happiness" in quotes). There is much to be said for finding "a job that is fun and pays a decent wage," and I am a strong proponent of skiing and dogs, allegedly also proven to make Dartmouth graduates happy.
But we must never forget the obligation that our good fortune in graduating from this place imparts. The converse of power is responsibility, and we leave Dartmouth with a mighty responsibility.
Martin Luther King Jr. once instructed a crowd of his supporters to become "transformed non-conformists." In a description that rings as true of our times as it did of his, King observed that "dangerous passions of pride, hatred, and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; truth lies prostrate on the rugged hills of nameless Calvaries."
Ours is the mightiest nation the world has ever seen, but we remain steeped in war, unable to eradicate injustice and poverty. As the most privileged young people emerging in America today, it is imperative on us to solve the world's problems and we will not solve them by orthodoxy, contentment or navel-gazing.
Do not mistake the trappings of success for a full life. Strive to do good for your fellow men. It does not have to mean giving it all up to teach public high school in inner city Detroit or rebuild hurricane-wrecked homes in New Orleans -- certainly noble ends, but ones that involve a sacrifice that many, including myself, are not bold enough to make. There are many ways to do good.
One of Dartmouth College's most beloved leaders, thirteenth College President John G. Kemeny, ended each commencement he presided over with an exhortation that I will humbly echo here:
Women and men of Dartmouth, all mankind is your brother. And you are your brother's keeper.
