Slide:
The Brandeis official seal is in the upper center of the blue slide. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
American Studies Program
Celebrating the Class of 2020
Slide:
The Brandeis insignia and logo are in the center of the slide, which is a picture of a statue of Louis D. Brandeis. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Maura Jane Farrelly
Associate Professor, Chair and Undergraduate Advising Head, American Studies Director, Journalism Program
Maura Farrelly is shown on screen in front of a beige wall with framed photos and articles hung on it.
Maura Farrelly:
Hello everyone, my name is Maura Farrelly and I am the Chair of the American Studies Program at Brandeis University. And, normally that means that at this time of year, I get to stand on a stage and deliver diplomas to the graduates who have achieved Majors in American Studies. And this year we have 15 of them. Of course, I am not doing that right now. Instead, I am sitting in my office by myself, staring at a screen, trying to pretend that there are actually people there, and also working really hard to look into the camera, even though I can't see it very well because in order to see it, I need to angle my eyes like this to look at it through my bifocals.
There are, of course, worse places that I could be right now and I am very aware of that. As I know you're going to hear from my colleague, Eileen, we did lose somebody to this virus this year -- somebody who was pretty important to us, Sergio Aguilar, who cleaned the classrooms in our home, Brown, third floor of Brown, was unfortunately an early casualty to this nasty, nasty virus that is keeping us all from being here together today. And so I obviously, I don't want to be bringing things down. I want to celebrate the 15 people we have graduating from our program today, but I also don't want to forget about Sergio and his family right now.
So, I've got a little list here. My job today is actually pretty easy. My job is simply to introduce three people whom I know to be incredibly intelligent, incredibly thoughtful, and incredibly articulate. Which is why I asked them to put some words together today for you, that I hope will maybe put a little bit of perspective onto this celebration but also to this moment in history that we are all experiencing right now. Two of the people are, I was going to say students of mine but they are actually former students of mine, and one of them is a colleague who I admire greatly and I am also really privileged and thankful to be able to call a friend.
Before I get to those three people though, there are some other people that I want to introduce to you. And they are my other colleagues, whose faces you're not seeing right now, but rest assured, I promise you, they are here with you in spirit. So I'm just gonna name them because your family members and friends who are here may not be familiar with who they are.
First of all, they are Professor Dan Breen who knows just about everything, but he specializes particularly in American Legal History. We have Professor Doherty, Tom Doherty, who specializes in American Film, present but also past. I means he knows just about everything about American Film History. Professor Brian Donahue, who again, is a historian. He specializes in American Environmental History. We have Jonathan Krasner, Professor Jonathan Krasner, who specializes in the History of American Education and looks very specifically at the history of American Jewish Education. And we have Professor Jerome Tharaud, who specializes in Literature and specifically, in the Literature of the American West.
I have two other colleagues whose faces you will get to see, and I will get to them in order as I kind of walk you through what's going to happen next, after my face disappears. First you're going to hear from two students, two former students. I've had both of them in class and I believe, I hope I don't get this wrong, I believe the first one is going to be Maryam Chishti who took my class The Culture of Journalism, and she also took 100A with me, which for those of you who are not American Studies majors, we have two survey courses that all of the majors are required to take, and the first one is just sort of colloquially referred to as 100A. So, I had Maryam as a student in The Culture of Journalism where she did a fantastic essay on Rick Herdsberg for me, and then I had her for 100A and she is going to provide us with some thoughts first.
And then secondly, we will hear from Donnie Weisse or also known as Donald Gerard Weisse III, who as I'm sitting here talking, I'm realizing I had him in exactly the same two classes that I had Maryam in. I first met Donnie when he was a sophomore. He was in The Culture of Journalism with me and his big essay that he did was on George Will. And then I also had Donnie as a student in 100A, and then additionally, I really had the great pleasure of, I'm supposed to say advising Donnie on his senior thesis, but really I just kind of sat in my office and listened to him read things to me and learned stuff that I didn't even know before about the Rivers and Harbors Acts. There are quite a few of them throughout American history. And then, when I read his chapters every now and then, I would suggest that maybe he might want to put a comma somewhere. But that was really the extent of my advisement.
