Williams College’s 215th Commencement
June 5-6, 2004
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., June 6, 2004 — Williams College President Morton Owen Schapiro conferred bachelor’s degrees on 531 seniors at the college’s 215th Commencement today. Eleven students in the Program in the History of Art and 31 fellows from the Center for Development Economics received master’s degrees.
In his Commencement Address, author David Halberstam urged the graduates to live fearlessly.
“Do not be afraid to make some mistakes when you are young,” he said. “Do not be afraid to try and fail early in your life; we often stumble towards the things we will end up doing best.” Citing his experience of being fired after less than a year in his first adult job as a reporter for a small newspaper in Mississippi, he added that, “Succeeding is, more than anything else, picking yourself up on the bad days and deciding that you will not be defeated.”
Referring to the current world situation he also told the graduates “Do not live fearfully, whether from the threat of terrorists from abroad or from the edicts of those powerful fellow citizens who think that they and they alone can determine what true patriotism is.”
Three graduating seniors also spoke. Valedictorian Kai Chen, a computer science and mathematics major from Shanghai, spoke about people who have been important in his life, sparked by his learning this week of the death of his grandfather. The Phi Beta Kappa speaker, Samuel M. Arons, a physics major from Berkeley, Calif., gave a speech titled “An Itinerant Dictionary.” Jonathan Lovett, a psychology and mathematics major from Woodbury, N.Y., chosen by his classmates as class speaker, spoke on “Leaving the Lesson Factory.”
The William Bradford Turner Citizenship Prize for rendering “the most exemplary service to the college and to fellow students” went to Jacob A. Scott of Reading, Mass.
President Schapiro conferred honorary degrees on David Halberstam; Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister, Harvard University; Nancy Hatch Dupree, expert on the history, art, and archaeology of Afghanistan; Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize; Allan W. Fulkerson ’54, president and CEO of Century Capital Management Inc. and Williams College trustee emeritus; Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History; and Anthony W. Marx, president of Amherst College.
Three faculty members were granted emeritus status. They are Raymond Chang, the Halford R. Clark Professor of Natural Sciences, Emeritus; Renzie W. Lamb, Assistant Professor of Physical Education, Emeritus; and Gordon C. Winston, the Orrin Sage Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus.
The Speeches
- Rev. Peter J. Gomes, Baccalaureate address
- David Halberstam, Commencement address
- Kai Chen, Valedictorian
- Sam Arons, Phi Beta Kappa
- Jonathan Lovett, Class speaker
Honorary Degree Citations
- Nancy Hatch Dupree, Doctor of Humane Letters
- Shirin Ebadi, Doctor of Laws
- Allan W. Fulkerson, Doctor of Laws
- Ellen V. Futter, Doctor of Humane Letters
- Peter John Gomes, Doctor of Divinity
- David Halberstam, Doctor of Letters
- Anthony W. Marx, Doctor of Humane Letters
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