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The Class of 2011 graduates!
On Friday, June 10 under the big tent at the top of the Hill, before hundreds of family, friends and faculty, the Class of 2011 received their diplomas and graduated from Hopkins School as the 351st class.
On Friday, June 10 under the big tent at the top of the Hill, before hundreds of family, friends and faculty, the Class of 2011 received their diplomas and graduated from Hopkins School as the 351st class.
Senior Class President, Earl Lin, delivered a heartfelt Salutatory Address in which he highlighted the Class of 2011's commitment to sustainability and community service. Earl also presented the two-fold Senior Class Gift: an endowed scholarship fund and a sustainability fund. Read Earl's speech below. (or watch the video above)
Senior Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld delivered the Valedictory Address, in which she enthused her fellow graduates to be rebellious and be the kind of rebels that make things happen. Read Sophia's speech below. (or watch the video above)
Head of School Barbara Riley addressed the graduating seniors and thanked them for their many gifts to the School. She told them how much they have affected Hopkins for the better, and that they leave us hopeful, that very Hopkins word, for what they will achieve in the future. Read Mrs. Riley's speech below. (or watch the video above)
With the traditional Latin phrase Pro auctoritate mihi commissa, hoc testimonium diligentiae causa nunc vobis confero - In accordance with the authority invested in me, I now confer upon you this ceritficate in recognition of your faithful effort, President of the Hopkins Committee of Trustees, David Newton, presented each senior with their diploma. Upon receiving it, the students each replied Tibi gratias ago - Thank you.
Following the recessional, faculty adorned in their academic robes, congratulated each graduate in a receiving line on the upper Quad amidst hugs, smiles and tears. Congratulations Hopkins Class of 2011!
Click here to see a list of graduates and their college matriculation.
Commencement Photo Gallery 1
Commencement Photo Gallery 2 (photos by Kelly Jensen Photography)
Commencement Photo Gallery 3 (photos by Kelly Jensen Photography)
ORDER A DVD OF THE 2011 HOPKINS COMMENCEMENT
Attention Class of 2011 Families:
Order your own copy of the 2011 Commencement exercises today, expertly filmed and edited by First Image Video of Hamden. DVDs are $25 each and will be mailed within 3-6 weeks. Place your order here.
Senior Class President, Earl Lin's Salutatory Address
Ms. Riley, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Newton, friends, family, faculty, and distinguished guests: on behalf of the Class of 2011, thank you. You have made our time at Hopkins possible. You picked us up when we fell down, showed us the way when we felt lost, and patted us on the back when we excelled. Without your everlasting guidance, support, commitment, and love we would not be here today.
And to the Class of 2011, congratulations! We made the grade! Give yourselves a round of applause, because you have truly, truly earned it. Last year’s graduates may have had the distinction of being the 350th Hopkins class, but we have the distinction of being the best Hopkins class. And I am not saying that just to be cute or clever, I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You are the most superlative, most amazing, most awe-inspiring group of people I have ever had the fortune of counting as my peers. Every single day I have spent here with all of you has been a gift, and I am just realizing now, as our precious time here grows ever shorter, that I have taken those gifts for granted far too often. It has been an honor and a privilege of the highest degree to be your president, your classmate, and above all, your friend.
Your accomplishments and talents, devotion and virtuosity are both humbling and inspiring. I mean, just look at the people around you. They may be exemplary athletes, brilliant academicians, gifted musicians, accomplished thespians, or dear friends. Most likely they are some or even all of these things. Even as we celebrate our graduation today, two of our classmates – Celine Bondoc and Sarah Frear – are in Nashville, Tennessee competing at the US Rowing Youth National Championships. They are just one example of the devotion and talent that has come to define this amazing class. I cannot imagine a group of people I would rather have spent this chapter of my life with. The astounding diversity of talents we possess has served to unite us through all these years – and we have remained united through so much: last week, we volunteered 3,120 hours of community service; between the 130 of us, our Hopkins experience spans 670 years; in that time, we raised over $50,000 for the Connecticut Food Bank; and, added all together, we earned 265,590 points on the SATs. And yet, even with all these achievements, the Class of 2011 is even more than the mere sum of its individual parts. More than all these gifts and talents, we share a profound bond of kinship and camaraderie. This is apparent in the many ways we leave our collective mark on Hopkins – not necessarily through any specific grand gestures, though there have been some of those too, but rather through the hours of love and devotion that we have all personally contributed to this place. The time spent in the classroom learning, on the fields competing, in the library studying, on stage performing, or any other place where we made Hopkins our own – those hours were the labor of love that was our time here, and they are the mark we will leave behind.
