Transcript of Inaugural Address
- Terras Irradient. Let us pray. Almighty and eternal God, who has filled the world with your beauty. Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works. We give you thanks this day as we celebrate and inaugurate Michael A. Elliott, as the 20th president of Amherst College. We remember before you, all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget. The homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them. Bless and look with compassion on the whole human family. Take away the arrogance and hatreds which infect our hearts, break down the walls that separate us, unite us in the bonds of love, and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on Earth, that in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony. Bless our students, faculty and staff, that Amherst may be a lively community for sound learning, new discovery and the pursuit of wisdom. And grant it those who teach and those who learn, may find you to be the source of all truth. You have bound us together in a common life. Bless our alumni, parents and all members of our greater community. Endue them with a continued love for and devotion to the fairest College. Bless Michael, oh Lord, in all his doings with your gracious help, and let the light of your divine wisdom direct his time as our president. Guide him to perceive what is right, and grant him both the courage to pursue it and the grace to accomplish it. Bless his family, Jenn, his wife, Gabe and Meg, his children, that they may embrace and be embraced by the love of the family of Amherst and find it a true home that expands their knowledge and provides peace and rejuvenation. And, gracious Lord, because you first created light when you made the world, may all who serve and love Amherst College find our minds, hearts, and hands, inspired to be lights to the Earth. Amen.
- Thank you, Reverend Jackson, my classmate and colleague. I'm Andy Nussbaum, Chair of the Board of Trustees, and it's my great privilege to welcome all of you here on this truly glorious, inspirational day. Gathered with us this afternoon are Presidents Emeriti Tom Gerety, Tony Marx, and Biddy Martin, members of the Amherst faculty, the College's Board of Trustees, including Chairs Emeriti, Chuck Longsworth, Jide Zeitlin and Cullen Murphy, colleagues from the staff and administration, and many students and alumni, including on our livestream. We are especially pleased to welcome friends from colleges and universities around the world. Thank you for being here. We are honored to have with us our valued friends, neighbors and partners from our local Amherst community, including State Representative Mindy Domb, Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman, Michael Morris, Superintendent of the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District, and a member of the class of 2000, and many other local dignitaries and citizens of our community. We welcome colleagues from our sister institutions, Doshisha University in Kyoto, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, the Emily Dickinson Museum just across the way, and our own Five Colleges here in the valley. Finally, we extend an especially warm welcome to President Elliott, his many friends, including colleagues from Emory University and members of his family, his wife Jenn Matthews, Amherst College class of 1991, his children Gabe and Meg, his mother Barbara, and Michael's brother Sean, class of 1994, with Sean's wife Kathy. It is a celebratory day for our College, one full of tremendous gratitude for the Amherst of today and even greater expectations for our Amherst tomorrow. President Elliott, in the archives of the College across the Quad, you will find the inaugural addresses of your 19 predecessors. Soon we will add yours. What you will generally not find in the archives, are the remarks of the Board Chair on such occasion. I know this, because I have looked. And I suspect mine, too, will soon bear a similar lack of legacy. Not knowing where else to turn, I read some of those inaugural speeches. Despite spanning more than two centuries, they have much in common. Back in 1821, Reverend Zephaniah Swift Moore, don't worry, I'm not going to do everyone. Reverend Zephaniah Swift Moore gave what can only be described as a fiery and somewhat defensive discourse on the importance of a liberal education, encompassing what he called all the faculties of the mind. Something he viewed as mission critical, both to train indigent young men dedicated to the service of God, but also equally importantly, in his view, to oppose what he viewed as the unacceptable secularism of lesser institutions such as Harvard. He lays out an entire curriculum, requiring Greek, Latin, literature, geography, mathematical science, natural philosophy, history, logic, theology and religion, of course, the arts, the list goes on. Suffice it to say, that Moore's distribution requirements would occupy our Committee on Educational Policy for many, many decades. And likely, if adopted, would drive today's students back to, well, Williams, I guess. But Moore's passion for teaching, for what to teach, how to teach, and whom to teach, reverberates across the centuries. Ninety years later in 1912, President Meiklejohn devoted his remarks to the, what he called the creed of the teacher, and to what he describes as the hostile forces aligned against a liberal and intellectual education. Seventy years thence, President Gerety in his address, celebrated the influence of his best teacher, who turns out to be Roderick Clarke, Amherst class of 1950. President Marx spoke of the urgency to educate a we, more inclusive, more welcoming. And President Martin in her inaugural address, marveled at the role of great teachers who are also genuine intellectuals, sharing with the audience her happy wanderings into Amherst classrooms and labs in the fall of 2011. Teaching as a calling, as something not just serious and important, but spiritually rich, is everywhere in these addresses. So to the urgency of the matter, and the awareness that it can be at risk. At a moment such as this one, it is worth reminding ourselves just how long standing our mission is, how relevant and essential the teaching and learning that Amherst offers was and remains. Not only for our students, but for the broader world we seek to engage. Let me share with you a brief story borrowed from my Amherst classmate, the late David Foster Wallace. David was one of the great English language writers of the modern era. A MacArthur Fellow Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a seriously wicked tennis player. In his famous 2005 Kenyon address at commencement, entitled, "This is Water," David offered the following. "There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys, how's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then, eventually, one of them looks over at the other and says, 'What the hell is water?'" Like a fish to water, teaching and learning surround us at Amherst. We must not take it for granted. It is not accidental and it is not assured. It is our collective endeavor, engaging all in our Amherst community, inspired by our presidents and brilliant faculty, supported by our superb administration and staff, providing sustenance to our extraordinary students, and nourished by our loyal alumni. For more than 200 years, we have been exploring its depths and reach. Surely, there is more for us to learn. President Elliott, we look forward to even greater exploration and discovery with you at the helm. Welcome to Amherst.
