Clark University - Clark News summer 2005
Commencement 2005 (summer 2005)
By Judith Jaeger
Photos by Dan Vaillancourt
View more commencment photos
On May 22, graduates and their families, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the University celebrated the 100th anniversary of Clark's formal commencement exercises. In 1905, Clark conferred 43 undergraduate degrees and one master's degree, and presented 18 doctoral degrees. President Theodore Roosevelt delivered the commencement address and received an honorary degree from the University. In 2005, Clark conferred 436 bachelor's degrees, 335 master's degrees and 32 doctoral degrees, and national political columnist David Broder delivered the commencement address, about the current political climate in the United States.
Broder is a Pulitzer Prize recipient and national political correspondent for the Washington Post. His twice-weekly column for the Post covers a breadth of issues in American political life and is carried by more than 300 newspapers across the globe. He is also a regular commentator on cnn's "Inside Politics" and makes regular appearances on nbc's "Meet the Press" and Public Television's "Washington Week in Review." Broder joined the Post in 1966 and is widely regarded as the "Dean" of his profession.
In his remarks, Broder shared his insights into the divisiveness in American politics today. He compared the generation of politicians shaped by World War II and the Great Depression with those of the Baby Boomer generation, who have been in leadership positions in Washington since the early 1980s.
"The generation from Eisenhower through the elder George Bush was shaped by their experiences in which America survived only because Americans of all stripes pulled together through the Great Depression and World War II. Without that unified national effort by all of the American people, this country would not have made it," he said.
By contrast, Broder continued, the Baby Boomer generation came of age politically in the 1960s and 1970s, "a time of wrenching change and deep division. The civil rights revolution, the women's rights revolution, the sexual revolution, the battles over abortion and most of all, of course, the Vietnam war divided that generation in ways that all of us are still feeling, and they, apparently, cannot escape."
As a result, the country remains divided and divisive. Specifically, Broder cited how, during a time of high threat to national security, growing deficits and health-care crises, the main focus of the 2004 presidential campaign was the candidates' Vietnam service records.
"Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that, as much as the parity of our parties has exacerbated the partisan conflict, the deeper cause of our political discontent is the curse that history seems to have laid on the generation now providing our national leadership."
Broder concluded that the country may not escape the clutches of history until current political leaders are replaced by a post-Boomer generation. He challenged the 2005 graduates to learn from the Boomers' mistakes and participate in the country's political life.
"You really do represent the best hope for our country," he said. "I won't be reporting you, but believe me, I will be rooting for your success."
Broder received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree. Others receiving honorary degrees were: Mary Walsh m.a. '67, Ph.D. '74, Daniel E. Kearns Chair in Education and Innovative Leadership at Boston College's Lynch School of Education and director of Boston College's Center for Child, Family and Community Partnerships, who received an honorary doctor of science degree; Sam Bass Warner Jr., visiting professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and widely regarded as the father of American urban history, who received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree; and E.O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and foremost authority on social insects, who received an honorary doctor of science degree.
Friendship at Clark
Ben Thein '05 served as this year's senior speaker. A government major with an interest in diplomatic history, Thein was an active member of the Clark community. As a Student Council member, he led Clark's first student survey of campus life and was a leader in the Gryphon and Pleiades Senior Honor Society. He received the Holthausen Prize in International Relations at Honors Convocation ceremonies held prior to commencement.
Thein's comments focused on friendship. He described how he and his friends at Clark had developed their own short-hand language for the best places to party on a Saturday night, and discussed diversity at Clark in terms of baseball allegiances.
"Baseball is a great example of diversity at Clark," Thein said. "I lived with some hard-core Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees fans, which by itself was an interesting experience."
On a more serious note, Thein recalled his own experience as an international student at Clark. Describing himself as a "proud Israeli student and a proud Jewish person," Thein said he has made Palestinian friends at Clark and has even been teaching one such friend Hebrew, "with the hope that through breaking the language barrier, we can move to a better future."
"I believe that friendships at Clark prove that when people are given a common language and a neutral place for interaction, they can achieve what no political or military resolution could: friendship and joint problem-solving, such as where to find an apartment, how to complete a project for business class, where to go on Saturday night and so on," he said. "I would like to thank Clark University for bringing together such a different group of students and also to thank Clark for encouraging us all to be involved in our campus' life."
Read the full text of Ben Thein's speech online at www.clarku.edu/commencement.
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