Yet it is because we have left our indelible mark here – and likewise, because Hopkins has left its mark on us – that we must now move on. The last assignment has been submitted, the last class attended, the last play performed, and the last club meeting held. In retrospect, it all seems rather idyllic. In the words of Robert Frost:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
“Nothing gold can stay.” Throughout the past few weeks, those words have been running through my mind again and again and again. It’s hard to believe my six years here have run their course. And what a six years they’ve been! In many ways, they were six of the most stressful, challenging, and demanding years of my life – but they were also six of the most happy, rewarding, and formative years of my life. I remember when many of us first set foot on this campus as sevies and first walked into that gymnasium for assembly. It seems as if it were both a lifetime ago and just yesterday. I remember how adult and mature the seniors all seemed. (Boy, do we know better now!) I remember how endless the stairs up to the Athletic Center seemed – strike that, still seem. I remember when the library only occupied one floor, and when DPH was a building instead of a parking lot. I remember not knowing my way around, but thinking how big and grand and full of potential this campus appeared. And as we gained a sense of direction on this campus, Hopkins gave us a sense of direction in this life; as the campus grew and developed and changed, so did we.
Yes, Hopkins sure has changed a lot since we arrived. Yet, even as we stand in the shadow of Thompson Hall, the newest building on campus, the truth is that without all of you – the people who have defined my high school experience — Hopkins School would just be a bunch of buildings on a hill overlooking New Haven. 351 years ago, the founders of that fair city down there established this institution “for the breeding up of hopeful youths” – and I know all of you more than exceed the wildest dreams of John Davenport and Edward Hopkins. As a classmate said to me the other day, Hopkins not only helped us grow as people, it has helped us grow into people we can all be proud of.
That is what will really make this transition to the next chapter of our lives so difficult for me: I am so proud of you, of us. You all deserve to be immensely proud of one another. I really wish I could take all of you – classmates, teachers, everyone – with me to college next year, because the absolute hardest thing I am going to have to do is not see all of you every day. That mere thought is so sobering – indeed, painful – that I cannot begin to fathom how challenging the reality of it will be. Yet, in a way, I will never have to face that reality; in a way, I will be taking all of you to college with me. I may not see you all every single day, but the memories and friendships of Hopkins will be with me constantly. That is my solace, my strength, and my saving grace at this moment.
We will leave here today with not only the best secondary education in the United States – in the world, even – but, more importantly, with the best high school experience, the best friends, and the best memories in the world. So with all due respect to Robert Frost, I disagree that “nothing gold can stay.” For if you – seniors, classmates, my dearest friends – keep those golden memories and friendships alive and well, they will neither tarnish nor fade away. They will remain forever – not up here, with all the book knowledge we’ve attained in our classes, but in here, with all the indefinable but supremely important knowledge we take away from this special place. That is the flower, that is the dawn, that is the hardest hue to hold; that is nature’s first green, that is the Garden of Eden, that is gold. And it will stay with us forever as long as you keep it alive.
So, members of the Class of 2011, I charge you with this undertaking as you go forth: do not drift apart. Do not let this profound bond of kinship and camaraderie disappear into the mists of memory. Cherish the roots you have laid here, and let the mighty tree they anchor flourish. Live, love, learn, and laugh – continue to be the hopeful youths that would inspire awe in John Davenport and Edward Hopkins, as you have in me and everyone else who has watched us become who we are today.
Quod felix faustumque sit, I love you all, and – above all – thank you Hopkins and thank you Class of 2011.
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Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld's Valedictory Address
I want to thank my wonderful teachers, family and friends who are here today, and my fellow seniors for giving me the honor of speaking. When I first started planning this speech a few weeks back, I realized that every possible speech has been done before. The reach-for-the-stars speech, the don’t-reach-for-the-stars speech, the speech about writing a speech – so I thought that instead of giving a speech of my own, for the next half hour or so I’d just read aloud from my favorite book: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Just kidding. I actually did write a speech. My friends, the unrivaled, indomitable class of 2011, today I want to talk about us. Along the way, I have just 3 things to say – and then let’s graduate.
So, seniors, who were we at Hopkins? We were the dream class. I don’t think any class in Hopkins history has spent so much time in the library, broken so many records, or possessed so much raw talent. We threw ourselves into our passions – as DJ’s, paramedics, and painters, running-backs, horse-back riders and center-mids – with unparalleled work ethic, integrity and zeal. We poured hundreds of hours into term papers and test preparations – and, well, it all paid off.
Yet somehow, we managed to have fun. Seniors, we were a class that crossed a lot of lines. We had ghostriding incidents, we put something in the water, and as far as I know, we’re the first Hopkins class ever to graduate in sunglasses.
Now all of this is wonderful. It’s who we are as a class. But the first point I want to make is that who you were at Hopkins doesn’t define who you will be for the rest of your life.
Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a mother gave her children some paints to play with. Six out the seven kids painted puppets. The last kid took the paint and drew a life-size army battalion all over the walls of the room. That kid grew up to be Napoleon Bonaparte. Similarly, some of you already know exactly who want to be. Sam, I expect you to be president by our 30th reunion; Alex I want to see that Nobel prize, and Adam, you better be a 5-star general.
Let me tell you another story. A couple years ago, a studious girl from Tennessee, plays in the school marching band, aces the SAT and gets into Barnard College. Today, that girl is Ke$ha, spelled with a dollar sign.