- Good afternoon, everyone. Amherst College sits at a crossroads with many paths around us. In acknowledging the Native Nations and homelands that surround us, we acknowledge the crossroads that have always drawn people here. We sit at the crossroads of Kwinitekw, the Long River, an indigenous super highway. When I asked students to work with me on creating maps of the region, a project I did not realize would take five years, we saw more trails converge here on this river than anywhere else. Canoe trails, walking trails, paths of diplomacy. We have always been at a crossroads. I acknowledge the nations who have always been here, coming together at this crossroads. Not to put us in mind of the past, but to consider the future. The nations with whom I hope the Amherst community will cultivate strong relations. During classes last year, we spent a lot of time outside asking, "Where are we?" So today, I'll ask you to do the same. Take a moment, look around you, listen, smell. We heard the sound of acorns falling, drowning out our discussions of creation. We saw squirrels running about gathering those acorns for winter along with the pizza crusts they snag from dumpsters up by the first-year halls, and if you get hungry later today, they're still there. We heard the hawk circling above, but don't be fooled. They're here for the squirrels. And because of student leadership, we saw native plants, pollinators reclaiming green space. If you look out on these hills behind me, you can see that process of reforestation. Two-hundred years ago, if we looked out from this hill, we would see land that had long been cleared for settler farms. But don't let your mind think that that was the first wave of agriculture. Nonotuck women were planting Three Sisters mound gardens here for centuries, displaced by men like Nathaniel Dickinson. Yes, Emily's ancestor, who felt that they were divinely ordained to clear. By 1830, most of the land in Massachusetts, including Amherst, was deforested. But you know who held out? The Mashpee Wampanoag Nation, who are still caring for their forest today. Their collectively held land retained the trees, because they knew the future path they needed to take to ensure the survival of their grandchildren. Michael Elliott likely knows that story still, from the work he did with Barry O'Connell here at Amherst on the Mashpee Woodland Revolt. Those trees in the distance did not remain here on their own. Amherst College made a decision to retain the view. Don't let the illusion of wilderness fool you. The trees around us are dropping leaves right now to create cover for the survival of countless generations. Don't let the illusion of lawn around you fool you. This is a crossroads of plant and animal trails. Remember the moose a few years ago who walked through the lawn of the President's house? Doesn't that make you wonder who will travel through Michael Elliott's lawn? Look around you. This hill where we gather was once an island surrounded by water, a deep dynamic glacial lake, like the most powerful spring mount. Less than 100 years ago, a geologist named this lake for Amherst's third president, Edward Hitchcock, who had stood at the crossroads and discerned the glacial deposits that told the story of the lake. There is another story about a giant beaver who created the glacial lake, this valley, their pond. That beaver, frozen in sandstone and covered in forest, still stands above the valley. That story reawakened. I have seen students stand at the crossroads, listen to both versions and intertwine the strands. One wrote that, "Both geological inquiry and origin narratives seek to unravel earth history, to understand why the land looks the way it does, how earth systems interact, and how we can comprehend and function within this world as part of the landscape, as inextricable from it." A geology major taking English classes. They were standing at the crossroads of geology and traditional ecological knowledge. Last year, the students I learned alongside stood at the crossroads of beaver trails, watching them make and remake their dams and lodges, garden the banks, create space for speckled alder, and pollinating plants to grow. They observed that beavers have been leaders in rebalancing this world, regardless of whether we see their work all around us. Amherst is at a crossroads, and we have many possible paths before us. Our student leaders are urging us to consider how we can participate in such a rebalancing. I had the opportunity last year to read and reread Michael Elliott's writing, including his vital and impressive book, "Custerology." I thought, "This is someone who not only feels comfortable at the crossroads, but whose mind thrives there." Taking on the challenge of contested historical landscapes, like the Battle at Greasy Grass or Little Big Horn is no easy feat. As a literary scholar, Michael Elliott could have just stayed at the library or in his office, close reading texts, but he traveled to the place, looked at it from multiple angles. He listened to people with divergent views who walked opposite roads, who stood on the same land and quite literally saw different places. Michael walked with them down many paths, listening. Not to decide which path was right, but to understand. He models the value of being curious about others' points of view, even when they are starkly different from our own. He does not expect everyone to walk the same path, but he does not simply find middle ground between opposing sides. Don't let those binary oppositions fool you. They are much like that lawn, lacking complexity and the diversity that fosters healthy ecosystems. No, this book is more like those pollinator gardens. Through this work, Michael Elliott cultivates a critical and generous lens, which leads us as his readers, to greater understanding, greater clarity and greater complexity, so that we can decide, not only which path we might take to better understand our past, but which paths lead to a more just and diversifying future, with more paths available to more people, more beings to walk. I believe that Michael Elliott will walk with us. Most important, although he will live here, listen here, and bring his own vision, I do not think he will stand on the hill, surveying the land below. With this transition in leadership and at this moment in history, Amherst College is at a crossroads. I know Michael will be down on the ground walking those paths, listening carefully and helping all of us to see not just from high above from our classrooms, offices, and our wonderful libraries, but on the ground. Perhaps, if we are lucky, he will help us to see clearly the multiple paths ahead so that we can navigate toward a collaborative future. We will see. President Elliott, travel well. I, for one, will be there walking alongside you.
