Greetings from the Sudent Senate President

Will Nelligan

I am thrilled to extend my greetings to you, my fellow students and members of Dickinson’s class of 2017. Three years ago, I sat where you sit, and I heard someone else give this address as Student Senate president. It was then, and is now, a wonderful time to be a Dickinsonian. You’ve heard about our new faculty and staff, you’ve seen our numerous construction projects—Dickinson is making many transitions, chief among them, the transition from one transformative leader, Dr. William Durden, to another, the woman with whom I am honored to share this stage, President Nancy Roseman. But you’ll hear a great deal about this exciting time in Dickinson’s history in the days and weeks ahead. Today, I would prefer to tell you about Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Holmes, the cranky, craggy jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court until he was nearly 91, took a train north from Washington, D.C., during one of the summers of his later years in the nation’s Capitol. He was rummaging through his pockets and briefcase when the conductor, recognizing him, approached Holmes’s seat. After observing the elder justice combing through his bag for a few moments, the conductor finally offered that a lost ticket was no problem. “When you find the ticket, Mr. Justice,” the conductor said, “just mail it to the company.”  “Young man,” Holmes responded sternly, “the problem is not 'Where is my ticket?' The problem is 'Where am I going?' ”  

Since arriving in Carlisle a few days ago and meeting some of you around campus, I’ve begun to realize that Holmes’s circumstances are not that different from your own. You both paid for your seat, so to speak; he by transaction, you by talent and tuition. Like him, you are careening toward a destination that is unclear. Yet for Holmes, the destination at the end of the train ride was, well, all there was. He had no reason to take interest in the plights of his fellow passengers, to improve the state of the train or to reflect on the experience of the train ride. Until he arrived in New York or Providence or Boston, Holmes likely took little ownership of, or responsibility for, his journey.

Now, he can be excused for that. His journey was measured in hours. Yours, on the other hand, will be measured in weeks, months and years.  Don’t worry what destination is printed on your ticket. Focus entirely on the journey it permits you to take. College will be a formative, altering experience, but you determine how and how much. Throughout your time at Dickinson, administrators, faculty, and students will find many ways to convey that basic point. Some will urge you to “engage the world.” Others will remind you of the college’s revolutionary history of advocacy and participation. A few will even pointto the Dickinson Dimensions. What we all mean is that the classes you take, the people you meet, the causes you pursue and the groups you join are not mile markers passing you by. They should change you at your core, just as you should change them at theirs. 

Yet a variety of forces have emerged to discourage that very attitude, urging you to move through college as quickly as possible, gaining whatever skills most obviously connect to your chosen career path. These forces are not generational,a word magazine editors use to sell subscriptions to our parents. They stem from a new conception of college held by other, older generations. This conception, which is advanced by many people I respect and admire, holds that a college degree is only as valuable as the job it helps secure, reducing the attainment of that degree to a series of simple tasks to complete —an input and an output. But essays are not merely about answers. Classes are not merely about grades. College is not merely about a career. It is so easy to move through this entire experience as if each portion was part of some grand checklist. Five sources cited— check. Two lab sciences—check. Aerobic activities in the Kline—check.  The way the requirements are outlined doesn’t necessarily help, by the way. But if you strip away the expectations to be met, the criteria to be fulfilled, the core requirements to be completed, you’ll find that the liberal-arts college experience—the Dickinson experience— is meant to engender a lifestyle that will hopefully last well beyond your college years.

There are two important characteristics of the liberal-arts lifestyle: thoughtfulness, which is attention to and respect for the values and perspectives of others; and iconoclasm, which is a willingness to ignore outworn dogmas and the bounds of tradition. These characteristics leave much specific definition up to us as individuals. But the things we are invited to do while here at Dickinson are all designed to lead us to embody them. When we think critically, read and listen closely, inquire and debate forcefully, and analyze frequently and flexibly, we are honing the skills that define thoughtful, iconoclastic citizens.

These skills and characteristics are not meant to develop in the classroom alone, nor are they only useful there. Do not separate what you learn on Biddle Field from what you learn in Denny Hall, or what you learn with your friends from what you learn with your professors. Residential colleges were not created for convenience; by living where you’re studying and studying where you’re living, you are supposed to develop this lifestyle of the liberal arts. No one will force you to, but if you fail to connect your class experience with your life experience, if you don’t engage with a variety of disciplines, perspectives and people, you will have wasted nearly a quarter of a million dollars on an entirely transactional education, one that, in the words of America’s great movie star-cum-philosopher, Will Hunting, “you could have got for a dollar fifty in late fees from the public library.” Regardless of the path you took to your seats today, always value this education vicariously through those who are not fortunate enough to attain it. 

There is no better way to value something than to improve it. So do just that! The impact you have on Dickinson is as important as the impact Dickinson has on you. We are so lucky to attend a college with a rich history, one of the longest and fullest in the United States. That history, however, can sometimes lend itself to a certain feeling of helplessness, as if all the questions and issues one might raise have already been resolved by some other group, at some other time. Remind yourself—like a true iconoclast—that people just as fallible as you enacted every policy and procedure you’ll encounter here. As you’ll learn in language classes soon enough, there is no better way to learn a new skill than through synthesis. So synthesize the skills of the liberal-arts lifestyle through advocacy. Review closely, inquire forcefully and pursue change. That’s how we redrafted our sexual misconduct policy to make the system clearer and our community safer; it’s how we hired our first-ever director of LGBTQ services, who is making Dickinson a more respectful and tolerant place every single day; it’s the way any number of campus projects came to fruition, including the Quarry and the water-filling stations you’ll see around campus. Four years from now, when you walk down these steps, you should be able to look at the sea of faces before you—and the campus surrounding them—and say, “I made this better.”

Now, I’m keenly aware that befuddled old Oliver Wendell would probably have arrived in New York or Providence or Boston by now, had he started his journey when I started my speech. And let’s face it, all manner of people have been talking at you for the past few days about all manner of things. You know, a few years before Holmes took that train ride, he wrote in a letter, “if I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.” I can’t say it better than that. By good fortune and a great deal of talent, you have the privilege of an education at a premier liberal-arts college, a privilege that only three percent of Americans have. Make every ounce of it count. Let it consume you completely. When you find your causes to support, your battles to wage, your passions to pursue, when you embrace that thoughtful iconoclasm that is at the heart of the modern liberal arts, then everyone on this stage will be there to support you. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out. Thank you very much.

Published August 30, 2013