2026 Convocation Welcome
I am so happy to be with all of you as we begin the academic year!
I am glad to see my faculty colleagues here today, and I want to offer a particularly warm welcome to new members of the faculty.
And, most of all, I want to offer a big welcome to our newest students, to the Class of 2030 and our transfer students. We are so excited that you are here.
I hope your first days have gone well, and that you are looking forward to the Bowdoin lobster bake tonight and to starting your classes tomorrow.
Right now, those classes exist as a description in a course catalogue and on a syllabus, in the books waiting to be read, in the labs and studios set up with equipment waiting to be put to use. Starting tomorrow, those classes will come to life, animated by your questions, your interpretations, your perspectives, your hard work, your time.
I have recently been thinking a lot about time. Last evening, like so many evenings this summer, I took a walk around campus, taking my favorite route through the Bowdoin Pines. They are majestic. Planted in 1896 by Austin Cary, a member of the class of 1887 and a forester, they have been growing for more than a hundred years. Knowing when he planted them that he would not see them fully grown, Cary hoped that future generations would, as he put it, "enjoy these woods, enjoy them more deeply and intelligently." He hoped that, over generations, the woods would become, as he said in The Bowdoin Orient in 1904, "more valuable, more beautiful, and more instructive."
I believe that these valuable, beautiful, and instructive pines invite us to live according to a different kind of time. Almost everywhere else runs on a fast clock-a clock that demands the immediate answer, a tightly packed schedule, same-day delivery, the opinion posted within the hour. The pines have a different clock. They aren't busy. They aren't overscheduled. They aren't in a hurry. They are just being themselves, putting on their growth a season at a time. I believe that, at its best, this college keeps the pines' time, not the world's.
I say "at its best" because the speed of the world does not stop at the edge of campus. Bowdoin offers an almost unlimited number of amazing opportunities: the opportunity to work closely with a dedicated staff and a world-renowned faculty; the opportunity to live with and learn from your inspiring peers; the opportunity to participate in a startlingly large range of cocurricular activities; the opportunity to live and work surrounded by the natural beauty of this campus and this place in the world.
And precisely because of that abundance, it is going to become very easy to fill your calendar up-with work, with friends, with activities. I will make a prediction. Sometime in October, one of you- maybe many of you-will stand in a dining hall and say to a friend: "I have three classes back-to-back, and then I have to do my work. There is not enough time in the day."
I know, because I have heard students say some version of that, and because sometimes I feel the same way. But today, I want to tell you-and remind myself-that there is enough time in the day. Or, to put it another way, there is only the time in the day that there is. How we spend that time is the most important decision we make. As Annie Dillard put it, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
So, I've been reflecting a lot about why walking through the Pines has been so valuable, beautiful, and instructive for me. I think one reason is that their slowness stands in stark contrast to what we are all subject to: the forces of ever-increasing busy-ness and speed.
I hope you will resist the urge to speed; resist the impulse to rush; resist the pressure to make your four years here a checklist. In that resistance, embrace the opportunity to read a book twice. Sit with a proof for hours. Run an experiment a second time. Seek the space to sit with two competing arguments without collapsing into either one. Read a poem again and again. Follow a footnote. Look, really look, at a painting. This is easier said than done, I know. But it is the difference between passing through your education and finding in it a place to dwell.
The "Offer of the College" describes a Bowdoin education as one that will allow you "To be at home in all lands and all ages." I love that line. To be at home somewhere is nothing dramatic-it simply means that you have stayed long enough to stop being a stranger. To be at home in all lands is not an abstraction to me. I came to this country as a student, into lands that were not my own, and I know that feeling at home somewhere is not automatic. You build it, slowly, by staying.
I hope you will be at home on this campus, among these Pines. I also hope you will lose yourself, only to find that you are not lost after all, in another century, another country, a new language, an impossible problem. That too, takes time.
You are not alone in this journey. Many members of the faculty encountered a question, sometime early on, that they could not give up on-one they couldn't put down. How does a cell decide what to become? Why did an empire fall when it did? For me, it was "How does a mind and brain turn the flood of experiences into categories?" Expertise is not really a set of ready answers, but rather a long and sometimes uncertain journey through a set of questions-a journey through ideas. Faculty members are always finding new ways into those questions, new digressions into related questions, new meanings in those old texts, finding a home at the edge of what is known. I am excited for you to do the same.
I know there is a current impatience among some with what a college like this one does. There is a reluctance to underwrite the work of finding things out. Society has grown more impatient with that work, with the scholar who spends three years turning every page in the archive or with research that doesn't know what to promise in advance. There is a current impatience with the way an institution like this stays open to people and ideas from everywhere-that it lets them take their time being unfinished. I reject that impatience. What we all do together here, what we value here, is the opposite.
Back to the Pines. While Austin Cary planted the original trees, they would not have survived and thrived the way they have without the hard work and care of many people whose names we do not know. That is what the common good looks like. It rarely announces itself. It is often unglamorous and anonymous.
Every class-each one of you-will make Bowdoin your home, make Bowdoin a place that grows and changes, will contribute to the common good in new ways. We are all so excited that you, the Class of 2030, are beginning that project today.
So, welcome. You are not behind. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. Take your time and ask for help the moment you need it-that is not weakness. This place is full of people so glad to give it. Let yourself be gloriously unfinished.