- [Instructor] Five, six, five, six, seven, eight. ♪ Still got the ticket to play ♪ ♪ I won't be walking away ♪ ♪ I feel all the weight of the world ♪ ♪ I won't get another one ♪ ♪ Won't get another one ♪ ♪ Won't get another one ♪ ♪ Won't get ♪ ♪ Well I'll be singing hallelujah ♪ ♪ When I walk out on the water ♪ ♪ I'm not going under ♪ ♪ I own the space that I occupy ♪ ♪ Oh oh hallelujah ♪ ♪ I climb up through the trees ♪ ♪ I'm strong enough to bleed ♪ ♪ I grow my wings like a butterfly ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ I woke up alone on the shore ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ The sun had fought through my eyes ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Wondering what all this is for ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Is it for you? ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Well I'll be singing hallelujah ♪ ♪ When I walk out on the water ♪ ♪ I'm not going under ♪ ♪ I own the space that I occupy ♪ ♪ Oh oh hallelujah ♪ ♪ I climb up through the trees ♪ ♪ I'm strong enough to bleed ♪ ♪ I grow my wings like a butterfly ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Phone stuck hung up ♪ ♪ I never hear what you say you're saying ♪ ♪ Line cut when the door shut ♪ ♪ I don't know why I'm straying ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Is everything happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Well I'll be singing hallelujah ♪ ♪ When I walk out on the water ♪ ♪ I'm not going under ♪ ♪ I own the space that I occupy ♪ ♪ Oh oh hallelujah ♪ ♪ I climb up through the trees ♪ ♪ I'm strong enough to bleed ♪ ♪ I grow my wings like a butterfly ♪ ♪ Well I'll be singing hallelujah ♪ ♪ When I walk out on the water ♪ ♪ I'm not going under ♪ ♪ I own the space that I occupy ♪ ♪ Oh oh hallelujah ♪ ♪ I climb up through the trees ♪ ♪ I'm strong enough to bleed ♪ ♪ I grow my wings like a butterfly ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Is everything happening the way I want ♪ ♪ Everything's happening the way I want ♪
- Hello, my name is Kathy Chia, and I am a proud Amherst alum from the class of 1988. I am also a parent of Deven Desai, a graduate from the class of 2022. As president of the Amherst College Society of the Alumni, I would like to welcome you all to the inauguration of President Michael Elliott. And in doing so, I would also like to thank you, all of you, for making this day possible. To those of you here with us today, those of you who are streaming in from around the globe, and to those of you who are with us in spirit, but busy with the many responsibilities in your daily lives, thank you for embracing the mission of the College and helping to realize its aspirations, both on campus, in your local communities and around the world. We are all part of a continuum of people and experiences that have passed through this campus. What architects like myself refer to as the genius loci, or spirit of place. Generations of students, faculty, staff, alumni, College trustees, town residents and Amherst presidents have created what we have here today. A place that embodies academic excellence, rigorous discourse and a diverse community that can celebrate the unique qualities of an individual's experience, while also finding common ground in the shared and sometimes complex overlap across the experiences of many. And yet, this place is not perfect, not complete, not locked in to its ways, and I don't think anyone who's engaged with the College today would want it any other way. This is a place with tremendous spirit. Its genius loci has been the foundation for a constant spirit of striving to do better, not only for Amherst College, but for the world. Just as the world is forever evolving, forever changing, the College and all of us want to be part of that challenging journey of discovery. And through that journey, we should be able to look back and see what we have accomplished, and then look forward and ask ourselves, "What more can we do? What else must we do?" And then we search in our classrooms and labs, in our staff teams, in our faculty departments, and in our communities beyond Amherst College. We search for the hard, critical questions that can guide the way. What has brought us here today, is a moment in the College continuum that shines a light on its leadership. Three former Amherst College presidents sit here with us today. President Biddy Martin, President Tony Marx, and President Tom Gerety. President Peter Pouncey, who was president when I was a student, couldn't be here with us today, but we know he is here in spirit. Each former College president has moved the College community and its mission forward and strengthened the genius loci. Each individual building on the foundational principles that were stewarded by their predecessors. It was a tremendous amount of work, and their effort was shared by dedicated College staff, faculty, students, and alumni. Their pride in that work, their conviction in that work, and their joy in that work, was palpable to everyone. President Michael Elliott, we welcome you, and we welcome this day of celebration as you are officially inaugurated as the 20th president of Amherst College. You are part of a wonderful continuum of Amherst College presidents, and we know the future is bright. And so, as President of the Society of the Alumni, I ask, on behalf of and to, the alumni community, the community that will surround you in the coming days, months, and years. I ask of our alumni community, what more can we do? What else must we do? Here are a few simple suggestions to my fellow alums. Be supportive, be patient. Listen, learn, and dig deeper into those areas of the College you feel most connected to, and offer feedback. Be critical when you see fit, but always be gracious in your critique, even during difficult times. Appreciate that Amherst College is always a work in progress and that each of us has a role to play in that effort. And above all, renew your commitment to the the liberal arts, and be a steward of that mission with President Elliott. Thank you.
- The first time I met President Elliott, I asked him to perform a magic trick. I wish I could say I thought of some deeper or clever metaphor, but I didn't. He was preparing his welcome to campus speech and asked for a tip on how he could help captivate us. So I suggested magic, a slight of hand trick. He pushed away my nervousness with a laugh. It was the first of many we would share. As we had more conversations and as we grew to learn more about each other, hope began to replace the gap of nervous awkwardness. Amherst's future is something I will always have hope for. We here at Amherst are special. We are zesty, we are full of curiosity and life and culture and I will never ever place my bets against us changing the world. When I hear from my fellow friends, students and senators, calls to better Amherst, and not just the school community, I know that this work will be done. That the countless hours planning days of service or programs to help more Amherst students reach careers and social impacts, will result in positive change. And I know, President Elliott, you love this about us. Although you're a Lord Jeff in a sea of Mammoths, I know you are here to support the magic within the student body. You're a dreamer and most importantly, a listener. Ask any student on campus and I know they'll have their own story of how the president asked them to have lunch or emailed them to meet or even sat down to talk about a rave. That happened my first year at the College. You're always getting to know students, and this makes me so hopeful. You placed your bets too, that we are the future, in every sense of the word. President Elliott is committed to addressing the historical harms done to Amherst Black residents and Black Amherst College students by listening to, and supporting calls for reparations and acknowledgements of harm. He's an optimist who dreams of being the fuel that keeps Amherst students burning bright. With every lunch and every walk you take, President Elliott, you're absorbing our community and planning on how to help us achieve our dreams. You have the power and strength to close the gap between the College and the Amherst community, and we want to help you where we can. You just continue being the fuel so we can all burn bright. What we need is a little bit of magic to close the gap. And I'm hoping that in one of your famous tailored suits and with your great presidential smile, you, President Elliott, will help bring what we all need. Welcome forward to our Amherst.