“Just be yourself” – I know these are supposed to be words of freedom, and of course they are, but it seems to me they can also be constricting: when you change, people get scared. It takes bravery to step out of your comfort zone, and people will always have something to say about it. You make new friends, suddenly you’re a social climber. You wear a new outfit to school, and suddenly, oh you’re trying so hard. NO. Okay, maybe the denim jumpsuit was a bad idea. But don’t listen. You have absolutely no obligation to be who you are at 18 for the rest of your life. It’s not wrong to change.
“Be yourself” means “be whoever you want to be.” Not “be who your friends think you are.” Not “be the same person you were last year.” If you’ve always known what you want to be, more power to you. But it’s equally great if you wake up tomorrow morning thinking, “I’m gonna take a gap year to make a documentary in Cambodia.” “I know I signed up to do Teach For America this fall, but – I wanna start a hedge fund.” Dare to be who you’re not. The world has no right to tell you who you are, so don’t let anyone’s judgment or expectations hold you back.
That’s point one. Let’s first come back to who we are, class of 2011. I began this speech by saying we have crossed lines together. But let’s face the reality: we go to Hopkins. Sure, we all make a big show of living life on the edge. “Macbeth paper due next period? Haven’t started.” You hear that everywhere. But everyone knows that in 55 minutes, that paper will be on Mr. Johnson’s desk. That’s also part of who we are: we so want to be rebellious, but we always get the job done.
So I think there’s a good chance that, sometime in the future when we are free from the constraints of Hopkins, many of us will want to do more than talk about breaking the mold. And that’s point two. If you want to rebel, rebel in a way that matters.
There’s a quote I love from Lolita – and this is probably the first time a valedictorian thought it was a good idea to quote a child-molesting psychopath – that reads as follows:
it occurred to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good.
A rebel has courage. A rebel undertakes personal risk for something they believe in. Anyone can say, “forget this,” cut class, smoke weed. You know why? Because it’s easy. It doesn’t make you a rebel. You’re a failing cog in the machine, but you’re still a cog in the machine.
If you don’t like the system, get out of the system. Because a lot of the time, the system is wrong. I don’t need to describe societal injustice; you know it’s out there. There is so much to fix. So often, the system is broken. Another mistake is to think that we have somehow maxed out, or “arrived.” With iPads, 3D-Printers, 4G networks, it may feel as though things can’t get any better, as though we’ve already made every possible breakthrough. But let me tell you, people felt that same way when fire first came out, and then stairs, and car-phones. There is ALWAYS something unfathomable around the corner. Instead of being shocked by the next earth-shattering discovery, make that discovery. Be the one salmon that swims downstream. Rock other people’s worlds.
If you want to be a rebel, don’t just break the rules: make the rules.
You could characterize rebellion as doing the WRONG thing for the RIGHT reason. My final point is that sometimes, it’s also okay to do the RIGHT thing for the WRONG reason.
What is the right reason to do the right thing? I think we, seniors, wrestle with this question all the time. We know too much to think people are saints. Seniors, you know what I’m talking about: you all filled out the CommonApp, and included the 5000 hours of community service and soup kitchens. [pause] It can make you more focused on the motive than the deed itself. You wonder if people actually care about the impoverished nation they’re holding a bake sale for. You want to volunteer at an animal shelter because puppies are cute, but also because girls go crazy for that sort of thing. And deep down, a voice inside you asks, “if I’m doing this for a selfish reason, should I be doing it at all?”
But again, don’t listen to that voice. Your motives may not be pure, but by taking action, you are doing more for the world than someone who does nothing at all. Doesn’t matter if that same voice says, “Working in a soup kitchen is so cliche.” Do it anyway. We’re too smart not to be cynical. But let’s be smart enough to be idealistic as well.
Well guys, this is it. The time has come to say goodbye: to your room, to your dog, to your childhood. Our time at Hopkins is over. For most of us, it’s the last time we’ll play on a varsity team, or know the name of everyone in our grade. All of us have toasted our last Ski Lodge Day marshmallows. We’ll never again be sent “off to class.” We’ve pledged our honor here for the final time.
So what have I said to you today? Dare to change. Dare to disobey. Dare to take action. My friends, you are brilliant, you are unbeatable, and now, I ask you to be bold as well.
If you go downtown, to the corner of College and Grove, you’ll find yourself at the Yale War Memorial. It’s quiet and cool, and the names of Yale’s fallen servicemen are carved on the walls. Above these names is an inscription, and very people know this, but that inscription was chosen by Hopkins’ own Simeon Baldwin in 1912. It reads, Courage disdains fame, and wins it. My friends, Hopkins class of 2011: Be courageous. Cross the line. Congratulations. Thank you.
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Head of School, Barbara Riley's Commencement Address
You have made two important, tangible and permanent gifts to Hopkins today. One establishes an endowed fund – the first of its kind – for sustainability initiatives at Hopkins. You are the class that embraced the greening of Hopkins – and took the School trayless, into the Green Cup Challenge and, most recently, and to the Keep CT Cool competition. I love it that a number of you were out and still representing Hopkins so well last weekend – not to mention bringing home a prize that will add significantly to your sustainability fund.
You have understood that sustainability means advancing the present without in anyway compromising the future – here on the Hill and elsewhere.
