Office of the Chancellor

» back to Remarks and Speeches

Remarks at New Students Convocation

September 2, 2011
The Mullins Center

Welcome, new students, to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. You have come to the flagship campus of the great state of Massachusetts at an extraordinary time in its history. We are on the rise into the top ranks of the nation’s public research universities, and all of you here this morning will be part of our success.

When you are older and look back at your undergraduate years, you will be able to boast that you were among the fortunate students to attend UMass Amherst in the 2010s. Your pride and fond memories of your alma mater will be based not on hazy nostalgia for days when you could text without wearing reading glasses, but on the excellence of the campus where you have chosen to spend these years.

You will look back and recognize that you attended UMass Amherst at an especially exciting time. The campus is in a period of growth and in an age of high achievement, a time of record-setting research funding and intense community involvement. Exceptional professors who are top researchers, scholars, and creative artists will teach your classes. You will have boundless opportunities for personal growth.

As you may have heard, you are part of a student body with the best academic credentials ever at UMass Amherst. The classes before you set records for academic achievement in high school, but you have topped them. Your class comes to Amherst with the highest GPAs and SAT scores we’ve ever seen. Congratulations!

You’re at UMass Amherst at a time when several major buildings are either new or nearly new. They include the Studio Arts Building, the Integrated Sciences Building, the Recreation Center, and the Minuteman Marching Band building.  You’ll be among the first students to benefit from ongoing and upcoming construction projects. The Commonwealth Honors College academic and residential complex will be completed while you’re on campus, as will two new laboratory science buildings and a new high-tech academic classroom building. You have been the first to walk the refurbished plazas of Southwest. And next year you’ll be the first to cheer the Minuteman football team when they compete in Division 1A or FBS football in the Mid-American Conference.

Who knows what other firsts will occur while you’re on campus? Maybe you’ll work in a lab that patents a scientific breakthrough or be in on the beginnings of new energy technology. Perhaps you’ll attend a performance by a rising artist who later becomes a worldwide sensation. Your roommate could one day head up a major corporation, be an Iron Chef winner, or a robotics expert —UMass Amherst has educated them all.

You’ll be here to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the university’s founding in 1863, our sesquicentennial. You benefit from the knowledge and traditions left as a legacy by those who attended UMass Amherst in the century and a half before you. And you will become part of the continuing and illustrious history of UMass Amherst.

Unlike students of the past, students today exemplify diversity: your class is split evenly between men and women, more than one-fifth of you are students of color, more than a quarter of you come from outside Massachusetts. Learning in a multicultural environment will prepare you well for life in a diverse world.

You’re also on campus at a time when sustainability is valued as never before. We are winning recognition for leadership in sustainability due to our energy efficient new power plant, our permaculture garden, our green building guidelines, and an enlightened student body that cares about the environment and the future.

Furthermore, the food on campus, which has been unquestionably terrific for quite a while, gets better every year. And, we are located in the best college town in America in the picture-perfect Pioneer Valley. Is it any wonder, then, that we had a record-setting number of applicants this year and had to turn away many thousands who vied to be seated where you are this morning?

Not only is it a great time to be a UMass Amherst student, it is the best time to be a first-year student at UMass Amherst. You are the pioneering beneficiaries of our First Year Intelligence initiative. You are the first to experience a full fall orientation. You are the first to be offered a new approach to academic advising that will create a closer connection between you and your advisors.

Seeing new students around campus reminds me of my own early days here, four years ago. On my first day walking to work at the Whitmore administration building, my path was blocked by a construction ditch. Being new, I didn’t know another way into the building, and being anxious to get to work, I took a few steps back and leapt across the ditch. I was relieved to find myself safely on the other side and relieved to show up on my first day in the office with my suit unmuddied and my bones unbroken.

This ditch, which was being dug for a new conduit, caused me some anxiety on my first day, but it was part of ongoing improvements to the campus – improvements from which you will benefit. Any campus that does not have cranes, detours, mud, and open ditches is declining and not looking forward to the future.  UMass is definitely not one of those campuses!

You have enrolled on a dynamic campus where you will encounter ditches. You will undoubtedly face more complex challenges, too, such as demanding classes, personal crises, and concerns about your careers. I urge you to take the leap at UMass Amherst—jump the ditch with gusto and enjoy the airtime. Remember that you are not alone; your fellow students will look out for you, and the UMass Amherst faculty and staff are here to help you and ensure that you succeed.

Good luck to you in all that you do! And Go UMass!