Valedictorian
Emily Rose Robbins, Class of 2008
May 24, 2008
Good morning, President Brother Ronald Gallagher, members of the Board of Trustees, Regents, college administrators, faculty, staff, friends, family, and fellow graduates of the class of 2008. It is truly an honor to have the chance to speak in front of a group of people from whom I have learned so much in the past four years. Whether in the classroom, in the dorm, or on phone calls home, we have learned more at Saint Mary’s than we ever could have expected. It seems unreal to stand here today reflecting on the four years of memories, lessons, love and growth that we are now about to take into our post graduate lives.
Our post-graduate lives. Doesn’t that sound daunting? Over the past four years I think the phrase most of us have used to define our lives after St Mary’s has been “the real world.” While some of us have already decided what we’ll be doing “in the real world,” next year, I think it is safe to say that most of are unsure about what life will be like when we are not able to walk next door to our best friend’s house, wander to Oliver Hall when we are hungry, or stay up all night studying for that 8am class. But as nostalgic as I already am about our time here, its comforting to know that this has been the “real world”—the friendships we have made, the education we have received and the changes we have all undergone are very real and very lasting.
As we approach this new beginning, I realize that we really do have the whole world in front of us, which is all at once empowering and terrifying. The idea I’ve heard a million times studying English: and chances are you’ve heard the same thing) “you can do anything with that major” becomes more comforting as the days go by and I question whether the dreams I had for myself two years ago when choosing my major are really what I am going to look forward to doing everyday. So, for those of you who are in the same unsure boat as I am and even for those of you who have found something that you love, I’d like to share some advice that my friend Paul passed along back when deciding my major seemed like the biggest decision I’d ever make in my life. He shared with me these words from a Jesuit priest named Pedro Arrupe, who said,
Nothing is more practical than finding God,
That is,
Falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
What seizes your imagination,
Will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
What you will do with your evenings
How you will spend your weekends
What you will read
Who you know
What breaks your heart
What amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love
Stay in love
And it will decide everything.
These words seem to sum up our years here. What have you fallen in love with at Saint Mary’s? I’d like to think we’ve all had multiple love affairs over the course of our time here. For many of us, our love has been directed at the friends that have gotten us out of bed everyday for the past 4 years. The friendships we have made at Saint Mary’s can easily be described as love—how else could you justify living with someone, getting to know their absolute weirdest habits, and still being heartbroken to have to leave them tomorrow? Together we have gone through the best and hardest times of our lives. Together we have watched our country be at war, we have seen the development of the “green movement” in response to global warming, and we were together through the great black out the night of Oasis our junior year. I know I’m not alone when I say that today, I am full of awe, joy, and gratitude as I think about the amazing people that I have met here.
Maybe some of you fell in love with the country in which you studied abroad. Perhaps it has been your teammates, the bay area, your faith, attending basketball games or helping to lead a club—in four years we’ve been so lucky to fall in love with all that Saint Mary’s has offered us.
For me, it was my experience working in New Orleans during Jan Term that truly (in Father Arrupe’s words) “seized my imagination.” For the first time I was eager to get out of bed in the morning and I had a group of friends that I knew would be around long after the end of our trip. I had my heart broken for the first time by the pain I saw and my inability to heal it. But at the same time I experienced a feeling of “joy and gratitude” for the chance to be awakened to the world outside of Moraga, a feeling that I now constantly search to experience again in my daily life.
Hopefully, as each of us walks across the stage to receive our diploma, we can also recognize the love we have shared for the academic life of college. I think our sleeping habits on the weekends are enough to show that class has definitely been what has gotten us out of bed during many of our weeks at Saint Mary’s. However, I’d like to think that all of us actually TRULY have enjoyed the chance to expand our knowledge and join in the on-going dialogue at Saint Mary’s. What we chose to study has affected almost every aspect of our lives here—who we have met, how we spent our weekends, what we have read and what we have come to be grateful for. Whether it is accounting, health science, integral or communication, I hope that as you walk across this stage today you are grateful for all that your love of your major has brought you.
Once we walk across that stage however, we have the chance to fall in love all over again. What will seize our imaginations out there “in the real world”? We are taking a new role within our world as of today—we are now the leaders. We have the chance to make change, to inspire others, to follow our passions.
So as we sit here together today—578 of the world’s new leaders, I ask you, what will you fall in love with? I’m sure, like myself, you are sick of being asked the infamous question “what are you going to do after graduation?” Maybe you don’t know what you want to do. Maybe you know but you don’t know if you’ll like it. Maybe you know that you will like it, but you’re afraid that you can’t do it.
Well I’m here to say RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW: we CAN achieve our dreams, especially the dreams that we think are beyond our limits. I know that there were times in New Orleans when it was 5:45 in the morning and I thought I couldn’t face another day working in the devastated Ninth Ward. But I did. I know Marina Hernandez thought creating an ESL class for the Sodexho workers on campus might be too difficult to organize, but she did it and has worked with CILSA to ensure the program will continue after she graduates. I know Robert Unzueta saw a need for a first generation support group on campus but didn’t know how to address the issue. But he created Students Reaching Consciousness this year and has helped the incoming class become involved in our community. I know there are plenty of students here today, like Nora Garcia who worked multiple jobs for four years to pay their own way, questioning if they’d be able to balance work and school. But they did it! I know that we all wondered if our men’s basketball team would ever make it to the NCAA tournament while we were here. But in case you didn’t notice, they did… TWICE!
No matter what your dreams are, from now on I encourage you to reframe them, to think about them this way: what will you allow to seize your imagination in the upcoming years? What will bring you the same joy that you have experienced here at Saint Mary’s? What will you fall in love with? Honestly, I don’t think it matters what it is. Whether it is a career, a family, a hobby or simply the possibilities ahead of you, my wish for you as we embark on this new portion of our journey is that you find something to fall, and continue to fall, madly, madly in love with—something that will bring both you and those around you joy. If each of us can find something that we love so much that it can break our heart while at the same time causing us to be full of gratitude at having found it, that is what we should be doing after graduation.
I look at the world that we are entering and it is full of terrifying truths like the war in Iraq, the changing global climate, and civil rights violations occurring around the world but I know that our time at Saint Mary’s has prepared us to face these challenges with open minds and to transform the world into what we want it to be. Closer to home the Saint Mary’s community has experienced the loses of Brother Vincent Malham, a Trustee of the college, our dear friend Professor John Dennis, the director of High Potential, and long time members of the community, Martha Celestine and Manuel “Manny” Hernandez, but I know that we will remember their friendship, passion and influence on our community and carry them with us as we leave. Whatever challenges we face or accomplishments we achieve, I hope that we will always be able draw upon our times here, the lessons we’ve learned, the love we’ve been shown and the community we’ve created and that we will always remember to pursue what we love. As I say goodbye to you today, I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to each of you here—thank you to our family and friends for all of the support and love you have shown us over the years, thank you to all the members of the Saint Mary’s community who have worked to make Saint Mary’s not only our school but also our home, and most of all thank you, my peers, who have been my best friends, my teachers and will continue to be my role-models. May you all find something out there to keep you curious, to surround you with love, to ignite your passions. Simply put, my prayer for you is this: “fall in love, stay in love” for that “will decide everything.”
Congratulations, Class of 2008. Good luck out there in the “real world.”