So you'll hear from the two of them first, and then you will hear from my colleague, Eileen McNamara, who is a specialist in journalism. She's actually a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism. She worked for The Boston Globe for a number of years in a number of different capacities, most recently as a columnist, but we've been delighted to have her as a colleague here at Brandeis for more than a decade full-time. So you will hear from her, and then my colleague, Paula Musegades who is a specialist in American Music. And she looks very particularly at film scores. She is going to be the one who gets to read the names of our graduates. And again, I normally would be the one delivering the diplomas to you all as she reads your names, but unfortunately, I am not going to get to do that this year.
So with that, I'm going to stop now and probably come back with a separate file that somebody in our IT services will tack onto the end of this virtual celebration just to say goodbye. But in the meantime, I'm really looking forward to hearing what Maryam, Donnie and Eileen have to say. Okay, thank you.
Slide:
The same blue slide as before. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Maryam Chishti
Department of American Studies, Class of 2020
Maryam Chishti is shown in front of a beige wall, wearing a graduation robe and holding papers in her hands.
Maryam Chishti:
Dear faculty, family, and friends and dear graduates. My name is Maryam Chishti, it is an honor to speak before you today. Like many of you, I walked into college with that Brandeis determination to make a difference. I was going to be an English major or a Politics major. I hadn't quite decided, but as I went through my first semester, I didn't hear my voice in the papers I was writing. I didn't feel heard at all.
But then I took an American Studies class and I went to Professor Farrelly's office hours, and for the first time, she heard me. When she suggested I look into the major and I scrolled through the course catalog, I thought about how lucky I would be if these classes were my curriculum. And lucky I was.
Before we were American Studies majors, we were just new students. At the start of our wide-eyed first semester, the economy was booming, climate change was being taken seriously, and our leadership on the world stage was strong and admired. American democracy seemed to be flourishing. Changing the world with Brandeis determination seemed like it could wait for four years while we studied 'cause our leaders had it under control. And then one night in November, that feeling changed.
In its place emerged a new vision of America but it didn't seem to match as what we thought it would be. It was a vision laced with fear and uncertainty, and the eerie guttural feeling that everything in our country was about to change. And with that change, we became American Studies majors. And we went to work. We opened up our textbooks and read the words of our country's founders. We studied their goals and where they fell short. We read the story of Ali Doc Guyana, and thought about the people who are left out of the founding narrative. We learned the hard way that a good critical analysis is not just a summary of what you read. If you want your voice to be heard, like I so badly wanted mine to, you need to form your own independent intellectual opinions. And that is scary, but our professors helped. And slowly but surely, we got better at it.
As travel bans became policy and mass shootings happened more often than we could count, we argued about the ethics of journalism and the key elements to a strong archival documentary. We took a AAAS class on slavery, we watched Citizen Kane. We learned about the Holocaust, the Puritans, we made fun of the democratic debates in between the lectures. We argued about the grade of the paper. We started studying for that mid-term way too late. And as the spring of 2020 came around, we embarked on senior theses. We took those last classes of the major. We were finishing in stride. American democracy still seemed shaky, but there was hope in sight and a great job market, beckoning us with open arms. And then one day in mid-March, that all changed. In the blink of an eye, we entered a new chapter of our history books. All of a sudden, we were signing into our final classes on a platform called Zoom, learning about the 60s Counterculture Movement as our parents walked by behind us on the phone. And we were like, "Can you not do that? I'm in the middle of the class. God!"
We wrote our final papers for the major when our anxiety was high and our motivation was low. We finished our classes by waving goodbye to our professors through a screen at the top of our computer. It felt sad and unreal, kind of like today.
I wanted the speech to ask a question and to answer it with the words of all the authors that we've studied. But, the only question I have now, as I look out at an iPhone screen in my mother's graduation gown and try to visualize our futures — what happens now? I don't know the answer, but here's the thing — you all do. Because if we have learned anything these past four years, we know it's been the young people in our nation who, just like you and I, made a mark on each country's decade.
