On Labor Day afternoon, some 1,600 freshmen, gathered from 49 states and 65 countries into Sanders Theatre and Memorial Church, learned that recently appointed interim dean of Harvard College Donald Pfister—“Like you, I’ve just moved in, and like you, I will be moving out of the Yard when classes end”—had barely mustered a D in German in his first undergraduate semester at Miami University (Ohio). A small-town kid, he and his sister were the first in their family to go to college.
Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Division of Continuing Education
Donald Pfister
But, Pfister told them, during that same semester, he fell in love with botany, and with funguses. (“I’ve worked on these beautiful organisms my whole life,” the Gray professor of systematic botany declared.) He also gained a faculty mentor who not only fostered his new passion but pushed him, senior year, to take “Scientific German” so he could advance in his field. Pfister aced that course. “It’s OK to fail—or nearly fail, as I did,” he assured the first-years. “Redemption is possible. I hope that each one of you finds such a mentor here, and I hope you will discover a profound interest that enlists your energy and summons you to do your best.”
The dean also urged his audience to “take a chance on friendship” with their widely diverse classmates, because “some of the richest friendships spring from such unlikely soil.” Besides, he added, the class in fact has much in common: “You are all resourceful and intelligent, have big dreams, and came here to begin to make those dreams reality.” Even so, he acknowledged, it takes hard work to build community, and the College, he said, expects its newest members “to do your part to form a community that is fun, and exhilarating, and at the same time respectful of differences, dedicated to honesty in academics, and polite, fair, and compassionate to all community members—and mindful of the environment on which everyone depends.” He ended with a promise: “We will work hard, we will have fun, we will join together as a caring and honorable community…Together, we’re going to have a great year.”
Threatened thunderstorms forced the convocation celebration, now in its fifth year, indoors, but neither the freshmen—most in their best clothes—nor the alumni and alumnae who volunteered as convocation marshals seemed to mind. More than 130 marshals turned out to greet and lead the students in procession from their dorms to Mem Church and Sanders: making sure “all our 100 ducklings” arrive on time, as Susan Morris Novick ’85 put it. The ceremony, states the Freshman Dean’s Office Calendar of Opening Days, “marks your official start as a member of the Harvard community and will introduce you to the history, values, and future of America’s oldest institution of higher education.” Fittingly, the video-linked proceedings began, in Memorial Church, with a “Fanfare for the Class of 2017” composed and conducted by the Harvard University Band’s student conductor, Louis Coppersmith ’14, and a welcome from dean of freshmen Thomas A. Dingman.
Themes from Pfister’s College Address—taking chances, connecting with and serving others—re-echoed during the program. In his invocation, Plummer professor of Christian morals and Pusey minister in the Memorial Church Jonathan L. Walton said, “We pray for wisdom, educated minds, and expanded hearts, in order that our lives may be enriched, not simply for our own sake, but rather so that we may use our lives to enrich the lives of others.…May we avail ourselves of new opportunities…even as we face down with courage the fear and anxieties that such opportunities are sure to bring.”
Senior Erin Drake, a veteran of and counselor in the community-service First-year Urban Program, used her Student Salutation to share, like Pfister, unsettled moments from her own college experiences—including the fact that the careful plans she’d made for her Harvard career prior to her own convocation have all changed. What made the difference, she explained, was discovering that she’d been focused on what she wanted to do, rather than on who she wanted to be. Courses and extracurriculars aren’t just “a means to an end, but a journey of their own that, in the best-case scenario, are meant to complement the person you are, and as a supplement for the person you wish to become,” the history and literature concentrator assured the freshmen. “Whatever you study will inevitably give you unique and important skills for your future.”
In the Faculty Address, Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, mindful of anxious freshmen surreptitiously or openly comparing SAT scores and high-school honors, stressed a favorite saying—“Don't compare. Connect!” Harvard itself, he noted, “connects formerly discrete disciplines to each other. It connects classrooms to the world outside of them. But most important, it connects people—and in doing so, shapes what we know, who we are, and how we make our impact in the world.…If you’re willing to take advantage of the incredible opportunities Harvard has to offer, you belong here.”
Summing up in her Convocation Address, President Drew Faust said simply, “We bring you here to create the conditions for serendipity.” Don’t cling to the familiar, she urged: “Be comfortable with being uncomfortable, uncertain, puzzled. It means you are on the right track. Perhaps your next four years can best be used learning how to fail, or at least how to be imperfect, as you take a risk on behalf of a dream, an ideal, a passion.”
The class of ’17 next gathers again as a group four years hence—for Baccalaureate services, two days before their metamorphosis from undergraduates to alumni. Anticipating that transition, Catherine Gellert ’93, current president of the Harvard Alumni Association, presented its members with their class banner and welcomed them to the “community of Harvard women and men, a community that reaches across the globe…a community that will embrace you and support you wherever you are.” Until then, though, after the singing of “Fair Harvard” and a rousing recognition of the 17 freshman dorms and their newest residents, the first-years headed out into an unexpectedly bright evening for a class photo and the start of their own first semester.
Updated September 6, 2013, at 3:45 p.m. to correct Erin Drake’s statement, mistranscribed from a recording of the proceedings.
