2003 Senior Assembly

Photos | Audio Excerpts

Excerpts from the Welcome by Lisa A. Raskin, Dean of the Faculty:

"...today is also a day that marks the beginning of a separation in your lives." Audio excerpt 1 (MP3, 396k)
"...we expect that you are both eager to leave, and eager to stay." Audio excerpt 2 (MP3, 352k)

Excerpts from the Address by Ronald C. Rosbottom,
Winifred L. Arms Professor in the Arts and Humanities and
Professor of French and European Studies:

"As I look out on the Class of 2003, I think, 'Why are they all in black? Why, when we are celebrating your individual achievements, do we dress you all alike?'" Audio excerpt 1 (MP3, 285k)
"I know, after thirteen years of teaching at Amherst, that I have just as vibrant and fertile an intellectual progeny as I ever did with masters and Ph.D. students...." Audio excerpt 2 (MP3, 100k)
Reading of and commentary on the poem, "A Wood," by Richard Wilbur '42. Audio excerpt 3 (MP3, 336k)
"...it will take special attentiveness to keep our spirits up, to continue to learn and to learn how to think, so that we can halt the inexorable encroachment of both domestic and foreign fanaticism, greed and hypocrisy." Audio excerpt 4 (MP3, 269k)