It's been the young people, just like you and I, who, when American democracy was not up to their standards, worked to make it the vision that they desired it to be. They were the pilgrims on the Mayflower, 1920 suffragettes, the Civil Rights Leaders, the journalists who reported on the news despite the cost, filmmakers, union organizers, the students who march for our lives. And when I look out at our class, I mean, come on, that's all of you. Because class of 2020, you are going to pick yourself up and you are going to write the next articles, the next movie script, the next policy proposal, plan the next protest that will address the questions we have worked these four years to solve. You are going to make your voice heard, and make this country more of the vision that you desire it to be. And when you're done, you will leave this earth with a better understanding of what it means to be a student, a writer, an analyst, a leader, and an American, than what you came in with. And I can't wait to see what that is.
To the class of 2020, it's been a hell of a four years. It's also been a great four years. Sometime, I thought in these past few months that there was no worse time to be an American Studies major, but I think despite everything that's happened in our world and everything that's happening in our country now, there may have been in fact no better time. I thought about ending with the quote from the constitution. Something about, "We the people" and liberty and justice, or making a weak joke about how crazy it is that we majored in the studies of the country that we already live in, but I'm not gonna do that. What I'll leave you with is this: as we know from our past, the United States has always emerged from a crisis, a stronger nation. It's been one that has been more just, free, and resilient than it was in its past.
And this time is no different. We are the young people that have been the change makers we've read about in our country's history. We have the chance now to say what we want this new chapter of our country to look like. So, class of 2020, let us make our vision for this country a reality. And with our diplomas in hand, let's make our voices heard. Good luck. And hey, congratulations!
Slide:
The same blue slide as before. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Donnie Weisse
Department of American Studies, Class of 2020
Donnie Weisse comes on the screen in a gray t-shirt, sitting in front of white windows that show trees outside.
Donnie Weisse:
Hi everyone, I'm Donnie Weisse, and I hope you're all healthy, and your families are well, and staying safe. First I'd like to say thanks, on behalf of all the American Studies grads, to our professors. We're really lucky to have such a great faculty and staff, and you've all made this department really special and, in my biased opinion, the best on campus. And I'm really glad I didn't major in business, like my dad told me to, because you guys are great. Also, I wanna personally thank Professor Farrely, Professor McNamara, and Professor Breene, with whom I've taken probably 75% of my college classes, and I can't thank you all enough for everything that I've learned and how much I've improved as a writer and a researcher and so on and so forth. I'm definitely gonna miss the third floor of Brown.
So, this whole situation is the last thing any of us could have imagined, and it's certainly not exactly how we pictured our college graduation to be, but I understand how disappointed everyone is, especially the athletes, like myself, who had their last season cut short. So I'll try to refrain from your typical rousing inspirational commencement speech, since it would probably sound disingenuous and I also doubt it would be very effective, as many of you including myself, are probably sitting at your computer in a pair of sweatpants you've been wearing for several days. So instead, I'll keep it short and sweet, and try to relay some optimism and maybe some advice, even for my fellow grads as we try to get through this time.
We're experiencing history. It's scary and we really don't know much. And I know most people are taking it day by day, just trying to stay healthy and entertained, but I think we as graduates and especially as American Studies majors should take a step back and try to recognize the magnitude and significance of this pandemic. We've learned so much over the last few years about our culture and government, and politics, people and so on. And this pandemic has really brought out a lot of aspects of American society and put them under stress and even scrutiny. So, the way we work, learn, socialize, have all changed and as we graduate, we're entering a world very different from the one four years ago, when we arrived on campus.
And times have changed quite a bit since the fall of 2016, and probably even more so than we could have imagined, but as American Studies students, we've learned a lot about our country and how we Americans are quite familiar with tumultuous times, and that we've always made it out on the other side, and often for the better.
Well, while the world today is unlike anything we could have imagined when we were studying much of that, as we are all at home, if we're lucky enough to do so, I think we owe it to ourselves to make the most of it. We've got a lot of time on our hands and it's probably the last time we will for the foreseeable future. So what can we do? I think we have two perfectly good options, and depending on what kind of person you are and what you plan to do after graduation, one may seem more appealing than the other.
The first is to do nothing. Bertrand Russells wrote that, "Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not a life of arduous a struggle." Now is as good a time as ever to direct all your attention to ease and security, and I think by doing so, we can really learn to appreciate everyone and everything around us. Whether it's your family, a new book or show, or the birds and trees in the yard, I actually just got a pair of binoculars and birdwatching is really fun. Taking this time to relax and really appreciate things can be beneficial and a great way to spend your final few weeks or months before you start a new job or grad school.
