Dr Larry Arnn, President, Hillsdale College, USA – [email protected]

In America as in India, the academic year has ended for most colleges/universities, and students have dispersed for the summer. Those who just graduated will be coming back to visit, but never again to live and study on campus. For them, this is a time of joy and melancholy. They have completed their first great adventure away from home. What will the next one be?

In India, I understand the final ceremony that concludes the college year is known as the Convocation. We use this term for any formal gathering of the entire college. For the last convocation, we have a special name: Commencement.

Why Commencement, when the ceremony marks not a beginning but end of higher education for students?

College is the final and highest preparation in people’s lives. The central elements of that preparation don’t depend on the specific work they will do. They will have many jobs, but their happiness will depend upon issues beyond work. Work itself will contribute to that happiness only if they do it “well,” i.e, not only efficiently and to their economic gain, but also honestly and as service to those who pay them and work with them. As they have been sons and daughters, now they are likely to become husbands and wives, and parents. They will be citizens of a country, and they will owe it loyalty if it is just, and effort to improve it if not.

For graduates, this is a delightful and intense time promising growth in strength, intellect, and character. But it is also a sad occasion because in college, students form profound friendships as they live and learn together. The very word ‘college’ means partnership, and humans learn best together. We study and think together and surmount challenges together. Through this, we form bonds with fellow students that last a lifetime. In class, you are among people who will come to your wedding (perhaps to marry you!) and finally your funeral. There is nothing else quite like this experience.

Nor are students at Commencement alone in their joy and melancholy. The faculty is present, as are parents and friends. All come to pay respect to graduates, who with faculty are dressed in robes, academic uniforms, varying by rank. These are the badges of honour.

I have presided over 25 Commencements at Hillsdale College. When I look upon the scene, thousands gathered, I see the bonds that have brought them together. The graduates represent an achievement of all and of generations before because colleges are not built in a day.

If you are nearing the time to enter college, think of the end of it, of Commencement. Prepare yourself to be happy on that day and the days that follow. If you know a student who has just commenced or is about to, honour and wish her well.