The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘We must develop habits of mind and spirit’
MIDDLETOWN — Wesleyan University celebrated its 2020 graduates at an online commencement ceremony made necessary by the coronavirus pandemic Sunday.
“As the graduates head out into a world during a time of great challenges and uncertainty, they were reminded of their responsibility toward the common good,” according to a press release.
Since its founding in 1831, Wesleyan’s mission has included both serving the good of the individual and the good of the world.
Generations of students and alumni have lived out this mission through their work in the public sphere, the release said.
Three honorary degree recipients, all “powerful voices working to inspire change and create a more civically engaged populace,” addressed the graduates: award-winning and best-selling author Jacqueline Woodson (commencement speaker); actor and political activist Bradley Whitford ’81; and social justice advocate and pastor the Rev. Dr. William
J. Barber II.
The ceremony was virtual, however Roth delivered his remarks live on campus, and there was a very small gathering of sociallydistanced graduates and onlookers present, according to the university.
“I believe you can help, and that the country is at a critical inflection point,” he told the grads. “We need your participation in civic life, whether you choose to engage in your neighborhood, city, state or at the national level.”
Roth acknowledged some people humorously refer to the campus as the “Wesleyan bubble.”
“We also should have learned how permeable the borders are between the campus and the world of which it is a part. A university is a place to have one’s ways of thinking tested — not just protected,” he added.
Barber called upon these newly minted alumni to care about the world beyond themselves, to seek change, and to think about living lives of meaning.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exploited “the fissures and the inequalities of the society that are caused by poverty and systemic structural racism,” laying bare the challenges in our country that far too many people in power have been willing to ignore, the release said.
“Instead of going back to normal, which was 140 million people living in poverty and low wealth and 700 people dying a day from poverty, I want to issue to you a call to care … and a challenge to seek change. We cannot go back to normal or just a new normal,” he said.
Whitford similarly compelled students to take action toward a better future during this time of “unprecedented uncertainty.”
“No disease has ever been cured, no people were ever liberated from oppression with fear and cynicism and doubt,” he said in a prepared statement. “The only way progress has ever been made is when we have understood that we are not just victims of circumstance, but that we can also be architects of our own destiny.
“It’s the radical idea of the American experiment, the idea that our future is an act of our own creation, and that its possibilities are limited only by our imagination and how hard we are willing to fight,” Whitford added.
Commencement speaker Jacqueline Woodson said older generations have left the graduates a “messy” planet as she expressed her faith in young people.
“I see your magic. I see your brilliance. And I see the way you are doing the hard work already and changing the world already,” she told the students. “And I just love young people so much. I love what y’all are doing, I love who you’re becoming, and I love what this world is going to be because of you.”
Student speaker Caroline Bhupathi ’20 spoke about how her time at Wesleyan allowed her to not only be heard for the first time, but to hear others.
“The people at Wesleyan have taught me that we do not have to necessarily have the same experiences to relate to one another. Wesleyan has meant that I was able to express, for myself, my own ever-changing narrative,” she said.