And the second option, and this is for people who are unsure of their future, or maybe nervous about a new job or grad school, is to prepare. In the words of Mr. Emerson, "Don't waste life in doubts and fears. Spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow." We're lucky to have a lot of time on our hands and I think devoting just a portion of that to preparing for whatever you're doing, or whatever you want to do, would be very wise.
And these two options aren't mutually exclusive obviously, but I think we can find a healthy mix of the two. And this is a difficult time, we've been thrown right into it, so whatever makes you happy and provides you with some calm, just do it. Read a book, watch a movie, put on your hazmat suit and go for a walk. Whatever it is, make the most of this very strange time and stay healthy. Thank you guys, and good luck.
Slide:
The same blue slide as before. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Eileen McNamara
Professor of the Practice of Journalism
Director, Journalism Program
Eilenn McNamara comes on screen. She is sitting in front of a neatly organized white bookshelf and a beige wall.
Eileen McNamara:
Hi, I'm Eileen McNamara. This is a sad substitute for the mini-commencement we had planned for you. No cookies for one thing.
I have no great wisdom to impart today in the face of global pandemic, but I can promise you a cliche-free graduation address. I can hardly urge you to follow your dreams or pursue your passions, when you aren't allowed to leave the house. You aren't setting out on your journey right now, unless you count the walk between the couch and the fridge. You aren't exploring your career options, unless you're an essential worker bagging groceries or delivering pizza. Life just kicked loose the wall plug attached to that treadmill you've been on for 16 years. Grades, sports, honors, internships, resumes, job interviews, you have been leaning in your whole life.
But John Lennon is your guru now. Like he once sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Law school, med school, Wall Street, the writer's room, the Peace Corps, Teach For America — they'll all have to wait. Right now, you are stuck between stations. Anxious probably, angry maybe, sad for sure. A lot has been taken from you before you've had a chance to commence. The senior spring you won't share with your classmates, the cap and gown you won't get to wear, the parties you won't get to attend to celebrate this milestone. I'd be sad and mad about that too.
Like the rest of us, you're also a little afraid. When will this end? What comes next? The honest answer is: nobody knows. But in this, as in most things, perspective matters. The Spanish flu had an even deeper swath of death across the globe of a century ago. In its wake, the 20s roared.
The Coronavirus pandemic presents a rare opportunity for you. It's a chance to tap a reservoir of resilience you built up here at Brandeis. Remember how you survived that B-, when it turned out you did not ace the final after all? Remember how you adapted to the role of understudy, when the part of leading lady went to someone else? Remember how you didn't die when he broke up with you, or when she fell for one of your best friends? You learned at Brandeis you are strong, as well as smart. Hard as this might be, there are worse things to be at the beginning of adulthood than back in your childhood bedroom. Having been involuntarily yanked from your well-worded lives, you have a chance to ask yourself, what it is you really want from your slice of time on this earth?
Your answer will no doubt change and change again as the years go by, but how much better to begin the journey with an idea that evolves, rather than the plan that derails. Socrates bequeathed to us this notion that, "the unexamined life is not worth living," an easier sell for ancient Greek philosophers than for freshly minted American college students. For most of you, American Studies was not your only major. There were minors too. Maybe more than one. Maybe an honors thesis as well. You have done so much, so fast and so well that taking a breather, especially an enforced one must feel like a cool detour on your preordained path. But the truth is, there is no path that can't be rerouted by circumstances beyond our control. Think for a moment today about Sergio Aguilar.
A week before we left campus in March, the man who cleaned our classrooms and mopped our floors in Brown was talking about the retirement he planned to take in a few years. How he would visit his mother in El Salvador more often, show his grandchildren where he learned to swim as a boy, take it a little easier after decades of manual labor. COVID-19 and a premature death, were not in Sergio's plans.
I've always been struck by how often you've used the phrase, "the real world," when you've talked with me about your post Brandeis lives. As if your time in Waltham, wasn't real somehow. Real, you implied, came later with an apartment lease, a job with benefits, shelves full of books selected by you, not by your professors. But Brandeis was real. The bull sessions with your friends in the dorms, the all-nighters with your study group in Goldfarb, the part time jobs, even those awful frat parties, they were all real. All experiences that helped to shape you, maybe more than anything you learned in class.
