哈佛校长福斯特在哈佛大学20xx年毕业典礼上英语演讲稿
Thank you, President Torres. Wele, Governor Patrick. Thank you, everyone, for being here. The 146th annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association at the 364th Commencement ofHarvard University. It's a particular pleasure to wele former Governor Deval Patrick of theCollege Class of 1978 and the Harvard Law School Class of 1982. Throughout hisdistinguished career in government, he forcefully argued for the power of cation totransform lives. Nothing made that case more persuasively than his own remarkable life –from Chicago's South Side to the Massachusetts State House. When he was sworn in asgovernor, he took the oath of office with the Mendi Bible, presented in 1841 by the Africancaptives who had seized the slave ship Amistad to the man who had won their legal right tofreedom, John Quincy Adams. Governor Patrick can claim connection with both the Africanheritage of the Amistad rebels and the institutional roots of their defender. Adams, as youheard before from President Torres, was a member of the Harvard College Class of 1787, andwas both the first president of this alumni association, and himself the son of an earlieralumnus, John Adams, of the Class of 1755. That kind of continuity across the centuries is notthe least of the reasons that we congregate here every spring to renew and reinforce our tiesto this extraordinary place. Let me start by noticing what is both obvious and curious: We are here today together. Weare here in association. It is an association of many people, and many generations. Wecelebrate a connection across time in these festival rites, singing our alma mater, adorningourselves in medieval robes to mark the deep-rooted traditions of Harvard, and of universitiesmore generally. Even in the age of the online and the virtual, an institution has brought ustogether, and brings us back. We have also sung – or rather the magnificent Renée Fleming has sung – "America theBeautiful," to honor another institution, our democratic republic, which the men and womenwhose names are carved in stone in Memorial Church right behind me – and Memorial Hall justbehind that – gave their lives to protect and uphold. When the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived on these shores in 1630, they cameas dissenters – rejecting institutions of their English homeland. But I have always found itstriking that here in the wilderness, where mere survival was the foremost challenge, theyso rapidly felt pelled to found this seat of learning so that New England, in the words ofWilliam Hubbard of the Class of 1642, so the New England "might be supplied with persons fitto manage the affairs of both church and state." Church, state, and College. Three institutionsthey deemed essential to this Massachusetts experiment. Three institutions to ensure that thecolonists, as Governor John Winthrop urged, could be "knit together as one" in a new society ina brave new world. Dozens of generations have e and gone since then, and the University's footprint hasexpanded considerably beyond a small cluster of wooden buildings. But we have never lost faithin the capacity of each generation to build a better society than the one it was born into. Wehave never lost faith in the capacity of this College to help make that possible. As an earlyfounder, Thomas Shepard put it, we hope to graduate into the world people who are, in hiswords, "enlarged toward the country and the good of it." Yet now, nearly four centuries later, we find ourselves in a challenging historical moment. Howdo we "enlarge" our graduates in a way that benefits others as well? Shepard spoke ofenlarging "toward" – toward, as he put it, "the country and the good of it." Are we succeeding incating students oriented toward the betterment of others? Or have we all bee so caughtup in individual and personal achievements, opportunities, and appearances that we riskfetting our interdependence, our responsibilities to one another and to the institutionsmeant to promote the mon good? This is the era of the selfie – and the selfie stick. Now don't get me wrong: There is much tolove about selfies, and two years ago in my Baccalaureate address I concluded by urging thegraduates to send such pictures along so we could keep up with them and their post-Harvardlives. But think for a moment about the implications of a society that goes through life takingits own picture. That seems to me a quite literal embodiment of "self-regarding" – a term notoften used as a pliment. In fact, Merriam-Webster's dictionary offers "egocentric," "narcissistic," and "selfish" as synonyms. We direct endless attention to ourselves, our image,our "Likes," just as we are encouraged – and in fact encourage our students – to burnishresumes and fill first college and then job or graduate school applications with endless lists ofachievements – with examples, to borrow Shepard's language, of constant enlargements ofself. As one social mentator has observed, we are ceaselessly at work building our ownbrands. We spend time looking at screens instead of one another. Large portions of our lives arehardly experienced: They are curated, shared, Snapchatted and Instagrammed – rendered asa kind of posite selfie.
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