“Be Ready with Your Sunglasses”
Jordan Trice ’24 waves at Jeanne Herdocia, the teacher he nominated for a Swift Moore Teaching Award.
Following Ahmad’s speech, the conferral of honorary degrees and presentation of the Phebe and Zephaniah Swift Moore Teaching Awards and Medal for Eminent Service, the ceremony paused briefly when some members of the audience peacefully chanted, “Free, free Palestine.” When the protestors were finished, Elliott took a moment before his remarks to recognize the deep concerns related to current events in Gaza that the protestors and many others in attendance were likely feeling, as well as some anger directed at him and the College’s administration.
“I acknowledge and respect all of the different emotions and commitments that we bring to this quad, and that our celebration of this class does not in any way diminish the real pain that we are feeling right now,” he said. “All of us, in our own ways, are seeking to find balance in the tumult of the world, and peace in the midst of conflict and violence.”
He went on to recall the solar eclipse this past spring and noted that many members of the community gathered on the quad to witness the celestial event together. “For a college that prides itself on activity and action, where everyone seems to be busy some 26 hours in the day, it was a rare moment where we could all pause and find delight in the way that the natural world could reveal its wonder to us with such simple grandeur, and in the sheer pleasure of seeing each other—our fellow Mammoths—take it all in.”
The president contrasted that moment with what he called the “perfect inversion of the eclipse”—the spring of 2020 at the onset of COVID-19. “Instead of turning our attention upward and out to the magnificence of the heavens, the shutdown made our world smaller—squeezing us into rooms not built to contain the whole of our lives, shrinking our interactions into the small boxes of our laptop screens, reducing our human contact to trying to read the eyes above the mask as we scrupulously observed a 6-foot distance between us.”
Many of the graduates began their college careers during the pandemic, Elliott noted. “At a time when so many people were withdrawing and becoming suspicious of one another, you chose curiosity by coming to study here, with each other, in a community devoted to close colloquy,” he said. “Hope and curiosity—these are qualities that are the foundation of what Amherst College means, of everything that we do here.”
President Michael A. Elliott address the graduating class of 2024.
Praising Ahmad and his classmates as examples of “what hope can look like,” Elliott went on to thank the graduates for their stories of perseverance, devotion to democracy, advocacy of civic responsibility, and willingness to talk with and listen to people of differing opinions. That last item, in particular, is something that naysayers of higher education and the liberal arts don’t take the time to see, he noted.
“During the last six months, the media and the U.S. Congress have reminded us repeatedly how little public trust there is in colleges and universities,” said Elliott. “I wish that our critics—whether on Capitol Hill or in the press—could witness what I get to witness at Amherst. I wish that they were here today to meet the class of 2024, to see what academic excellence looks like. … They would have a very different perspective on how we pursue academic excellence; they would have seen and heard the power of curiosity.”
He concluded his remarks with a charge to the graduates that cued the theme of the address and the aforementioned celestial event. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, do not allow the world to blunt your curiosity,” he told them. “Do not let cynicism and mistrust diminish your sense of hope. And, if all else fails, remember the simple lessons of our recent eclipse: Take time for the unexpected pleasures, find joy in the company of others and always be ready with your sunglasses.”