Surpassingly soon, you will forget the particulars of the Pentagon papers case I drilled into you. And that distinction Professor Doherty taught you between the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Army-McCarthy hearings. You'll struggle to remember whether it was Emerson or Thoreau who wrote Civil Disobedience, but you won't forget your office hour conversations with Professor Breen about Civil Liberties. You can always ask Google if you forget, and you will, who gave the Cross of Gold Speech. But the relationships you made here, the insights you've gained about yourself, about the world, those aren't cataloged in any database. They belong to you and to you alone. They will take you through this pandemic and into a future that is so hard to envision now. More than imparting knowledge, we hope your studies have provided you with some perspective and a sense of proportion.
You arrived at Brandeis only weeks before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Many of you railed then against a country that has never been more divided, until Professor Farrelly reminded you that this nation once survived a bloody civil war. Many of you just speared Ben about the degradation of the environment, until Professor Donahue took you into the woods and showed you what regeneration looks like in the New England forest. Many of you touted Beyonce's "Lemonade" as an unprecedented piece of social commentary until Professor Lucy Guedes introduced you to Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit".
In my opinion course this spring, I was struck by how many students who had spent the whole semester writing with insight and passion about the Mid-East, global warming, and presidential politics chose to write about their families for our last assignments. And in those columns, I met a rambunctious five-year-old stepbrother and a wise English teacher. I attended family game nights, fierce Mario Kart competitions and Dungeon & Dragons adventures. I sat in a hospital waiting room with a son fearing news about his mother's surgery. I planted a succulent garden and I petted more than one beloved dog. You might be leaving your breakfast dishes in the sink, and slamming doors right now, with frustration at the big pause, but those columns tell me you did gain some perspective at Brandeis.
You know who loves you, you know who has your back, who has always had it, and who has it now while you are stuck between stations. If you have gathered your family for this virtual celebration, take a moment to say thank you.
I'll leave you with these thoughts from Mary Oliver and the permission the late great poet grants you in this time of pandemic and well beyond to embrace the pause. Whenever it comes, it too is the real world. "I do know how to pay attention. How to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I've been doing all day. Tell me what else should I have done? Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Congratulations to you all.
Eileen McNamara blows a kiss before disappearing from the screen.
Slide:
The same blue slide as before. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Paula Jo Musegades
Assistant Professor of American Studies
Assistant Professor of Music
Paula Musegades comes on screen in a black shirt. She is sitting in a brightly lit, white living room. Behind her on the right there is a whiteboard on which "Congratulations Class of 2020!" is written in blue cursive.
Paula Musegades:
Welcome graduates, and friends and family of graduates. Thank you all for tuning in today. My name is Paula Musegades, I am an assistant professor in the American Studies Program, as well as the Music Department. And today I have the honor of announcing the graduating class of 2020 in the American Studies Program.
Now, before we do that, I do have a few caveats. Clearly, this is not the ideal situation to celebrate all of your hard work and all of your accomplishments over these past four years. And undoubtedly, we have American Studies graduates who are graduating with Latin honors; Cum laude, Magna cum laude, Summa cum laude, which are awarded based on your GPA. Unfortunately, the registrar hasn't been able to calculate all of that information before I have to turn this video in. So I'm not able to mention those Latin honors when I read your names. Additionally, for those students who have received awards from outside of the American Studies Program, I'm not able to announce those as well for that same reason. However, I do have some good news.
First of all, I am able to announce those students who worked on and completed their senior thesis over the past year. And I am also happy to announce the recipients of the two American Studies Awards, The Lawrence Fuchs Award and The Pauli Murray Award, which are awarded to two graduates who demonstrate outstanding dedication to the field of American Studies. So without further ado and with great pride, I would like to introduce the graduating class of 2020 for the American Studies Program.
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A blue slide appears on the screen, headed by the Brandeis insignia. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
American Studies Program
Celebrating the Class of 2020
David Aizenberg.
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David Aizenberg
Emily Rose Blumenthal.
