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Voyages of
DISCOVERY
Excerpts from the 114th Commencement Remarks
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BY ELISABETH GRIFFITH, guest speaker I was asked to speak as a parent, so I will begin by expressing the affection and pride of every parent here. We love you. We are grateful you have survived the risks of adolescence in America and the rigors of a Taft education. As parents we offer our abundant and heartfelt thanks to Taft faculty and staff for challenging our children to rise to your standards of excellence. At Madeira, we require students to take public speaking; one assignment is to imagine themselves returning to campus in 25 years to accept the Alumnae Achievement Award. I revel in the ambitions expressed. This spring we had the future presidents of three countries, several senators, the poet laureate, a soup kitchen supervisor, a dancer, an astronaut, and assorted Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Grammy, and Pulitzer Prize winners. How would the Taft Class of 2004 imagine themselves, if we gave them the same challenge? It’s easy to envision A.G. Leventhal as senator from New York, working closely with Annie Strickland, who chairs the Democratic National 40
Taft Bulletin Summer 2004
Committee. Or Dozie Uzoma appearing on the cover of Forbes, perhaps the same week that John Lockwood is named People’s most eligible bachelor. I can imagine Fiona McFarland as secretary of defense and Supriya Balsekar lobbying to make squash an Olympic sport, and taking the gold. Equally predictable will be Lila Claghorn winning the Grammy for singer-songwriter or Jason Lee winning the Nobel Prize for physics or Lindsey Gael saving Russian lakes from industrial pollution or Willy Oppenheim writing about Walt Whitman for The New Yorker. Who will forget the night of the Taft sweep at the Oscars, when Matt Anderson, Daniel Barenholtz, and Julia Tyson won statuettes for directing, producing and acting in the same movie? On the red carpet, Ms. Tyson wore a gown designed by Katie Martin. Having sold his computer company at age 30, Chris Carlson donates a dorm and joins the Taft board. Chris frequents New York’s hottest art gallery, owned by
Veronica Torres, who represents the work of Ann Kidder and J.D. Deardourff. Meanwhile Tyler Whitley, winner of the Butkus Award, is linebacker coach for the New England Patriots, and Andrew Eisen has replaced Mr. Mac as headmaster. Whatever you imagine you may become may change entirely between now and your next graduation or your 40th birthday or your 50th reunion. The United States Department of Labor predicts that most of you will have seven careers in your lifetimes. For the first time ever, young men and women will be admitted to graduate school in equal numbers, will be hired for the same positions, and paid the same salaries. The historic discrimination, which results in college educated women being paid less than high-school dropout men, won’t become evident in your lives until you are in your thirties—when you are making decisions about having babies, how many babies, who will care for the babies, and who makes partner. I’m hoping that the young people in this class will work to