But you have also lived “sustainability” in another sense, as you are an exceptionally kind, careful and unified class. You have generously looked out for and appreciated each other; you have, quite beautifully, “sustained” each other. Your second Class Gift – to endowment for financial aid – makes an important statement about your time here and what you want to perpetuate at Hopkins. For, what you have held most dear, of course, turns out to be each other. Your gift to endowment for financial aid will help ensure that young people like you will find each other, and that Hopkins will continue to be a rare school, but not an exclusive one.
Personally, and on behalf of our School, I am very grateful.
Today is also the last chance I have to address you as students here, and I want to spend the few minutes I have suggesting some ways in which you may come to think who about you have become your time at Hopkins.
Just a week ago – right now it seems longer – you and your parents came by my house for an early evening picnic. It was quite possibly the most beautiful day of the early summer – until this one – and I remember thinking that you seniors deserved to have the sun shine for you. It had, after all, been a long winter and a gray spring, and blue skies seemed called for as we prepared to celebrate you and your many accomplishments. And, today we have that soft and benevolent sky once again, and just for you.
At the picnic that night, I mentioned a New York Times article by David Brooks, who is a noted, reasonable and thoughtful writer, and whose recent New York Times piece – entitled “It’s Not About You” –
Today, of course, it is “all about you” as your school recognizes your accomplishments and awards you diplomas; it is “all about you” as your teachers, coaches and advisers take a moment to say, once again, how much we love you; and, it is “all about you,” as with your parents, families and friends, you mark this milestone moment.
That’s what Commencements are all about.
You make us enormously proud and, just as important, hopeful – and that last word is really the point.
But, frankly, and although what Mr. Brooks had to say made me think, it also made me mad – and then it made me think again.
He had some insights into American education and child-rearing, but he clearly did not know you or about you; how he got you mixed up with those other Classes of 2011, I do not know. Because he clearly did not know the reasons so many of us here today look at – and to – you and feel confident and hopeful – that good Hopkins word – about the future.
Mr. Brooks’s primary point was that your lives have been, in his words, “perversely” and extremely “structured;” that you have been coached, groomed, organized, taught and protected in ways that leave you totally unprepared for and, worse, disinterested in meaningful work in your world. He sees a generation that is self-centered, inward and narcissistic; one for which self-realization is a life’s ultimate purpose, at least for those “lucky” enough to have that as an option.
He does not believe that your generation has the ability to a put its individual or collective intelligence – or shoulders – together to take on a “task,” or to solve a problem. His grievance is not with you – after all, it’s not your “fault” that you have been raised and schooled the way you have. His argument is that young Americans have been ill-served by their educations and upbringing, that they have no idea about either the effort, or the rewards, or the necessity of setting their mind to a challenge larger than personal fulfillment.
Personally, I am counting on all 128 of you to continue to prove him wrong.
You may never have read its formal statement, but I hope that you have experienced Hopkins true purpose and values. That purpose and those values are broad and they are ambitious, for their core premise is that you will take what you have learned and experienced here, and that you will use it – in some yet-to-be-defined-way – for something and to become something larger than yourself.
Although our expression of Hopkins mission is large and comprehensive, my favorite part of it has to do with one of the final phrases: that this school will nurture the “development of character essential to leading a rich and purposeful life.”
“Purposeful” – the second key component in our aspirations and expectations for you – has to do with the ways you will allow a purpose larger than yourself to define your life.
I began this talk with a thank you for your generous class gift. I will close with an acknowledgement of another kind of gift, not one given today, but something you have given over the course of the past four, or five or six years, and that will have its effect on Hopkins’ future.
You have all heard – maybe more times than you would wish – the quotation from Edward Hopkins’ bequest, the inaugural gift that charged the first Trustees in 1660 with establishing a school for the breeding up of hopeful youth for the public service of the country in future times. There is no question in my mind that Edward Hopkins was talking about you and imagining the moment when you would leave this school with the hopeful hearts and fine minds that will sustain you – and others – through the years ahead. First, you will continue your educations; but, then, you will go out and use those educations to a larger purpose.
After all, you have already sought to make a Hopkins a better school. You have reminded us that a healthy skepticism has its place in intellectual pursuits, but that a purposeful life has no room for cynicism. You have shown us, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, that self-reliance is about “individualism without egotism. . .[and along with that] a belief in intuition, independence and the splendid labyrinth of one’s own perceptions.” In the ways you have treated each other, you have reminded us of the importance of kindness, of cheering for others and of friendship. You have reminded us that independence may be over-rated, and that depending on others is one of the ways we show our humanity, and that being dependable is one of the greatest things any of us do.
One of the wonderful things about my part of life at Hopkins is that, over the course of the year, and especially at Commencement, I have the thrill of looking out at your faces and being reminded of why we so confidently put such faith in you. Right now, in that very old and good Hopkins word, you are our “hope” – and it could not be better placed. I want you to know that, although the work of your teachers has been to inform, inspire and invigorate each of you – to create hope – that is exactly what you have done for each of us.
Cherish that hope, safeguard it and, above all, come back to Hopkins and show us what you are doing with it.
