World of 'limitless possibility' awaits Class of 2008

Under a cloudless sky, the College bid farewell and good luck to 636 members of the Class of 2008 and 12 graduates of the College's Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program.

The two-hour ceremony at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center started with a "call to celebration" by Warna L. Reynders, a senior graduating from the College's University Without Walls program, from the remarks of Charles Henry Keyes', Skidmore's first president, to the class of 1923:

The courage that all your college experiences have built into you finally determines the worth of your training. Education brings convictions, but unless it brings also the courage of those convictions it is but dangerous equipment. To have the unfaltering, uncompromising courage of sane, logical convictions is the crowning glory of the life of an educated person.

Suzanne Corbet Thomas '62

In her welcoming remarks, Suzanne Corbet Thomas '62, chair of the Board of Trustees, told the graduates that they are heading into a "world beset by daunting problems and challenges," but "also a world of limitless possibility, particularly for those who think creatively about our common future."

"Perhaps the most important thing you can take away from your Skidmore College," she told the graduates, "is your sense of community on all of the levels on which you have come to appreciate it ? family, campus, hometown, nation, world, and every type of community in between..."

"We have alumni living and working seemingly everywhere in the world, but no matter where you travel or make your mark, remember that, as an alumna or alumnus, you are life-long member of the Skidmore community," she continued.

"You know that your journey here has been rich and rewarding. We hope that the college will hold special importance for you and that you will always remember your Skidmore roots."

President Philip A. Glotzbach praised Thomas -- who will step down from the board in October -- for the "spectacular job" she has done in her six years as chair. He then wryly

President Philip A. Glotzbach

observed: "Commencement brings out a nearly uncontrollable urge in your elders to offer sage advice to guide you on the remainder of your journey, and I suspect it's because we older folks have done such a tremendous job of running the world that you're about to enter. Be that as it may, you are going to hear a lot of advice this morning. There's nothing you can do about it, so just deal with it."

Glotzbach said he would "try to resist the desire to advise you and instead what I want to do is express one hope, ask you one question, and then just make one parting request."

Glotzbach said his hope for each graduate "is that as you charted your own path through Skidmore's curricular and co-curricular offerings you palpably kept our promise inherent in the phrase, "Creative Thought Matters." I sincerely hope that we inspired you, and challenged you, and supported you in developing your own creative abilities."

Listing the six aptitudes that author Daniel Pink says are essential to success in the workplace of the 21st century -- design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning -- Glotzbach said the ability to think creatively will "matter very much in economic terms in your future." And, referencing the argument made regarding the importance of "outlier events" by Nassam Nicholas in The Black Swan, he noted, "The more our lives are influenced by highly improbable events, the more important it becomes to see the world through fresh eyes ? to develop the capacity to expect the unexpected and then to devise new ways to respond when he unexpected actually occurs."

Glotzbach said his question for each graduate was: "Who tells you who you are?"

"It's a simple question, but one that also goes to the heart of what you've been up to the past four years ... Your Skidmore career should have confronted you at every turn with possibilities of what you might become, and it should also have provided you with a set of references ? not just self-references but reference points related to the thoughts and experiences of all the human beings that have come before you. These are references you now can use to make decisions that will enable you to create your life and what you will become in the course of that life."

He continued: "Today's Commencement exercises mark just one point along a transformative journey that has led the person you are today and sets the stage for the person you'll be tomorrow. I would wager that four years ago it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to have predicted just where you would be today, and it may still be difficult for you to say where you're headed. That's OK. You don't need to know just where your going or even who you are today but I do hope you realize it is you who are now in charge of this itinerary."

In closing, Glotzbach said his parting request of each graduate was "that you realize that Skidmore College is not just a place where you have gone to school for four years. Rather, Skidmore itself is now part of who you are. It is part of your identity. You most likely will understand that point more clearly over time, but please do believe me when I say we will continue to care about you and that identity you are crafting and creating. We want to know what choices you're making, and how those choices are working out. Above all, we want to know the person you will become five, ten, 50 years from now. So stay connected with us. Let us continue every now and then to provide another couple of reference points along the way, and above all let us continue to remind you that creative thought does indeed matter."

Bill T. Jones

Each of the three distinguished individuals upon whom the College bestowed honorary degrees -- Ruth Colvin, founder of Literacy Volunteers of America; Rita Colwell, an environmental microbiologist who headed the National Science Foundation from 1998 to 2004, and Bill T. Jones, a MacArthur Foundation Award recipient who founded the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company -- addressed the graduates, as did Kathryn Caulfield, president of the Senior Class; Barbara Black, associate professor of English; Deborah Sehl Coons '72, president of the Alumni Association; and Senior Gift Officers Danielle Starr and Drew Fidler. Following are excerpts from their remarks:

Ruth Colvin: "A small boy was trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle. On the one side of the puzzle was a map of the entire world. On the other side was the face of a young boy. The little boy, working hard to make the pieces fit together, was working on the world side. But he soon found that the world was too large for his limited experience, and he turned the puzzle pieces over. Delighted, he went to his mother and said, "Look, Mommy, when I got the boy together, the world became all right."

Rita Colwell: "Another commencement speaker, Woody Allen, offered sage counsel to a graduating class like you, but at an earlier time, and I quote, 'More than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.' Actually, your choices are much better. In our science and technology powered world of ever-increasing complexity, there is a growing need for your knowledge and know-how, as we try to understand each other, in order to live in harmony, and as we continue to build toward a sustainable future."

Barbara Black: "And, if you stay alert, you may well find yourself noticing something strange: that the most important things in our lives -- love, fear, a need for heroes, our shared mortality that the poet William Wordsworth called the "burden of the mystery" -- may, indeed, be universal. Despite the stranglehold identity politics has on our culture, universality is the bedrock upon which decency and compassion are built: our humanity makes us alike ..."

Kathryn Caulfield

Kathryn Caulfield: "This school is exceptional because it has the feeling of a tight-knit community despite all of the things that people are doing around campus... All of these people are pursuing their passions right here at Skidmore and still there's this underlying sense of support ... There really is something in the water here. And it's you. It's you guys who have made life here at Skidmore so incredible."