- Good afternoon. My name is Dale Hendricks, and I am the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Systems. Dr. Elliott, on behalf of the staff, it is my honor and great pleasure to formally welcome you back to our campus community. It is a considerable achievement to be admitted once, but you did it twice. Though I was not part of the deliberations when you were first admitted, I am delighted to be part of the search committee, which has brought us to this important day. In the admission office, our mission is to bring together students of intellectual promise, who have demonstrated qualities of mind and character, that will enable them to take full advantage of our curriculum. There is no doubt that intellectual promise brought President Elliott from Arizona to Amherst in 1988. And his special, unique qualities of mind and character have returned him to us as our 20th president. President Elliott, you will begin your tenure during an exciting time at the College. An Amherst education has become more possible for more students and their families, particularly from historically underrepresented communities. We are indeed a more diverse community in every sense. We are also a community with tremendous resources, both human and capital. Yet living in community with others, means we will undoubtedly wrestle with questions of equity and inclusion. How do we nurture and support all people who work, learn, and teach at Amherst College? One of my favorite places at the College is the Book and Plow Farm, which supplies the Valentine Dining Hall with 20,000 pounds of fresh produce each year. This spring, one of the staff gave me some leftover sweet potato starters to plant in my yard. I tried to nurture these plants, but first, a resident bunny ate the leaves. Then we had a drought, and when I finally dug them up, there were no potatoes. I realize now that if I want sweet potatoes next summer, we call them yams in my home country of Jamaica, by the way. I need to be a creative problem solver. I need to adapt to the climate conditions, and I need to continually work to build an environment where my plants can take full advantage of the sun and soil. Our College community requires the same kind of attention to thrive. As I've gotten to know President Elliott, I believe he has the inclusive approach to leadership, which will empower staff, students, and faculty to work together to realize the promise of our community. On the heels of our bicentennial celebration, the College enthusiastically supports your stated commitment to creating a culture of belonging, to making the case for the liberal arts education as a public good, and to build a beloved community, and ensuring the wellbeing of all of Amherst's people. President Elliott, the staff welcomes you.
- Good afternoon. I'm Greg Call, Professor of Mathematics and Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, and it is my honor to offer these greetings from the Amherst faculty, and to formally welcome our newest Professor of American Studies in English, Michael Elliott, class of '92, to the faculty of Amherst College. I'm especially pleased to welcome back our recent past presidents and Amherst faculty members, Tom Gerety, Tony Marx, and Biddy Martin. Thank you for being here. It means a great deal to us to have you here. It's great to see you. For all of us, students and staff, alumni, faculty and friends, this day is a celebration of our College and of our new president. For the faculty, in particular, it's a joyful reminder of just how fortunate we are to work at a place and in a profession that enables us to listen and to debate, to discover and create, to learn and to teach. We are a faculty that cares deeply about our College and about the students we teach. We don't take a narrow view of our responsibilities. Rather, we seek to understand, to advise, and ultimately, to shape most of the decisions that affect our College. So for a College administrator, as I can attest, Michael, we your faculty don't offer you the easiest of roads or the most traveled. We promise instead, our commitment to listen, hopefully, and to debate most certainly, so that we may discover better solutions and create new opportunities together. We promise, too, to stand up and step forward when we are needed. These are exciting days, for we have much to learn from each other. For we are all students, and we are all teachers. And at Amherst, for the last 201 years, that has made all the difference. So welcome back, Michael. Welcome home to Amherst. Blessings to you and godspeed. Thank you. ♪ Part our clouds and rise our sun ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Praise the works ♪ ♪ So greatly done ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Every triumph ♪ ♪ Every win ♪ ♪ Brings the light ♪ ♪ More brightly in ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ For everyone ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Part our clouds ♪ ♪ And rise our sun ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Praise the works so greatly done ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Every triumph ♪ ♪ Every win ♪ ♪ Brings the light ♪ ♪ More brightly in ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ For everyone ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Part our clouds ♪ ♪ And rise our sun ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Praise the works ♪ ♪ So greatly done ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Every triumph ♪ ♪ Every win ♪ ♪ Brings the light ♪ ♪ More brightly in ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ For everyone ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Praise the work ♪ ♪ I'm going to praise ♪ ♪ I'm going to praise the work ♪ ♪ I'm going to praise ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Then shine for everyone ♪ ♪ Then shine for everyone ♪ ♪ Then shine for everyone ♪ ♪ Then shine for everyone ♪ ♪ Glory spirit shine on us all ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Let our passion ♪ ♪ Keep us strong ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Every triumph ♪ ♪ Every win ♪ ♪ Brings the light ♪ ♪ More brightly in ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ Strong within ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Every triumph ♪ ♪ Every win ♪ ♪ Brings a light ♪ ♪ From within ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ For everyone ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪ ♪ Now we can begin ♪
- President Elliott, my dearest Amherst College community and beyond. My name's Haoran. I'm a senior at Amherst College. Today I present to you a poem I wrote originally in Chinese and then translated into English, and its title is, "Our Story Keeps Writing Itself." Through a moonlit mist hovering over fresh snow, roofs swaying and hiding away, the Holyoke Range stretches far which are boooks the voices prolong. We flow into dim lamplight seeking encounter with each other's shadows. In this quiet town turned home, where dated oaks implant their seed into the wet soil, greetings from 200 years coalesce into a faithful present. Without questioning who we were or where we might go, we all converge to illuminate the minds until the last evening glow burgeons from autumnal maples. Earth and sky allow us to search, to find liberation, to bear witness to the truth, to explore with scholars and friends, solum chimeras made of words. Our story keeps writing itself. Still water runs deep, red leaves tend to brick walls, pavements crisscross, guiding us to the delicate scent of the pine trees. Every separation prepares us for a reunion. Every return, a fresh beginning. We collect a fleeting sense of permanence, breathing the same transience of an unstable time for our lives to steadily tremble, to grow with fractures, yet, developed still. To fill our eyes with sparks of memories and find our hearts a home. Together we linger as the warmth of poems brings rebirth and as the late wind sweeps across the Memorial Hill, the ripples from a shooting star are collectively heard. Thank you.
