A look back at Commencement/Reunion Weekend

Commencement Forums

John Seely Brown on learning in the digital age: The theory of knowledge in the western world has been reflected by the statement "I think therefore I am" - a statement that clearly separates the thinkers from the doers, said Brown, chief scientist at the research arm of Xerox. The Web, however, "is a medium that honors multiple forms of intelligence - perhaps the first medium ever created to do so. ...This medium can leverage the larger efforts of the few with the small efforts of the many," he said, creating a new pedagogy that can be defined as "We participate, therefore we are."

"We learn with and from somebody else," he said. "This is where social computing lies."

Barnaby Evans on WaterFire: "WaterFire's success is ... about our deep need to come together as a community," said the Providence artist who created the nighttime installation along two city rivers.

He offered several anecdotes on this theme. One entailed two phone calls regarding parking. A representative from an area convent called to say two busloads of nuns would be traveling to the evening's performance of WaterFire. The caller wanted to know where the buses could be parked. Shortly after, "we got a call from a motorcycle club member asking where they could park 150 to 160 hogs.... Both came and just disappeared into the community. We wouldn't even have known they were there except for the fact that they had called" to ask about parking.

"We got two letters afterward," Evans said. One from the nuns, who said they enjoyed the event thoroughly and were still engaged in discussion about the artwork. The other letter, from the motorcycle club, said "it was good that no one messed with the bikes - and we liked it, too."

WaterFire was created, Evans said, as an "attempt to try to get Americans out of their cars. It is not a representation, not a painting, an image. It is not faux, not virtual reality. It is real fire created in real time by a real community."

The policy and precedent of the Elián Gonzalez affair: The international battle over Elián Gonzalez "is the experience of every child to a prolonged custody battle," said Steven Barreto, clinical director of child psychiatry in the School of Medicine.

Edward Kolb on the Big Bang: "In cosmology, no matter how strange a theory is, it always sounds more reasonable in a British accent," said cosmologist Edward "Rocky" Kolb, head of the Fermilab Astrophysics Group. He said astronomer Edwin Hubble, a native Missourian, picked up a British accent as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. Hubble also picked up the habit of pipe smoking, "but as we all know, Rhodes scholars don't inhale," said Kolb.

Irwin Goldstein on the second sexual revolution: Goldstein, a noted urologist and expert on Viagra, told his audience that sexual dysfunction is common. It occurs in more than 40 percent of women and 30 percent of men, yet it is "understudied and undervalued." The first sexual revolution was driven in large part by the development of the Pill, freeing couples from fear of pregnancy, he said; the second stems from the development of Viagra, which will allow people to maintain their sexuality throughout their lives. Use of Viagra now exceeds that of Prozac, Liptor and Claritin, he said.

Joe Paterno on leadership: "If we have morale and my team believes, we'll play as well as we can and have a chance to win. That's all you can ask for," said Joe Paterno, football coach at Penn State.

Reunions are special occasions, according to Paterno, who was celebrating his 50th with his Brown classmates and teammates. "It's great to see a lot of guys sitting around and telling a lot of lies," he quipped.

In presenting Paterno with the Alumni Association's William Rogers Award, Lisa Raiola, vice president of Alumni Relations, confessed to being a lifelong Penn State football fan. "Two days ago here I met President Clinton, and that was nothing compared to meeting you," she gushed, drawing a big hand from the audience.

Responded Paterno, "I think she's Italian."

Ogden Lecture

"The Pentateuch and the Ten Commandments would have been different if recorded by Miriam, Moses' sister," said Alice Shalvi, Israeli scholar and women's advocate. Her Ogden Lecture title was "Feminism's Impact in Israel and Beyond."

In the last 25 years, women have engaged in important activities that have changed their roles, Shalvi said. They study Torah, and they could in theory serve as a judge on a rabbinical court, although Shalvi believes they won't serve for many years to come. Other women experts in Israel are issuing decisions regarding dietary laws and family purity, but this will soon lead to decisions beyond those areas, she said.

Baccalaureate

The Rev. Gustavo Gutierrez: "The idea is to share from our poverty. To share what we have is a very important thing. ... Are you ready to share your knowledge, your capacities?"

"The poor are the insignificant persons. They can be insignificant for many reasons - economic, social. They can be insignificant because the poor belong to a despised race, a culture, because they are women. When we don't recognize the full rights of these people, we are killing them. The anthropologists say, `Culture is life.' We are killing them."

Ask not for whom the bell tolls

Five staff members from Facilities Management had the job of ringing the bell in the Meeting House of the First Baptist Church on Memorial Day to mark the procession of the graduating class from The College Green to the church. They donned gloves for the work and alternated among themselves, pulling the thick rope again and again. The bell rang for more than an hour, silenced only after the last student entered the church. Thousands of times staff members pulled the rope that morning, an exhausting task. "Knowing it takes the amount of effort it does, no one or two people could do it," said Donna Butler, associate director. "It does wipe you out."

Facilities Management staff also tolled the bell on Sunday before the baccalaureate address.

Senior orators

"Cherish these days, they say. These are the best years of your life. But they are wrong. I refuse to believe that these are the best years of my life because if I have learned one true thing at Brown it is the fact that this is only the beginning," said Eirene Donohue. "A true college story is one of possibility. It's a story of what it felt like to be young and have the whole world in front of you. Where everything was fresh and new and each experience was an opportunity to create your own history....It's about closing your eyes and taking a deep breath and saying to yourself `Remember this.' Remember this conversation, this feeling. Remember this moment."

"My fellow classmates, living has always been revolutionary. We often forget the decisions made daily - what side do we stand on? What ways are we willing to sacrifice our personal silences and privilege? Are we ready for the voices that have never been heard? As we walk beyond the gates, I pray that we not get caught up in the simple solutions that don't require that our lives, or humanity, be made vulnerable," said Joseph L. Edmonds Jr. "Oh, the wonderful class of 2000, share stories, listen radically, seek justice and act boldly. Remember, reconcile and let's begin a revolution."

Graduate School orator

"It is easy to forget, in the deep silence of our isolation, and in our moments of insecurity and concern for the future, that what we do is a joy," said Andrew Flescher. "Conducting inquiries into scholarly topics is a fine way to spend one's time and begin a career. We like to tell ourselves that it is not. We have become experts at complaining. To those who ask us over and over again when we will finally be finished, or what it is that we even do, we tend to repeat, almost by rote, that they just don't understand what graduate school is all about." Flescher listed four joys in particular: the joy of being able to pursue that which make us curious; the joy of becoming better thinkers; the joy of helping others to become better thinkers; and the joy of fellowship among other graduate students.

Casey Shearer '00

The celebration of more than two hours included cheers, singing, cartwheels, and anecdotes about a young man whose passion for family, friends and sports was apparent to anyone who had the good fortune to be drawn into Shearer's world.

Friends of Casey Shearer wore ribbons of purple and gold ­ the colors of the Lakers, Shearer's favorite basketball team - on their graduation gowns.

The president recalled how Shearer "tried to tutor me in rap music" before an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1992. "He was afraid I'd embarrass myself on national television and lose the election," Clinton laughed.

Interim President Sheila E. Blumstein presented Shearer's diploma to his family. "Those of you who belong with Casey to the Class of 2000 will know that he marches by your side on Monday," she said.