Commencement

Our niece graduated from Pitzer College yesterday. 259 graduates in the Class of 2012 at this small, private, liberal arts college -- one of the five Claremont colleges. On a day that dawned hazy and turned sunny, orange and white were the dominant colors. Neat, symmetrical rows of white folding chairs under a huge white tent, green grass underfoot, parents and friends and relatives jockeying for vantage from which to shoot video or still photographs while music from a jazz quintet played over loudspeakers. The anticipation builds as ten o’clock nears and faculty and graduates line up for the triumphant processional walk up the center aisle.

The president of Pitzer College, a woman, welcomes the graduates and guests and then rattles off some of the accomplishments of this class: the thousands of hours of community service rendered, the trips abroad, the academic achievements, the honors earned, the trophies won in pool or on court and field. Pitzer College may be small and private and liberal, but it doesn’t lack for passion or spirit or pride. Our niece had a marvelous experience here, living in the dorms, studying in Ecuador for a semester, and forming friendships that in all probability will last her a lifetime. No matter what twists and turns happen in the future, the Pitzer class of 2012 will forever be connected by their shared experience, the fact that they were together on this milestone day, under a great white tent, wearing white caps with orange tassels.

Dr. Angela Davis is the commencement speaker and receives a cacophonous and prolonged ovation when she is introduced. My wife and I are old enough to remember when Angela Davis was a lightning rod figure, a walking controversy, feared by politicians and on J. Edgar Hoover’s Ten Most Wanted list. Intelligent, black, outspoken and courageous, Davis was too much for then Governor Ronald Reagan, who vowed that Dr. Davis would never again hold a position in the University of California system. Father Ronnie, protecting young, impressionable minds from the dangerous radical with the Afro and hoop earrings. Fortunately, this vow didn’t come to pass.

Dr. Davis set her iPad on the podium and began speaking, slowly at first, about her experiences in the world, in life, how after she was fired a second time from UCLA she was invited to teach here, at Pitzer, but only under strict conditions – student access to her lectures was limited, and the location of these lectures a closely guarded secret, lest a crowd gather and mayhem ensue, a mass conversion to Communism, feminism, and equality.

In the way she effortlessly taps a deep font of knowledge and wisdom, Davis reminds me of Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. She clearly enjoys young people, her smile is warm and effusive, her sense of humor enhanced by her years rather than diminished. Using her own story as living proof, she tells the graduates that if they are lucky to live long enough, every defeat can be turned into a victory. She uses words like “social justice” and “equality” and “militarism”, words that may be standard currency here at Pitzer, but are largely absent from American discourse. In fact, the concepts sound hoary, antiquated, and foreign. What does social justice mean in contemporary America?

When the name of the last graduate has been called, when the tassels have flipped from back to front, and caps launched airborne, there are tears and smiles, high fives and hugs, flowers and leis, Mylar balloons, and most of all, the prized diploma, in Latin and English, as is the Pitzer tradition.