- Good afternoon. I'm Carla Freeman, the Interim Dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences. What a joy and privilege to be here with all of you to celebrate my colleague and my friend Michael Elliott, Amherst's 20th president. It is impossible for me to express just how exhilarating this feels. I know so many who would eagerly step onto this dais with eloquent, funny, and profound words to share about Michael on this occasion of his inauguration. When I received the program for today's events, I understood one reason Michael may have chosen me with this invitation. Of course, I knew Amherst as a place of rigorous intellectual engagement, fierce commitment to debate, and to advancing the social good. I didn't realize that Amherst is also wonderfully and unapologetically in love with ritual, pomp and circumstance, songs, symbols, gift giving and regalia. In addition to considering myself Michael Elliott's greatest fan, I'm also an anthropologist who shares these ceremonial passions. I'm especially drawn to rites of passage like this one. Rituals that mark a person's transition to a new stage of life, with new responsibilities and stature, and at the same time, a new chapter in an institution's life. These are serious moments to honor achievement and to express aspirations and dreams. They signal the importance of community and collective belonging. They also invite levity and storytelling, song, good food and drink, costumes and fun. Now, many academics take a somewhat cynical stance towards ceremony and ritual. But Michael knows that I'll jump at any excuse to don my regalia, join a processional and also be moved to tears with the majesty of Handel or Elgar. I'd like to begin my remarks by acknowledging that I wrote these words from what was, until late July of this year, Michael's desk, in the sunny dean's office of the fourth floor of Candler Library at Emory University, built on the lands of the Muscogee Creek peoples, who lived, worked and nourished that place and whose history and culture we honor in our intent to learn from. I also want to acknowledge that Michael lived and worked and nourished that institution and community, and he is both missed and hailed today by hundreds, if not thousands, of faculty, staff, alumni and students who celebrate his inauguration from afar. I'm happy to see that many have also traveled to be here as part of these festivities. Emory and Atlanta have been Michael's home, where he and Jenn have raised their family where he came of age as a full-fledged professor, an inspirational scholar, a generous teacher, an inspirational mentor and leader, where he has worn his stature lightly, always with a self-effacing wry wit. With his return to Amherst, I see more and more that the tools and sensibilities that shape this omnivorous reader and social analyst, the storyteller, the solitary thinker, the adventurous traveler and intrepid marathoner, the compassionate colleague and collaborative leader, were anchored here in this rich liberal arts tradition of this special place. And now, he has returned to these moorings. So in this spirit of return, it feels fitting to evoke two temporal impulses, one of remembering, and another of crossing into the great unknown. I've chosen two poems that I think capture this looking back and looking forward. First the words of Joy Harjo, previous Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Sorry. "Remember. Remember the sky that you were born under. Know each of the stars' stories. Remember the moon. Know who she is. Remember the sun's birth at dawn. That is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to light. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life and her mother's and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are. Red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth, brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe. Remember, you are all people, and all people are you. Remember, you are this universe, and this universe is you. Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember language comes from this. Remember the dance language is, that life is. Remember." Few people in life get to go home again. Even fewer return and achieve their dream jobs in one fell swoop. In returning to Amherst, Michael, I imagine you walking around this beautiful campus in and out of the very halls you studied and slept in. You are meeting an impressively more diverse student body than in the 1980s. With their own 21st century ambitions and uncertainties, but with flashes that likely conjure up your own first days at Amherst, as an Amherst student. The heady mix of excitement, self-doubt, and determination. I imagine those classrooms and dorm rooms, the dining hall and running trails, seeded the questions about culture and narrative, race and representation and temporality that you have spent your academic career puzzling over. Where you discovered Emerson and a language with which to capture the pleasures of your own quiet company. Where you may first have encountered de Tocqueville, Du Bois, and Melville, your constant companions. Perhaps even the imaginative worlds of Ursula Le Guin, a favorite of us both. In her address to my own alma mater, Bryn Mawr, soon after I graduated, Le Guin articulated what, for me, has been a lasting and reassuring message about education. That constant dynamic in which we grapple with knowledge and ideas, as she put it, with what we learn in College and what we unlearn in College. And then how we learn to unlearn what we learned in College. And to relearn what we unlearned in College and so on. There were powerful and provocative lessons in that commencement speech, but what I loved most about this beginning, was its reminder of the recursive and non-linear paths of education, the learning and unlearning and relearning that are essential methods in a meaningful life. I see in Michael Elliott, not only an embrace of this lifelong process, but a humility, wit, and generosity that accompany the essential unlearning and relearning. At no time in our history as a nation, has the acknowledgement of an opportunity for unlearning and relearning been more imperative. Stumbling and getting back up again. Challenging and forgiving ourselves and others. Speaking up and listening well. This spirit of openness and an unflinching ease with difference, form the essence of Michael's leadership. For another College president's inauguration, poet Marianne Moore, named a quality she saw as "an exceptional, un-presidential constant, a liking for people as they are." I see this simple truth as part of Michael's magic. A quality that has endeared him to a community of thousands at Emory, even and perhaps especially, through the manifold losses and disruptions of the Covid pandemic. Never have I known an administrator so universally beloved. I have had the great good fortune of being Michael Elliott's deputy for the past eight years in Emory College Dean's