The Courage to Dream

Undergraduate Commencement Remarks
May 26, 2002

Commencement is the celebration of dreams. Today we celebrate the dreams that brought you here—the dreams nurtured by a parent who believed in you with reckless faith, by a teacher who recognized your intelligence and didn’t let you forget, by a mentor who sparked your professional ambition and accompanied your journey all the way to Amherst.

In each of your lives, there are so many people who had the courage to dream for you. Today we celebrate the fruition of those dreams.

And if there is one thing you take with you from your time here, let it be the courage to dream. For dreaming is no trivial act; it does indeed take courage, because to dream is to lift our aspirations beyond the limits of the known world, to lift us toward action in fulfillment of our deepest values.

I want to share with you a passage from the poem Maya Angelou wrote for the first Clinton inauguration, a passage that speaks to the spirit of this day:

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo,
The Scot, the Italian, the Hungarian, the Pole,
You, the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru bought, sold, stolen,
Arriving on a nightmare, praying for a dream.

Here root yourselves beside me.
I am that tree planted by the river;
I, the rock.
I, the river.
I, the tree.

I am yours—your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces;
You have a piercing need for this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but
If faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon this day breaking for you.
Give birth again to the dream.

____

Together, we lived through the wrenching pain of September 11. You showed your courage then. So that day is never lived again—in the life of this nation, in the life of any nation on this planet—you must continue to show your courage, the courage which inspires service, goodness, and hope. In the end, it is your courage which is the conduit for light to enter the world.

As you leave this university, I ask you to show your courage to dream. Just as the dreams of your parents and your mentors carried you to this day, it is your courage that will enable the dreams of another generation.

Lift up your eyes; have courage; as this day dawns for you, risk grand and impossible dreams.

Marcellette G. Williams
Chancellor