Student Body President Frances Vernon '10 urged students to lend a hand in creating "a bolder, brighter future" in her convocation address on Tuesday. Vernon also used her address, offered in conjunction with the inauguration of College President Jim Yong Kim, to welcome Kim to what she deemed "the finest college in the world."
The Dartmouth community must become increasingly open to change, searching for ways to affect the larger world community, Vernon said.
"In fact, we must strive for constant evolution even revolution," she said. "From business to engineering to health care and the arts, one thing is certain: that the communities who have the ability to adapt and grow are those who will thrive."
Both Kim and Vernon urged listeners to contribute to the never-ending task of improving the College.
"To all members of the Dartmouth community, I expect that you will find dents in our armor and nuances in our rhetoric that need to be polished, challenged and changed," she said. "You're not only here to hold up the mantle of Dartmouth, but to raise it even higher."
While students will benefit from Kim's commitment to scholarship, service and enhancing global understanding, Vernon said, they also need to provide him with support and serve as a collective resource.
"And just as we ask you, Dr. Kim, to lead us, we, the students of Dartmouth, must also lead you," she said.
Turning to the incoming class, Vernon stressed that students should take full advantage of every moment of their Dartmouth experience and carry what they learn with them into the world.
"Dartmouth should not be a stopping point, but a stepping stone that will take you far and you must take far," she said.
Vernon, who led a first-year Dartmouth Outing Club trip before the beginning of Fall term, said she consulted her "trippees" for advice on what to discuss in her convocation speech.
"They told me that they always hear people say to them, Find your passion,' or use this time at Dartmouth to find yourself,'" she said. "But they said to me at this moment, as they go through this transition in their lives, they don't really know what that means."
Kim offered students this familiar advice in his inauguration address.
"Despite Frances Vernon's warnings about people who say this at your convocation, say it I must," Kim said. "Find your passion."
Kim clarified that he was not referring to passing "emotional sensations," but rather to an intellectual achievement that requires sincere effort to discover.
"You have to work hard at finding something you can tackle with passion for a big chunk of your life and find meaning in it," Kim said. "That's an active and an urgent task. You need to start it now."
Vernon did not receive explicit directions from the College on the content of her speech, she said in an interview with The Dartmouth, but Public Affairs officials did recommend that she edit one section after she presented the speech to them on Monday.
Vernon said she ultimately decided to keep the segment, rather than rewrite it.
Vernon also stressed in her address that Dartmouth has helped teach her the importance of having expectations for herself, for her peers and for the different communities to which all people belong.
"My aspiration is that we execute our visions and remember that we must expect it of ourselves to be socially responsible citizens," she said.
She added that, along with continuing to respect one another and the environment, students must develop global sensitivities and become better solution-seekers in the future.
Vernon advised members of the incoming class to hold onto their dreams, and also to embrace the unexpected.
"We may not know what the future holds, but we must welcome each new opportunity with an open mind," she said.