office, and knowing him for nearly quarter of a century. Leadership in the academy is often an ambivalent pursuit. For most, what pulls us toward the professoriate is the chance to ask questions, to teach, to be immersed in thought, to research, to write, to challenge the status quo. Becoming a department chair or a dean, not to mention a College president, is hardly a dream most of us would dare have dared to imagine as College or graduate students, or even early in our faculty careers. Michael sees capacities in others they themselves may not see. This, too, is part of his magic. A gentle power that changes lives. It changed mine. Michael taught me, or rather modeled for me, a rare kind of leadership, in which the obstacles never overshadowed the fundamental goal, pursuing knowledge and new ways of knowing, creating beauty, embracing ambition, reaching beyond the familiar and making community. He possesses that lovely and rare art of getting things done without ever seeming nervous or stressed. Responding to email like lightning, with prose that feel anything but rushed. He is as comfortable with poetry, as with a spreadsheet. He manages a relentless calendar but walks the campus never too busy to chat, taking you seriously and never taking himself too seriously. These qualities make Michael's leadership look effortless. Only three months in to his former job, I know now just how extraordinary a feat that is. Taking time and listening deeply are his rule of thumb. Whenever possible, get to yes. Remarkably when Michael says, "No," he still manages to make people feel heard and somehow, even more impressively, to feel grateful. You are lucky, Amherst College. Challenge your president. He's up to the task. Engage your president. You will find humor, empathy, and wisdom in his words and actions. Run with him, and try to keep up. I wish you luck with that. I see in our program today that there is a formal gift-giving ceremony, involving special symbols of the Office of the President. And before I close, I hope you won't mind my adding my own small token to this tradition. As I read about Amherst's history, I was fascinated by your important processes of reckoning with the past and renaming, your intricate steps leading to the adoption of a new mascot, the Amherst Mammoth. In celebration of that process and in recognition of a running joke that we have had for many years about lapel pins and academic leaders, I searched high and low, and I found a mammoth pin made by an artist in the Pacific Northwest. And now I'll conclude with the words of an Emory poet and friend to mark this rite of passage for Michael and this new Amherst chapter. "Crossing" by Jericho Brown. "The water is one thing and one thing for miles. The water is one thing making this bridge built over the water, another. Walk it early, walk it back when the day goes dim. Everyone rising just to find a way forward toward rest again, We work, start on one side of the day, like a planet's only sun, our eyes straight until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God I am different. I've figured and counted. I'm not crossing to cross back. I'm set on something vast. It reaches long as the sea. I'm more than a conqueror, bigger than bravery. I don't march. I'm the one who leaps." Michael, you are a marathoner. You bring to this campus and this office the gifts of endurance and empathy and humor. Leap with grace and gusto, President Elliott. Thank you. ♪ Oh let's sing our praises ♪ ♪ To the College on the hill ♪ ♪ We shall sing them wherever we may be ♪ ♪ For the name of Amherst College ♪ ♪ Resonates and always will ♪ ♪ Both at home and across the sea ♪ ♪ Both at home and across the sea ♪ ♪ From its classrooms and athletics fields ♪ ♪ Where Amherst shines its light ♪ ♪ And to it we shall ever be true ♪ ♪ Amherst welcomes all the challenges ♪ ♪ That come within its sight ♪ ♪ And looks around for more when there are few ♪ ♪ Oh Amherst ♪ ♪ Oh Amherst ♪ ♪ 'Tis a name known to fame from shore to shore ♪ ♪ May it ever be glorious ♪ ♪ 'Til the sun shall climb the heavens no more ♪ ♪ Since the days of Amherst's founding ♪ ♪ Back in 1821 ♪ ♪ It's excelled as the College on the hill ♪ ♪ The memories of its graduates ♪ ♪ And honors they have won ♪ ♪ Abide here among us still ♪ ♪ Abide here among us still ♪ ♪ You may talk about your Wesley ♪ ♪ And your Williams and the rest ♪ ♪ For these schools will always play their part ♪ ♪ For the fairest Amherst College ♪ ♪ Has proven it's the best ♪ ♪ 'Til the end it will be in our hearts ♪ ♪ Oh Amherst ♪ ♪ Oh Amherst ♪ ♪ 'Tis the name known to fame from shore to shore ♪ ♪ May it ever be glorious ♪ ♪ 'Til the sun shall climb the heavens no more ♪ ♪ Oh Amherst ♪ ♪ Oh Amherst ♪ ♪ 'Tis the name known to fame from shore to shore ♪ ♪ May it ever be glorious ♪ ♪ 'Til the sun shall climb the heavens no more ♪
- And now as tradition dictates, a gift in symbols of office will be presented to affirm Michael A. Elliott, class of 1992, as Amherst's 20th president. Bestowing the gift of a Conway Cane today, will be Betsy Cannon Smith, Amherst's Chief Advancement Officer, a member of the class of 1984, and a parent of a 2015 graduate. The presentation to new graduates and special honorees of a commemorative cane, dates back to Amherst's early years. Put it to good use. Dates back to early years, Amherst's early years. Today the Conway Cane, named in honor of the gift from brothers Brian Conway and Kevin Conway, 1980 graduates of the College, features the distinctive brass plate with the College seal. Presenting the keys to the College, who knew there were keys? Presenting the keys to the College, will be Bradley T. Stafford, Lead Mechanical Shop Technician and member of the Presidential Search Committee. The four brass skeleton keys that are a part of today's ceremony, were formerly carried by Charles Thompson, a custodian at the College for more than 40 years in the second half of the 19th century. We present them to President Elliott to signify the trust we place in him to tend to our campus and safeguard our community. Presenting the seal of the College, will be Catherine Epstein, Provost and Dean of the Faculty, and Henry Steele, Commager and Professor of History. The seal of the College, originally adopted in 1825, is a declaration of the original purpose of the institution. The seal includes our College motto, Terras Irradiant, let them enlighten the lands. We entrust President Elliott with the seal of the College and the authority to act on its behalf. The final symbol of office, is the charter of the College, originally approved by the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1825, which I present to you now, Michael, signifying our trust in you to uphold and advance the mission of the College. President Elliott, with tremendous affection and high expectations, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees, I grant you the rights and privileges of the Office of President of Amherst College.
