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Albright's Speech Highlights Celebratory Commencement

All right with Albright--Joined by President Creighton, Dean Berek, Professor Joan Cocks, and others, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gives two thumbs up to the graduating class of 1997.

It was a weekend of graduation and reunion, of degrees and honorary degrees, of sun and rain. Commencement weekend was also a weekend of words, of speeches made to honor and inspire Mount Holyoke's class of 1997 as it moves beyond the campus into the world.

The centerpiece of the speeches delivered at baccalaureate and commencement ceremonies on May 24 and 25 was the commencement address by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was honored with a Doctor of Laws degree. The first female secretary of state, Albright warned the audience at Kendall Field House of the dangers--both national and personal--of complacency.

"America has arrived at the threshold of a new century strong, respected, prosperous, and with no single powerful enemy against whom we must lock our gates," Albright said. "The temptation is to coast. To sit back, avert our eyes and assume what does not affect us immediately will not affect us ever."

Joining Albright as a commencement speaker, senior Chandra Dunn exhorted her classmates to use their educations and experiences here to "... change the world. We, the class of 1997, are a group of women who have the imagination to envision new and better realities, the passionate determination to fuel our endeavors, and equally important, the practical knowledge and tools to work together to translate the abstract into reality."

Speaking at baccalaureate, politics professor Preston Smith considered the questions of volunteerism and public service, urging seniors to view government as a necessary partner in improving our nation. "Our government," Smith said, "must help us correct the disadvantages some of our fellow citizens experience. We must do these things collectively, through our government, not by accepting empty platitudes but by committing real resources."

Smith was joined by two graduating seniors, Amy Auzenne and Andreana Overton, who spoke of their four years at Mount Holyoke. Overton reminisced on the humorously harrowing experiences of her first year, and Auzenne reflected on how she has been influenced by a commitment to spiritual values that has been at the heart of the College's mission since its founding.

Also present at the Saturday evening service at Abbey Chapel, President Emeritus Elizabeth Kennan spoke of the College as a constant source of inspiration to its graduates. "When you walk alone along the beaches of your mind, exhausted with the effort of being useful, choked with the questions of what it all means," she said, "then return to this place, to this chapel, not in its glorious and boisterous moment of this night, but in its stillness, to this campus and its quiet grave which you limned with laurel this morning, and know the legacy of Mary Lyon at its center."