With all love and affection, congratulations to you, Hopkins Class of 2011. The time for the cheering has come.
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The Class of 2011 and their college matriculation
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Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld's Valedictory Address
I want to thank my wonderful teachers, family and friends who are here today, and my fellow seniors for giving me the honor of speaking. When I first started planning this speech a few weeks back, I realized that every possible speech has been done before. The reach-for-the-stars speech, the don’t-reach-for-the-stars speech, the speech about writing a speech – so I thought that instead of giving a speech of my own, for the next half hour or so I’d just read aloud from my favorite book: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Just kidding. I actually did write a speech. My friends, the unrivaled, indomitable class of 2011, today I want to talk about us. Along the way, I have just 3 things to say – and then let’s graduate.
So, seniors, who were we at Hopkins? We were the dream class. I don’t think any class in Hopkins history has spent so much time in the library, broken so many records, or possessed so much raw talent. We threw ourselves into our passions – as DJ’s, paramedics, and painters, running-backs, horse-back riders and center-mids – with unparalleled work ethic, integrity and zeal. We poured hundreds of hours into term papers and test preparations – and, well, it all paid off.
Yet somehow, we managed to have fun. Seniors, we were a class that crossed a lot of lines. We had ghostriding incidents, we put something in the water, and as far as I know, we’re the first Hopkins class ever to graduate in sunglasses.
Now all of this is wonderful. It’s who we are as a class. But the first point I want to make is that who you were at Hopkins doesn’t define who you will be for the rest of your life.
Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a mother gave her children some paints to play with. Six out the seven kids painted puppets. The last kid took the paint and drew a life-size army battalion all over the walls of the room. That kid grew up to be Napoleon Bonaparte. Similarly, some of you already know exactly who want to be. Sam, I expect you to be president by our 30th reunion; Alex I want to see that Nobel prize, and Adam, you better be a 5-star general.
Let me tell you another story. A couple years ago, a studious girl from Tennessee, plays in the school marching band, aces the SAT and gets into Barnard College. Today, that girl is Ke$ha, spelled with a dollar sign.
“Just be yourself” – I know these are supposed to be words of freedom, and of course they are, but it seems to me they can also be constricting: when you change, people get scared. It takes bravery to step out of your comfort zone, and people will always have something to say about it. You make new friends, suddenly you’re a social climber. You wear a new outfit to school, and suddenly, oh you’re trying so hard. NO. Okay, maybe the denim jumpsuit was a bad idea. But don’t listen. You have absolutely no obligation to be who you are at 18 for the rest of your life. It’s not wrong to change.
“Be yourself” means “be whoever you want to be.” Not “be who your friends think you are.” Not “be the same person you were last year.” If you’ve always known what you want to be, more power to you. But it’s equally great if you wake up tomorrow morning thinking, “I’m gonna take a gap year to make a documentary in Cambodia.” “I know I signed up to do Teach For America this fall, but – I wanna start a hedge fund.” Dare to be who you’re not. The world has no right to tell you who you are, so don’t let anyone’s judgment or expectations hold you back.
That’s point one. Let’s first come back to who we are, class of 2011. I began this speech by saying we have crossed lines together. But let’s face the reality: we go to Hopkins. Sure, we all make a big show of living life on the edge. “Macbeth paper due next period? Haven’t started.” You hear that everywhere. But everyone knows that in 55 minutes, that paper will be on Mr. Johnson’s desk. That’s also part of who we are: we so want to be rebellious, but we always get the job done.
So I think there’s a good chance that, sometime in the future when we are free from the constraints of Hopkins, many of us will want to do more than talk about breaking the mold. And that’s point two. If you want to rebel, rebel in a way that matters.
There’s a quote I love from Lolita – and this is probably the first time a valedictorian thought it was a good idea to quote a child-molesting psychopath – that reads as follows:
it occurred to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good.
A rebel has courage. A rebel undertakes personal risk for something they believe in. Anyone can say, “forget this,” cut class, smoke weed. You know why? Because it’s easy. It doesn’t make you a rebel. You’re a failing cog in the machine, but you’re still a cog in the machine.
If you don’t like the system, get out of the system. Because a lot of the time, the system is wrong. I don’t need to describe societal injustice; you know it’s out there. There is so much to fix. So often, the system is broken. Another mistake is to think that we have somehow maxed out, or “arrived.” With iPads, 3D-Printers, 4G networks, it may feel as though things can’t get any better, as though we’ve already made every possible breakthrough. But let me tell you, people felt that same way when fire first came out, and then stairs, and car-phones. There is ALWAYS something unfathomable around the corner. Instead of being shocked by the next earth-shattering discovery, make that discovery. Be the one salmon that swims downstream. Rock other people’s worlds.
If you want to be a rebel, don’t just break the rules: make the rules.
You could characterize rebellion as doing the WRONG thing for the RIGHT reason. My final point is that sometimes, it’s also okay to do the RIGHT thing for the WRONG reason.
