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The Class of 2009 was welcomed into the real world with all of the usual pomp and circumstance at Spring Convocation April 29, but with the added acknowledgment of the economic challenges facing the College and their futures.
In her opening address, President Catharine Bond Hill noted that this year marks an “‘interesting’ moment in the College’s history.” Hill spoke about the coincidence that Vassar has undergone the reaccreditation process in the same year as it has begun to make significant changes in light of the financial crisis. She joked about backup plans that she might have pursued should the Middle States Commission on Higher Education decided not to reaccredit Vassar, such as selling the Vassar campus to a “multi hundred million dollar corporation.”
Hill did address the very difficult choices that Vassar, like other institutions, will have to make in the next few years. According to Hill, “Temporary measures of savings and sacrifice will not be sufficient or sustainable. The financial world has been fundamentally re-set and we have no choice but to correspondingly re-set the operations of the College.”
She named specific challenges that Vassar’s budget faces and explained that while transparent decision-making is ideal, it is not always possible. “Moreover, of necessity, the decisions will profoundly affect the lives of individuals and so while we will make every effort to proceed in a consultative and transparent process about the principles for making decisions, that process cannot be done completely in a public forum.”
Despite the challenges that the College faces, Hill looked towards the unity that she sees in the Vassar community. “I believe that we are as a community fundamentally and profoundly unified in our purpose and in how that purpose is being realized,” she said. “Our points of contention more often focus on choosing ways we can better achieve our educational goals.”
Outgoing Vassar Student Association (VSA) President Jimmy Kelly ’09 similarly discussed the challenges that the College faces along with his fond memories of the place. He shared nostalgic tales of fun times with friends and inspiring hours in classes, but he also reflected on previous challenges that the College faced during his time here. “We challenged the old way of doing things when Cappy arrived by introducing a new need-blind admissions policy,” he said. “We challenged nooses and we challenged other hateful language. Each time we came together and imagined a better way forward.” Kelly hoped that the community solidarity that came with difficult times would carry the College through an uncertain financial climate.
Before passing the gavel on to new VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10, Kelly still had a few tricks up his voluminous gown sleeves. As he began to speak the lyrics of the Turtles’ “So Happy Together,” the piano and the Commencement Choir began on cue. Kelly led Hill in a dance, and as the audience gradually succumbed to the desire to sing along, the Chapel organ joined in and instrumentalists, including an accordion, popped up one by one in the front of the Chapel.
Following the spectacle, new VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10 acknowledged the challenges that next year will bring, but also looked toward the improvements that the solutions would bring. “Next year’s student leaders will have the opportunity to rethink Vassar’s structure in creative and dynamic ways,” she said. “It won’t be easy and it won’t be simple, but I wholeheartedly believe that the College we love will emerge from the crisis stronger, leaner and bolder than ever before.” While Ly looked forward to the future of the College, Bronwen Pardes ’95 looked forward to the future lives of the Class of 2009 as she welcomed them to the alumnae/i community by giving her personal phone numbers, home and cell, as well as e-mail address to the entire class. She explained that the class is extremely lucky simply because they are now Vassar alumnae/i. Pardes also gave a brief explanation of the terms alumna, alumnus, alumni and alumnae. According to Pardes, “In a group such people are usually alumni, but because we went to a former women’s college that never forgets its history, we are alumnae-slash-i.”
After Pardes let the seniors know that they had a home with all alumnae/i, Pittsburgh Endowment Professor of French Elisabeth Cardonne-Arlyck spoke to the trouble with going home in her address, “Far from Algeria.” Her speech danced between her own history and the works of French authors, poets and filmmakers and ended with a philosophical discussion of grammar, particularly pertaining to the future perfect tense.
Cardonne-Arlyck also spoke of Jacques Roubaud’s poem, “The Great Fire of London.” She said, “I find this idea of turning failure into a process of discovery, which is characteristic of modernity, infinitely encouraging, not only for writers or artists, but for the rest of us.” She also discussed her own past, growing up in both France and Algeria, and her difficulty going back to Algeria. “Algeria is not at the right distance,” Cardonne-Arlyck said. “It is at the same time too remote and too distant.”
She ended, however, in a more hopeful tense, the aforementioned future perfect: “It is deeply satisfying to me to realize today that, because of President Hill’s invitation and your kind attention, for the duration of this talk, I will not have been so far from Algeria, after all.”
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