- Thank you, Andy, and thank you to all the trustees, faculty, staff, and alumni who are here today. I want to say, especially, thank you to those of you in the back, who have been standing and are standing still, even as the sun goes down. I want to thank my family and close friends and colleagues who have come from near and far to be part of this extraordinary occasion. Thank you to the wonderful musical groups, the Glee Club and the Amherst Orchestra, that have performed so magnificently today. I also want to thank the representatives joining us today from other institutions, including Doshisha University in Kyoto, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, and the Emily Dickinson Museum from here in Amherst. I also want to acknowledge a few special guests. As others have noted, we have three former chairs of the Amherst College Board of Trustees in attendance today, Jide Zeitlin, Cullen Murphy and Chuck Longsworth, and three former presidents of the College, Tom Gerety, Tony Marx and Biddy Martin. Thank you, all of you, for honoring me with your presence, and thank you to those who have spoken so eloquently from the stage today about Amherst, its mission, its history, its future. I'm humbled by and grateful for the confidence you've expressed in me and in my leadership. Since June, when my appointment to the presidency was first announced, I have been answering questions both big and small. Questions like, what is my vision for the future of the the liberal arts? How many purple ties do I need to own? And everything in between. One question, though, has constantly perplexed and bewildered me. Something that I wonder each time I cross the Quad to stand upon this hill. What does it mean to love a place? To love a place. By that, I mean something more than the aesthetic pleasure that one might take from the physical surroundings, the curve of the hills behind me, the oranges and reds that range down into the plain fields, or the simple, almost severe lines of red brick that surround the Quad. As beautiful as this campus might be, that is not what I find so affecting. So often, in the smallest and most ordinary spaces on this campus, I've watched the easy motion of students walking up this hill, the way that a professor leans into a conversation, the joy of a soccer field or an orchestra stage. And I'm not ashamed to say that I've been nearly overcome with emotion. Where does that emotional response come from? On every campus, students arrive at a formative time to prepare themselves for the future. They find friends, arm themselves with knowledge, are grooved with experience, and then propelled forward into the world. But this place, this Amherst, it does something more. It holds us, suspends us in a moment of becoming and so lives on in us long after we leave. For many students, that journey is not easy, and I know many of them, maybe many of you, have sometimes struggled to find the kind of deep affection that I'm describing. That difficulty, as uncomfortable as it may be, may, in fact, be part of what makes this place so special and, ultimately, our bonds so enduring. Our ties are not superficial. They demand of us self-reflection, and they lead us to ask questions about our obligations to this College and to each other. For generations, Amherst has stayed true to its mission as a liberal arts College, a place where curiosity and discovery are prized above all else, a place that values intellect and character above vocation, a place that understands that the best preparation for the world beyond our campus, is paradoxically, to be sheltered, at least partially and temporarily within it. That is an ambitious mission, and we come here because of, not in spite of, the arduous labor it requires. The idea of the liberal arts is rooted in the idea of an education that serves its students as preparation for their lives as free citizens. And at Amherst, we remain alive to that mission with all of its challenge and subtlety. Amherst believes that we have the right, and even a responsibility, to intellectual curiosity. And it believes simultaneously, that we must cultivate that life in community with one another. No one walks the same pathway through an Amherst education, but no one walks alone. To love a place. Literature tells us that the love for a place can be powerful. It fuels the journey of Odysseus and too many novels to name. In the 17th century, doctors in Europe devised a name for an illness that soldiers contracted when they suffered from longing for their native land. They called it nostalgia. And what we know about nostalgia, is that it is at once a comfort and a danger, that it can transform the love for a place into a love for a time. And in so doing, trap us in the distortions and perils of memory. Rafael Campo is a poet and a physician who graduated from Amherst in 1987 and then served later as a member of the Board of Trustees. He's penned a beautiful poem titled, "Toward a Theory of Memory," that he first published in 2004, and then shared when he received an honorary degree from the College a few years ago. The poem begins simply, "You can never go back." Let me read a few stanzas from the first half of the poem. "You can never go back. Roaring passed stands of exhaust-stunted pines, we carried too much with us, to where so many years ago, we met in each the other. And there it is, exactly as we left it. Although, perhaps, the drive from the toll booths to the stately red brick buildings, home to other students now, seemed shorter, or at least less promising, less than opening to the universe. Here is where we learned how time changes us. First inklings of truth's relentless and impossible defining. The parsec in freshman astronomy, at once exact and stretching out at a distance I could not imagine as far as I could travel. Reading Coleridge and Dickinson beneath the Quad's great oaks. A place both recognizable and not. Here is where we learned how time changes us. A place both recognizable and not, you can never go back." Campo is alive to the dangers of sentimental reflection, even as he flirts with them. As someone who read both Coleridge and Dickinson and William Apess and Toni Morrison and so many others under these Quad's great oaks, I feel a kinship with what Campo describes here. A feeling that tries to balance on a knife's edge, the pleasures of his affection and his warning against their seduction. To love a place. To use an old metaphor, we need both the head and the heart, the intellect and the spirit, as we reckon with our love of place in how it is shaped by the past. We need, in other words, the sensibility that is at the core of a liberal education, which is relentless in its search for truth, rigorous in its evaluation of evidence, and rooted in ethical reasoning. That sensibility guides Amherst in our shared vision for the future. It is the basis of our claim to educate students who can lead meaningful lives and lead the society in which they live. During this last decade and more, this country and this campus have struggled with their love of place and the history that has shaped them. We are reckoning with old mythologies and trying to face difficult truths. We have begun to confront what it means to be a steward of land that was once inhabited by indigenous peoples, to face our own institutional complicity in American racism and other forms of discrimination, and to ask ourselves about the offensive symbols and names that we use in our everyday life. One of the great misunderstandings of our time, is the mistaken belief that this kind of scrutiny, this effort to examine critically what we have inherited from our forebears, is incompatible with the love of place. Whether that place is a nation or that place is a College, affection with places and people comes with struggle, with questions and doubt, and I know that there are students on this campus who wonder, still, if they belong at this place, this Amherst, and