What is the right reason to do the right thing? I think we, seniors, wrestle with this question all the time. We know too much to think people are saints. Seniors, you know what I’m talking about: you all filled out the CommonApp, and included the 5000 hours of community service and soup kitchens. [pause] It can make you more focused on the motive than the deed itself. You wonder if people actually care about the impoverished nation they’re holding a bake sale for. You want to volunteer at an animal shelter because puppies are cute, but also because girls go crazy for that sort of thing. And deep down, a voice inside you asks, “if I’m doing this for a selfish reason, should I be doing it at all?”
But again, don’t listen to that voice. Your motives may not be pure, but by taking action, you are doing more for the world than someone who does nothing at all. Doesn’t matter if that same voice says, “Working in a soup kitchen is so cliche.” Do it anyway. We’re too smart not to be cynical. But let’s be smart enough to be idealistic as well.
Well guys, this is it. The time has come to say goodbye: to your room, to your dog, to your childhood. Our time at Hopkins is over. For most of us, it’s the last time we’ll play on a varsity team, or know the name of everyone in our grade. All of us have toasted our last Ski Lodge Day marshmallows. We’ll never again be sent “off to class.” We’ve pledged our honor here for the final time.
So what have I said to you today? Dare to change. Dare to disobey. Dare to take action. My friends, you are brilliant, you are unbeatable, and now, I ask you to be bold as well.
If you go downtown, to the corner of College and Grove, you’ll find yourself at the Yale War Memorial. It’s quiet and cool, and the names of Yale’s fallen servicemen are carved on the walls. Above these names is an inscription, and very people know this, but that inscription was chosen by Hopkins’ own Simeon Baldwin in 1912. It reads, Courage disdains fame, and wins it. My friends, Hopkins class of 2011: Be courageous. Cross the line. Congratulations. Thank you.
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Head of School, Barbara Riley's Commencement Address
(accepting the senior class gift)
Thank you Earl and members of the Class of 2011.
Thank you Earl and members of the Class of 2011.
You have made two important, tangible and permanent gifts to Hopkins today. One establishes an endowed fund – the first of its kind – for sustainability initiatives at Hopkins. You are the class that embraced the greening of Hopkins – and took the School trayless, into the Green Cup Challenge and, most recently, and to the Keep CT Cool competition. I love it that a number of you were out and still representing Hopkins so well last weekend – not to mention bringing home a prize that will add significantly to your sustainability fund.
You have understood that sustainability means advancing the present without in anyway compromising the future – here on the Hill and elsewhere.
But you have also lived “sustainability” in another sense, as you are an exceptionally kind, careful and unified class. You have generously looked out for and appreciated each other; you have, quite beautifully, “sustained” each other. Your second Class Gift – to endowment for financial aid – makes an important statement about your time here and what you want to perpetuate at Hopkins. For, what you have held most dear, of course, turns out to be each other. Your gift to endowment for financial aid will help ensure that young people like you will find each other, and that Hopkins will continue to be a rare school, but not an exclusive one.
Personally, and on behalf of our School, I am very grateful.
This is Hopkins 351st Commencement, but for you seniors this is a first and only Hopkins graduation. Regardless of whether your parents, or siblings, or grandparents graduated Hopkins, this is a “first” for them, too – simply because it is yours.
Today is also the last chance I have to address you as students here, and I want to spend the few minutes I have suggesting some ways in which you may come to think who about you have become your time at Hopkins.
Just a week ago – right now it seems longer – you and your parents came by my house for an early evening picnic. It was quite possibly the most beautiful day of the early summer – until this one – and I remember thinking that you seniors deserved to have the sun shine for you. It had, after all, been a long winter and a gray spring, and blue skies seemed called for as we prepared to celebrate you and your many accomplishments. And, today we have that soft and benevolent sky once again, and just for you.
At the picnic that night, I mentioned a New York Times article by David Brooks, who is a noted, reasonable and thoughtful writer, and whose recent New York Times piece – entitled “It’s Not About You” –
had caught my eye, made me think about you, and and caused me to consider writing my own OpEd piece for the New York Times.
Today, of course, it is “all about you” as your school recognizes your accomplishments and awards you diplomas; it is “all about you” as your teachers, coaches and advisers take a moment to say, once again, how much we love you; and, it is “all about you,” as with your parents, families and friends, you mark this milestone moment.
That’s what Commencements are all about.
You make us enormously proud and, just as important, hopeful – and that last word is really the point.
But, frankly, and although what Mr. Brooks had to say made me think, it also made me mad – and then it made me think again.
He had some insights into American education and child-rearing, but he clearly did not know you or about you; how he got you mixed up with those other Classes of 2011, I do not know. Because he clearly did not know the reasons so many of us here today look at – and to – you and feel confident and hopeful – that good Hopkins word – about the future.
Mr. Brooks’s primary point was that your lives have been, in his words, “perversely” and extremely “structured;” that you have been coached, groomed, organized, taught and protected in ways that leave you totally unprepared for and, worse, disinterested in meaningful work in your world. He sees a generation that is self-centered, inward and narcissistic; one for which self-realization is a life’s ultimate purpose, at least for those “lucky” enough to have that as an option.