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Emily Rose Blumenthal
Maryam Louise Chishti.
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Maryam Louise Chishti
Jessica Gedallovich.
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Jessica Gedallovich
Adam Hanlon.
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Adam Hanlon
Jason C. Kwan.
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Jason C. Kwan
Siobhan Marie McKenna, graduating with Honors in American Studies.
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A blue slide appears on the screen. On the right there is a picture of Siobhan McKenna in a black striped shirt in front of a white background. The text on the slide reads:
Siobhan Marie McKenna
Graduating with Honors in American Studies
Kalianni Neal-Desatnik, recipient of the Michael Kalafatas '95 Admissions Prize.
Slide:
A blue slide appears on the screen. On the right there is a picture of Kalianni Neal-Desatnik wearing a black tanktop, in front of a tree.The text on the slide reads:
Kalianni Neal-Desatnik
Recipient of the Michael Kalafatas '95 Admissions Prize
Daniel Michael O'Leary.
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A blue slide appears on the screen. On the right there is a picture of Daniel O'Leary in a white shirt with a black jacket, in front of a white background. The text on the slide reads:
Daniel Michael O'Leary
Liana Porto.
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Liana Porto.
Gregory Tobin.
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Gregory Tobin
Aryela Vanetsky.
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Aryela R. Vanetsky
Donald Gerard Weisse III. Graduating with Highest Honors in American Studies and recipient of The Lawrence Fuchs Award, The Doris Brewer Cohen Award in Justice and Public Life and the Lester Martin Thesis Prize in Legal Studies.
Slide:
A blue slide appears on the screen. On the right there is a picture of Donnie Weisse in a blue shirt in front of some trees. The text on the slide reads:
Donald Gerard Weisse III
Graduating with Highest Honors in American Studies
Recipient of:
The Lawrence Fuchs Award
The Doris Brewer Cohen Award in Justice and Public Life
The Lester Martin Thesis Prize in Legal Studies
Natalia M. Wiater, graduating with High Honors in American Studies and recipient of the Pauli Murray Award.
Slide:
A blue slide appears on the screen. On the right there is a picture of Natalia Wiater in a white shirt and black sweater, standing in front of a building. The text on the slide reads:
Natalia M. Wiater
Graduating with High Honors in American Studies
Recipient of the Pauli Murray Award
Slide:
The Brandeis insignia and logo are in the center of the slide, which is a picture of a statue of Louis D. Brandeis. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Maura Jane Farrelly
Associate Professor, Chair and Undergraduate Advising Head, American Studies Director, Journalism Program
Maura Farrelly appears on screen again, in the same room as before.
Maura Farrelly:
Hello everyone, It's Maura Farrelly again. I warned you I'd be coming back at the end. And really, I don't have too much more to say except to remind you all, this is not it.
Things are very strange, but we have not forgotten about you. Our intention is not to simply have this little virtual mini-celebration and send you on your way. I want to remind you that Brandeis is planning a special celebration for the class of 2020 that will take place in the summer of 2021. I know it'll be a little bit more difficult for some of you to get here because you won't just be finishing up your semester on campus, but I really, really do hope that you are able to come to that celebration because I will be there and I'm not gonna get emotional right now, but I very much would like to see you again.
So there is that, that I wanted to end with. And then also, to the family members, the mothers and fathers, and sisters and brothers and aunts, I can't forget to give a shout out to the aunts and uncles, and grandparents, and friends, and boyfriends, and girlfriends and everybody else that I may have forgotten to mention. All of you have given us these precious human beings, who are a part of your lives, for, depending upon who we're talking about, four years, three and a half years — it depends upon if they transferred — but in any case, you've given them to us for a significant portion of their lives. And we are really, really grateful to you for having done that.
You prepared them well, and we hope that they, in coordination with us are prepared to go out into this world and make it better. So, thank you so very much. And I hope to see you again all next summer. Bye!
Slide:
The slide is blue, and headed by the Brandeis insignia. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Special thanks to Sybil Schlesinger and Ari Albertson for the slideshow of the graduates — and everything they do for American Studies
Celebrating the Class of 2020
Slide:
The Brandeis insignia is in the upper center of the blue slide. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
American Studies Program
Celebrating the Class of 2020