Charge to the Class of 2003

To the Class of 2003, do not misinterpret the significance of this day. You are not finished with the stage of your life devoted to learning. What you have learned here is important. But the most important part of our mission is not to fill you up with ideas and arguments. The most important part of what we do is to instill a desire for learning and to nourish the questioning attitude that marks the lifelong learner. So today I don't congratulate you for what you know, but rather I congratulate you for having acquired the tools and habits of inquiry. There is a discipline that is required to live in this world of spin and sound bite, of briefings, of information carved up into small and easily digested bits and pieces, made to fit between the advertisements and commercials of the various information media. It is the discipline of questioning.

If we have been successful in providing you with an education, then what you will take from your undergraduate years of liberal arts study is doubt. You will be prepared to ask how the speaker and the writer know what they say they know. You will be prepared to offer alternate conclusions to theirs. You will want to consult other sources, to verify fact and method yourself. And ultimately you will know the wisdom of remaining open to learning from debate. You will recognize the responsibility we all have of expressing our own point of view to the best of our ability, rather than being part of that great silent audience that consumes the data of instant opinion polls as if they somehow represented true wisdom.

As President of Pitzer College, I give you your charge: Learn all that you can every day you draw breath. Take the habits of disciplined inquiry and the will to question that have been encouraged here and apply them to every important issue that stands before you and your fellow human beings. Participate in every debate that touches on the well being of your fellows, the negotiation of truth, and social justice. This charge will take you the rest of your life. Doubt, question, speak out, join in the great debates-take on the responsibility of world citizenship.

Together we, the members of the Pitzer community who will remain here, and you, the members of the Pitzer community who fearlessly carry our tradition out into the wider world - together we shoulder the responsibility of giving life to our motto: Provida futura— Mindful of the future.

The faculty, staff, alumni, and trustees of Pitzer College are proud to have been part of your early career knowing how one life lived in the present has an irreversible, extraordinary effect on the life we will all share in the future.

And so to you, the Class of 2003, my first graduating class at Pitzer College, you will lead extraordinary lives-congratulations.

Given by President Laura Skandera Trombley on May 19, 2003, at the 39th Commencement of Pitzer College.

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