He does not believe that your generation has the ability to a put its individual or collective intelligence – or shoulders – together to take on a “task,” or to solve a problem. His grievance is not with you – after all, it’s not your “fault” that you have been raised and schooled the way you have. His argument is that young Americans have been ill-served by their educations and upbringing, that they have no idea about either the effort, or the rewards, or the necessity of setting their mind to a challenge larger than personal fulfillment.
Personally, I am counting on all 128 of you to continue to prove him wrong.
You may never have read its formal statement, but I hope that you have experienced Hopkins true purpose and values. That purpose and those values are broad and they are ambitious, for their core premise is that you will take what you have learned and experienced here, and that you will use it – in some yet-to-be-defined-way – for something and to become something larger than yourself.
Although our expression of Hopkins mission is large and comprehensive, my favorite part of it has to do with one of the final phrases: that this school will nurture the “development of character essential to leading a rich and purposeful life.”
Two words are key there: one is the word “rich,” which in this sense has nothing to do with money. (Although I will hope that over time you will see your way to adding to the two important endowed funds you are establishing today.) “Rich” in this Hopkins sense has to do with the ways we hope your lives will be fully human – that you will be open to and will take in all experience, of love and loss, of success and of disappointment, trial and error – all of those are coming your way;
that you will be ready to show courage and conviction; that you’ll take in beauty in its many forms, and that you won’t look the other way when you see something ugly or wrong that needs you to fix it; that you will continue to be open to possibilities you cannot possibly have even imagined yet . . .
“Purposeful” – the second key component in our aspirations and expectations for you – has to do with the ways you will allow a purpose larger than yourself to define your life.
I began this talk with a thank you for your generous class gift. I will close with an acknowledgement of another kind of gift, not one given today, but something you have given over the course of the past four, or five or six years, and that will have its effect on Hopkins’ future.
You have all heard – maybe more times than you would wish – the quotation from Edward Hopkins’ bequest, the inaugural gift that charged the first Trustees in 1660 with establishing a school for the breeding up of hopeful youth for the public service of the country in future times. There is no question in my mind that Edward Hopkins was talking about you and imagining the moment when you would leave this school with the hopeful hearts and fine minds that will sustain you – and others – through the years ahead. First, you will continue your educations; but, then, you will go out and use those educations to a larger purpose.
After all, you have already sought to make a Hopkins a better school. You have reminded us that a healthy skepticism has its place in intellectual pursuits, but that a purposeful life has no room for cynicism. You have shown us, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, that self-reliance is about “individualism without egotism. . .[and along with that] a belief in intuition, independence and the splendid labyrinth of one’s own perceptions.” In the ways you have treated each other, you have reminded us of the importance of kindness, of cheering for others and of friendship. You have reminded us that independence may be over-rated, and that depending on others is one of the ways we show our humanity, and that being dependable is one of the greatest things any of us do.
One of the wonderful things about my part of life at Hopkins is that, over the course of the year, and especially at Commencement, I have the thrill of looking out at your faces and being reminded of why we so confidently put such faith in you. Right now, in that very old and good Hopkins word, you are our “hope” – and it could not be better placed. I want you to know that, although the work of your teachers has been to inform, inspire and invigorate each of you – to create hope – that is exactly what you have done for each of us.
Cherish that hope, safeguard it and, above all, come back to Hopkins and show us what you are doing with it.
With all love and affection, congratulations to you, Hopkins Class of 2011. The time for the cheering has come.
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The Class of 2011 and their college matriculation
| CLASS OF 2011 | College/University |
| Matthew Joseph Amatruda | Tulane University |
| Juliet Rose Rabb Bailin * | Harvard University |
| David Foster Barna * | Harvard University |
| Neal Anjan BasuMullick | Cornell University |
| Elizabeth Frances Baumgartner | Wesleyan University |
| DeAwngellice Inez Bell | Barnard College |
| Steven Price Bell | Lehigh University |
| Tsvi Benson-Tilsen | University of Chicago |
| Alison Michele Berman | Tufts University |
| Phoebe Louise Bodurtha | Dartmouth College |
| Celine Marianne Bondoc | Washington University in St. Louis |
| Margaret Arlene Bray | New York University |
| Samantha Ingraham Brownlow | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| Paul Richard Bucala * | Georgetown University |
| Lainee Michelle Burnette | University of Connecticut |
