Office of the Provost

Convocation Remarks

Aug. 28, 2019

Welcome. We have been waiting for you for so long! Can you tell we are happy to see you?

At Brandeis our tradition is to use convocation to welcome our incoming students into our Brandeis family. This is a family made up of all our students, faculty, staff and alumni. This is a family that from today on will be yours for the rest of your lives. It is a rich and diverse family, committed to academic excellence and rigorous debate. It is a family that will challenge you and will drive you crazy from time to time. But it is a family that will support you through good and bad — always there to see you through as you begin this new phase of your life.

Now whenever you begin something new in your life there is no shortage of people who will have words of wisdom for you. There are those who will tell you that you need to stay positive, confident and be true to yourself. There are those who will want to point out all the big challenges facing you — as if you didn't know that already. There are those who will want to share with you every single detail of how they got through college. This is not meant to terrify you but rather to give you hope that good can come out of even the darkest moments in our lives.

So it is not easy to give good advice, but here goes!

  1. Go to every event your community adviser organizes! They have great food and they know how to help you through the rough moments and celebrate the wonderful times.

  2. As you share your stories, be true to yourself and be real. This is how you will ensure that the connections you will create will be genuine and will build a community to support you from this day forward

  3. You don’t have to have a well-defined plan today. When asked about what they want to major in the most common answer for first year students is “I don’t know.” And that is fine. The whole point of a liberal arts education is explore and widen your knowledge. So be curious and take a class in something you might never have imagined yourself in. You might surprise yourself.

  4. The faculty cannot wait to see you in class. They are ready and eager to challenge you with new material and guide you through your academic development at Brandeis. So don’t be bashful to reach out to a professor who excited you with a lecture, even if they are not your academic advisor.

  5. Be kind and practice the art of micro-affirmation. These are gestures of inclusion and caring and graceful acts of listening. Be generous and support your classmates in good times and difficult moments.

  6. Take care of yourself and your surroundings. Think of ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint on this campus and help us become better stewards of the environment. As hard as you push yourself academically make sure that you take the time to develop other parts of yourself — join a club, go into Boston and take advantage of all its cultural and culinary offerings, volunteer in a local community organization — it is a great way to make friends quickly on campus.

  7. Call home. I know it is easy to get so caught up in all the activities on campus that you forget to let your family and friends know how you are doing. But let them in on your Brandeis experience too.

Now, I have a few words of advice for the parents, family member, guardians and friends of our new students. As a very proud Brandeis parent of the class of 2017, I know how many of you are feeling today. I remember being amazed at how quickly the student volunteers unloaded what seemed to be half of our home crammed into the car. How about another round of applause for our amazing student volunteers!

I also remember how I cried on move-in day even though I knew we would be on the same campus. Here are a few suggestions from this Brandeis parent on how you can support your Brandeis student.

  1. Let go. OK, I know this is hard, and I am not saying walk away. And in all honesty I probably still hover a bit too much over our daughter even now. But this is the moment to let your student advocate for themselves.

  2. Having said this, be prepared for the 2 a.m. phone call or text message. You know your student deserves to be here at Brandeis and that they can succeed. Our admissions office does not make mistakes in admission. Help them figure out how they can navigate through those trying moments that will be part of anyone’s college experience.

  3. Send mail. In an age of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and texts, it is surprising how an old-fashioned thing like a card or letter can just make the day of a Brandeis student.

  4. Never underestimate the power of food. For those parents, relatives, guardians and friends living in the local area, your willingness to provide a home cooked meal for your student and their friends cannot be under-estimated. For those of you living farther away, pull together a care package of your student’s favorite foods — make sure it is large enough so that they can share this with their new friends.

  5. Finally and most importantly: Be prepared to be startled and amazed by the growth of your student. Enjoy it even as you might shed a tear or two today!