3:27 p.m.: Convocation is about to begin in the Vassar Chapel. The Class of 2011 is gathered outside, preparing to process.
3:28 p.m.: The Convocation Choir is filing into the aisle. This year the Choir will sing from the aisles of the Chapel rather than the pews.
3:33 p.m.: The organ music has started; the senior class is processing.
3:41 p.m. : The Convocation Choir has begun singing, surrounding the audience with their singing as they fill the aisles around the rear of the Chapel. The selection for this year’s Convocation is Os Justi by Anton Bruckner.
3:46 p.m.: The Choir is taking their seats and President Catharine Bond Hill has stood up to the podium. “It’s very warm today,” she says and welcomes students to move if they find themselves overheated in a sunny seat.
Hill acknowledges the death of President Emerita Virginia B. Smith. Hill notes a meeting with Smith last spring in which they discussed Smith’s accomplishments. Hill says that Smith completed Vassar’s transition from a small college for women to a co-educational institution.
Hill speaks about watching freshman move-in day and recalls a parent who likened the actions of House Teams to a colony of ants. She also speaks to the seniors about their final year. “There is, I suspect, still a sense of unreality—maybe even denial,” she says.
“This year is also special for the College as we prepare to honor our 150th anniversary,” says Hill.
Hill is speaking of the misunderstanding of the kind of education found at Vassar and its peers, noting particularly two editorials recently published in the New York Times. She contends that critics misunderstand the value of a Vassar education, regardless of the areas of study its students choose.
One column by Kathleen Parker ranks colleges based on how they meet seven areas of required study. By the standards set forth by the study on which the column was based, Vassar and 14 of its peer institutions received an F, which Hill deems “nonsense.” The column also suggested that students cannot be trusted to make good choices in the curriculum, which Hill argues strongly against.
Hill says that the College will be celebrating its legacy this year, “the legacy that starts with move-in day and will not even end with graduation.”
4:07 p.m.: Vassar Student Association (VSA) President Mat Leonard ’11 is about to speak. “Hi everybody,” he says. “I just want to start by saying, ‘Congratulations, 2011!’ This is our year.”
Leonard highlights the strong traditions of Vassar College. “Leave your own mark on this school. Give students new traditions to enjoy.”
4:12 p.m.: After Convocation the faculty will serenade the freshmen with some traditional Vassar songs. Agnes Rindge Claflin Professor of Art Eve D’Ambra is about to give her talk, “Statuesque.” D’Ambra has taught at Vassar for 21 years, and her most recent book, Roman Women, was published by Cambridge University Press. Hill notes that D’Ambra has held myriad faculty leadership positions at the College.
D’Ambra says that when she began College she was an English major, but she was inspired by the ruins that she saw on a trip to Rome. “Statues were made of life,” says D’Ambra, “and people became statues after death.” She noted that these statues were larger than life.
“Sadly, this is not the case with the bronze statue of our founder,” says D’Ambra referring to the statue of Matthew Vassar outside of Main Building.
4:22 p.m.: D’Ambra is recalling the difficulties of Italian bureaucracy when she was trying to go to Italy for dissertation research. The process was so difficult that she managed to live for a year without a visa.
D’Ambra recounts disagreements with a sidewalk souvenir vendor, who resented her for taking up space as she studied ruins. “Scholars were bad for business,” she says.
“A year went by, and my dissertation started to appear in short bursts of text.” After a year of living in Rome, D’Ambra says that she had to live up to her lack of a visa in order to get married in Rome, which was unexpectedly easy after her previous bureaucratic experience.
D’Ambra concludes her speech with a note to the Class of 2014.
4:45 p.m.: After singing Gaudeamus Igitur, the faculty and seniors process out of the Chapel.