| Cormac Daniel Carr | Wake Forest University |
| Joseph Patrick Celestin | Bowdoin College |
| Tiffany Xiao Chen | Yale University |
| Sophia Diana Chua-Rubenfeld * | Harvard University |
| Brandon Michael Cimino | Becker College |
| Eric Donal Collimore | Colby College |
| Gabriela Simone Cooper-Vespa * | Wellesley College |
| Devyn Presutto Curley | Tufts University |
| Natalie Elizabeth Daifotis | Pomona College |
| Peter Quentin Salisbury de Groot * | Princeton University |
| Shannon Julia Delaney | Lafayette College |
| Rahul Madhav Dhodapkar * | Yale University |
| Amanda Elizabeth Dobbyn * | University of Chicago |
| Jerrod Michael Dobkin | Bowdoin College |
| Julia Nicole Eisen | Barnard College |
| Hannah Elizabeth Elbaum | Vanderbilt University |
| Caroline Carmen Ferguson * | Bowdoin College |
| Mark Stephen Festa | University of Notre Dame |
| Claire Coyne Flanagan | Brown University |
| Sarah Rose Frear | University of Southern California |
| Shelby Katherine Galvin | Boston College |
| Tara Marie Gambardella | Providence College |
| Constantin Rene Geanakoplos * | Yale University |
| Cailin Maire Gillespie | University of Notre Dame |
| Emma Bond Gleeman * | Brown University |
| Samuel Anthony Greco | Georgetown University |
| Sahil Kumar Gupta | Cornell University |
| Adam Richard Hallet | United States Military Academy |
| Clea Danielle Harris | Scripps College |
| Alexis Loren Harrison | University of Wisconsin, Madison |
| Sara Mai Henry | University of Chicago |
| Michael Alexander Herbert | Swarthmore College |
| Alexander Nathan Heyison | Wesleyan University |
| Kristi Corey Hill | Tufts University |
| Teresa Hanna Hulinska | University of Toronto |
| Lauryn Jennifer Isford * | Stanford University |
| Aishah Jamilah Jenkins | Lesley University |
| Luke Tyler Jenusaitis | Johns Hopkins University |
| Sonal Grewal Jessel | Pitzer College |
| Miles Russell Johnson | The George Washington University |
| Erik Alexander Jorgensen | Johns Hopkins University |
| Lauren Gabriella Kahan | Georgetown University |
| Mira Bernstein Kaufman | Brown University |
| Drew McNamara Kelly | Colby College |
| Connor Hay Kistler | Villanova University |
| Nathaniel Jacob Klingher | Wesleyan University |
| Andrew James Kraus | Indiana University at Bloomington |
| Veena Trisha Krish | University of Pennsylvania |
| Anisha Rose Kurien | Vassar College |
| Samuel Erasmus Kuslan | Loyola University New Orleans |
| Natalie Anne Lapides | Yale University |
| Lucie Freedman Ledbetter * | Yale University |
| Emma Sue Leighton | Boston University |
| Isabelle Kate Levin | New York University |
| Earl Yohance Lin | Wesleyan University |
| Benjamin James Lockhart | Boston College |
| Michael Thomas LoPiano | Johns Hopkins University |
| Matthew Joseph Luciani | Tufts University |
| John David Lukach | Colby College |
| Susanna Megan Lustbader | University of Pennsylvania |
| Alexandra Ruth MacMullen | Wheaton College MA |
| Connor James Maher | Princeton University |
| Justin James Manley * | University of Chicago |
| Joan Sara Margolis | Colgate University |
| Dylan Olimpi McDonnell * | Oberlin College |
| Peter Egan McGrath | Colgate University |
| Tyler Justin Michaels | Oral Roberts University |
| Rachel Hannah Moss | New York University |
| Mina Moghaddam Mukherjee | Northeastern University |
| Christina Roberta Nelson | University of Pennsylvania |
| Louise Giulia Newman | Boston College |
| Aubri Marissa Oliphant | Union College |
| Laura Anne Paik * | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Jack Ryan Pantalena | Southern Methodist University |
| Alexis Hohn Parr * | Wesleyan University |
| Shannon Christine Pearson | Reed College |
| Elizabeth Jackson Perkins | Washington University in St. Louis |
| Claire Jennifer Pershan | Pomona College |
| Elizabeth Mary Peters * | Haverford College |
| Zhachary Render Pham | Colorado College |
| Kendall Therese Post | Rice University |
| Matthew Julian Pun * | Duke University |
| Shreyas Ramani | University of Michigan |
| Olivia Taylor Ramos | New York University |
| Mary Bridget Regan * | Northwestern University |
| Gemma Louise Regan-Mochrie | Smith College |
| Mary Claire Reidy | Franklin and Marshall College |
| Peter Mullin Rosiello | Bowdoin College |
| Daniel Paul Ross | Amherst College |
| Laura Franklin Rozier | Northwestern University |
| Rio Noel Santisteban-Edwards | Barnard College |
| Benjamin PhilipScheer | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Samantha Morgan Scheer | Southern Methodist University |
| Jordan William Sebastian | University of Rhode Island |
| Roy Segal * | Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence |
| Joseph Serino III * | Georgetown University |
| Gabriel Shoglow-Rubenstein | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Alexander Frederick Siegenfeld * | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Catherine Sophie Skoggard * | Georgetown University |
| Charlotte Ann Smilow | Yale University |
| Nathaniel Heim Smith | Union College |
| Claire Hansen Stepanek * | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Sophia Urry Szymkowiak * | Yale University |
| Nora Raine Thompson | Wesleyan University |
| Alexander York Tom | University of Pennsylvania |
| Bryan Dustin Turkel | Claremont McKenna College |
| Taylor Doores Waanders | Duke University |
| Clara Wilson-Hawken | Princeton University |
| Michael William Ying * | Columbia University |
| Michelle Tamar Zackin | Tufts University |
| Luyi Zhang | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| * Cum Laude |
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