graduates whose relationship with the College remains guarded and cautious. True love is made of sturdy stuff. Like the great trees that surround us, it grows slowly with deep roots and wide branches to withstand all seasons over time and to thrive in even the most changeable weather. In fact, it may be that the deepest love, whether of a place or a person, requires that we are clear-eyed about its past for it to flourish in the future. Writing some 50 years ago, James Baldwin, one of the great theorists of love of the 20th century, put it this way, "To accept one's past, one's history, is not the same thing as drowning in it. It is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used. It cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought." Baldwin believes that the past could be useful, and he believed in love. He wrote these words in his brilliant, "The Fire Next Time," a book that speaks to the real fear and danger that he felt as a witness to the deep and violent practices of racism across the United States and the globe. Fear and destruction that comes when some people, white people, fail to love themselves and each other for what and who they are and who, instead, drown themselves in the allure of a false past. But as anyone who has been involved in a love affair knows, loving somebody for who they are, instead of who we want them to be, is hard. That kind of love does not come easily. And the same can be true for our College, or for that matter, a country. On a campus like this one, with so much history accumulated here over two centuries, if we act out of fear of losing some imagined past, we will put the future in peril. We must instead, act out of something better in ourselves. The same remedy that Baldwin offered so thoughtfully throughout his life as an ardent champion for civil and human rights, and that remedy is love. Not of course, romantic love, though it's true that many of us have been fortunate enough to find it here, but rather, the love of humanity that comes from recognizing the good that each of us brings to this place. The good that actually makes this place worthy of our love. Ralph Ellison, the novelist, put it this way, "The way home we seek, is that condition of man's being at home in the world, which is called love, and which we term democracy." I came across this sentence in a book by Danielle Allen, the political philosopher, who holds an honorary degree from Amherst and who served on our Board of Trustees. Allen has another name for this love. She calls it friendship. "Friendship," she writes, "requires recognizing in each other competing wants, desires, experiences, learning to negotiate those differences about matters that are both mundane and profound and learning to live generously in community with one another. It is the foundation of a democratic society, and learning to find the common good in a pluralist diverse society." My predecessor and friend, Biddy Martin, frequently spoke about the necessity and the difficulty of this kind of friendship. Biddy and I share the conviction that a liberal education brings us together to become proficient in that kind of friendship. And it's not always an easy thing to do, to learn how to extend it to our roommates and our teachers, to the staff who run the dining hall and keep our walks cleared, and most importantly, to people with whom we disagree, both on and off our campus. By practicing that kind of friendship, we learn something fundamental. We learn a new, better version of ourselves. A liberal education gives us the opportunity to come into a new relation with one another, a relation of recognition and reciprocity. We come here as imperfect, fallible students, and if we learn anything from our professors over the course of our four years, we learn most profoundly, how little we know. We become humbled, and we become curious. And we recognize in our fellow learners a community of strivers seeking greater understanding, and that striving brings us together here to collectively forge this place. This Amherst, just as students have been doing for more than 200 years. To love a place. To love this place. We come to love this place, not because of the Quad or the fall leaves, or the lecture hall. Not because of Johnson Chapel or our first-year dorm or that office where we had so many long conversations with our thesis advisor. We come to love this place, because this love is where we feel something in ourselves that seems in woefully short supply right now. We feel optimism. We feel... We feel the possibility of becoming, of growth, of stumbling forward into a better future for ourselves and for our world. Ninety years ago, one of Amherst's great presidents, Alexander Meiklejohn, observed, "The present mood of America seems, to me, in a very unusual degree, one of such revealing self-condemnation. In many ways, we are obsessed by the fear of having betrayed ourselves." To me, Meiklejohn's words ring as true today as they did when he wrote them in the depths of the Great Depression. Self-condemnation, the fear of having betrayed ourselves. That is a recipe for a society that is narrow, small and cruel. We are here in this place, this Amherst, because we embrace a different vision of the world, a vision rooted in the capacity of people to change, to find in one another what is good, to learn about the world beyond themselves, and to advance through curiosity, discovery, inquiry. We come to this place because we believe that small places can make a large difference in the world. We come to love this place when we discover something truly fundamental. That this small place, this Amherst, can somehow make the world almost infinitely larger for all of those who walk its halls and its hills, and our love endures, because we know that the future can be greater than the past. As I conclude, I'd like to take just a moment to address directly the current students who are with us today. At least those of them who are still awake. This place, this Amherst, it's yours now. You may come to love it in the way that I've described, or you may not. And love of that kind might be the farthest thing from your mind as you worry about the challenges ahead of you. Whether the exams that you face at the end of the semester, the question of what path you'll pursue after you graduate, that playoff game tomorrow, or how you will contribute to addressing the enormous problems of our time. We keep using the phrase, liberal arts education, as though it were a static thing, a noun, but it's really a verb, an action. And it is an action that requires a certain kind of faith. You must believe in the ability of your professors to provide you with what you need for the future. You must believe in your fellow students and be willing to risk friendship and fellowship with them. But most of all, you must have a belief in your own potential to learn, to grow, to make mistakes, to take chances, to be vulnerable, and ultimately, to contribute to the common good. That is a lot. But look around you. Here in this place today, you can see graduates, professors, trustees, distinguished visitors, and they are all here today. All of these people. Not because they have faith in me, but because they have faith in you. And during the last three months, in every conversation that I've had with you, whether walking across the Quad or talking across a table in Val, I have been reminded that you deserve their trust, their friendship, their love. No matter what else you take away from today, I hope that you remember how many people are behind you and beside you and who believe in you. And to you, I say, most of all, what a privilege it is to be your president. Thank you.
- Thank you all for being here to celebrate this happy occasion with us. If you would please remain at your seats during the recessional, and then we invite you to join us for a fabulous celebration on the Quad. Many thanks and congratulations to President Elliott.