‘You are our future,’ Feinberg tells grads

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

Sarah Hamill tries to get the attention of her family.

pirits, balloons, geese, and even Silly String flew high at Undergraduate Commencement in Warren P. McGuirk Alumni Stadium May 26. The event capped a weekend of activities that included Graduate Commencement, Stockbridge School of Agriculture Commencement, smaller ceremonies at the schools and colleges and other academic celebrations.

     Approximately 4,000 students received bachelor's degrees, and an additional 1,250 received graduate degrees over the weekend.

     Alumnus Kenneth R. Feinberg, '67, special master of the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund and the University's first student Commencement speaker 35 years ago, returned to the podium to address the Class of '02.

     Feinberg amused the near-graduates by painting a picture of the campus without the Mullins Center, Library tower, Fine Arts Center, or Whitmore Administration Building and by describing the Southwest residence area as a "national experiment."

Family and friends line up to take photos of graduates.

     "This wonderful school is a very different university than it was 35 years ago," Feinberg told the students. "But the spirit of this great university was the same [then] as it is today - a special place to learn, to grow, to cultivate new ideas and opportunities."

     Feinberg said the Class of '02 will face challenges that are both different from and similar to the ones his generation has faced, and told them they would each "make a small, but vital, contribution to [the] collective effort."

     "You will reach your own spiritual and practical fulfillment in countless individual ways," he said.

     "I hope you will go out today and fulfill your own individual dream, whatever it might be. ... Do not be defeated, do not shirk from seeking your life's goal, do not lose heart. You are our future, and the future is now."

     Student speaker Brandy L. Curtis also spoke of the Class of '02's role in the future, linking her understanding of it to the events of Sept. 11.

Alumnus Kenneth Feinberg delivers the principal speech.

     "Only two short weeks after this academic year began, we, the Class of '02, went from dreamers and searchers to the hope and the future," she said. "A horrific tragedy caused this nation and its citizens to once again look to the future for it seemed that was the only remedy for escaping the now. And that future is us. We are it."

     Some of Curtis' classmates carried American flags or red, white and blue banners. Several carried brightly colored wind socks or Kermit the Frog dolls. Others blew bubbles or wore mortar boards decorated with fresh or plastic flower wreaths. One man had converted a vinyl album into a mortar board.

     Curtis cited the challenges her class had responded to during the last four years: the need to develop a diversity plan for Admissions once racial/ethnic quotas were declared illegal and the assaults reported to have happened near the Campus Pond in 1999.

     "Now it seems that as we depart we leave to our successors yet another challenge - that of budget cuts," she said. Curtis went on to affirm the importance of the University.

     "We are a campus of invaluable resource and opportunity," she said. "'What is so priceless about this campus?' some might ask.

     "I would like to share with you some of what made UMass my university: Julius Lester's 'Social Change in the 1960s' class; UMass hockey games; Worcester breakfast sandwiches; RA rounds; Ralph Nader's visit in 2000; Pierpont; Butterfield; People's Market and Earthfoods; studying abroad in South Africa; PVTA bus drivers; all-nighters; Alternative Spring Break; and the first and the second time I took Chemistry 111. UMass is not only a four-year institution, it is an experience!"

     Curtis' call to her class to meet the challenges ahead echoed the words of Abigail Adams, as quoted to the audience by President William M. Bulger: "These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out our great virtues."

     Calling Commencement "a celebration of dreams," interim Chancellor Marcellette G. Williams affirmed the value of dreams and told students that the dreams of others had brought them to the University. Six geese flew over the stadium in formation as Williams addressed the crowd.

     "And as you leave this university today, I ask you to show your courage to dream," she said. "Just as the dreams of your parents and of 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. Go forth and risk grand, impossible dreams."

     As the candidates for graduation from the schools and colleges were introduced, each group stood and cheered, some holding chairs above their heads, others throwing mortarboards aloft. Students from the Isenberg School of Management released nine red, white or blue balloons, and those from Social and Behavioral Sciences released 27. A graduate in Natural Science and Mathematics twirled and tossed a fringe-trimmed baton. When the School of Nursing was announced, candidates formed a tight cluster and shot dozens of yards of Silly String into the air.

     Honorary degrees were awarded to Feinberg, Blenda J. Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, and Michael J. Kittredge, entrepreneur and founder of Yankee Candle Co.

Commencement highlights online

The Commencement Web site (www.umass.edu/commencement) features streaming video, photos and transcripts of speeches from the May 26 undergraduate ceremony.