We are so glad you are here. Let's begin.
I am glad to see my faculty colleagues here today, and I want to offer a particularly warm welcome to new members of the faculty.
And, most of all, I want to offer a big welcome to our newest students, to the Class of 2030 and our transfer students. We are so excited that you are here.
I hope your first days have gone well, and that you are looking forward to the Bowdoin lobster bake tonight and to starting your classes tomorrow.
Right now, those classes exist as a description in a course catalogue and on a syllabus, in the books waiting to be read, in the labs and studios set up with equipment waiting to be put to use. Starting tomorrow, those classes will come to life, animated by your questions, your interpretations, your perspectives, your hard work, your time.
I have recently been thinking a lot about time. Last evening, like so many evenings this summer, I took a walk around campus, taking my favorite route through the Bowdoin Pines. They are majestic. Planted in 1896 by Austin Cary, a member of the class of 1887 and a forester, they have been growing for more than a hundred years. Knowing when he planted them that he would not see them fully grown, Cary hoped that future generations would, as he put it, "enjoy these woods, enjoy them more deeply and intelligently." He hoped that, over generations, the woods would become, as he said in The Bowdoin Orient in 1904, "more valuable, more beautiful, and more instructive."
I believe that these valuable, beautiful, and instructive pines invite us to live according to a different kind of time. Almost everywhere else runs on a fast clock-a clock that demands the immediate answer, a tightly packed schedule, same-day delivery, the opinion posted within the hour. The pines have a different clock. They aren't busy. They aren't overscheduled. They aren't in a hurry. They are just being themselves, putting on their growth a season at a time. I believe that, at its best, this college keeps the pines' time, not the world's.
I say "at its best" because the speed of the world does not stop at the edge of campus. Bowdoin offers an almost unlimited number of amazing opportunities: the opportunity to work closely with a dedicated staff and a world-renowned faculty; the opportunity to live with and learn from your inspiring peers; the opportunity to participate in a startlingly large range of cocurricular activities; the opportunity to live and work surrounded by the natural beauty of this campus and this place in the world.
And precisely because of that abundance, it is going to become very easy to fill your calendar up-with work, with friends, with activities. I will make a prediction. Sometime in October, one of you- maybe many of you-will stand in a dining hall and say to a friend: "I have three classes back-to-back, and then I have to do my work. There is not enough time in the day."
I know, because I have heard students say some version of that, and because sometimes I feel the same way. But today, I want to tell you-and remind myself-that there is enough time in the day. Or, to put it another way, there is only the time in the day that there is. How we spend that time is the most important decision we make. As Annie Dillard put it, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
So, I've been reflecting a lot about why walking through the Pines has been so valuable, beautiful, and instructive for me. I think one reason is that their slowness stands in stark contrast to what we are all subject to: the forces of ever-increasing busy-ness and speed.
I hope you will resist the urge to speed; resist the impulse to rush; resist the pressure to make your four years here a checklist. In that resistance, embrace the opportunity to read a book twice. Sit with a proof for hours. Run an experiment a second time. Seek the space to sit with two competing arguments without collapsing into either one. Read a poem again and again. Follow a footnote. Look, really look, at a painting. This is easier said than done, I know. But it is the difference between passing through your education and finding in it a place to dwell.
The "Offer of the College" describes a Bowdoin education as one that will allow you "To be at home in all lands and all ages." I love that line. To be at home somewhere is nothing dramatic-it simply means that you have stayed long enough to stop being a stranger. To be at home in all lands is not an abstraction to me. I came to this country as a student, into lands that were not my own, and I know that feeling at home somewhere is not automatic. You build it, slowly, by staying.
I hope you will be at home on this campus, among these Pines. I also hope you will lose yourself, only to find that you are not lost after all, in another century, another country, a new language, an impossible problem. That too, takes time.
You are not alone in this journey. Many members of the faculty encountered a question, sometime early on, that they could not give up on-one they couldn't put down. How does a cell decide what to become? Why did an empire fall when it did? For me, it was "How does a mind and brain turn the flood of experiences into categories?" Expertise is not really a set of ready answers, but rather a long and sometimes uncertain journey through a set of questions-a journey through ideas. Faculty members are always finding new ways into those questions, new digressions into related questions, new meanings in those old texts, finding a home at the edge of what is known. I am excited for you to do the same.
I know there is a current impatience among some with what a college like this one does. There is a reluctance to underwrite the work of finding things out. Society has grown more impatient with that work, with the scholar who spends three years turning every page in the archive or with research that doesn't know what to promise in advance. There is a current impatience with the way an institution like this stays open to people and ideas from everywhere-that it lets them take their time being unfinished. I reject that impatience. What we all do together here, what we value here, is the opposite.
Back to the Pines. While Austin Cary planted the original trees, they would not have survived and thrived the way they have without the hard work and care of many people whose names we do not know. That is what the common good looks like. It rarely announces itself. It is often unglamorous and anonymous.
Every class-each one of you-will make Bowdoin your home, make Bowdoin a place that grows and changes, will contribute to the common good in new ways. We are all so excited that you, the Class of 2030, are beginning that project today.
So, welcome. You are not behind. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. Take your time and ask for help the moment you need it-that is not weakness. This place is full of people so glad to give it. Let yourself be gloriously unfinished.
We are so glad you are here. Let's begin.