The season of commencements is upon us. Although the word commencement implies
forward-looking optimism to a new beginning, I find myself instead reflecting
upon my year with this crop of impending graduates. This is the twentieth such
cohort to learn the intricacies of photosynthetic electron transport and enzyme
inhibition kinetics with me, and in my mind's eye I think of each class as a
ranked file passing by my reviewing stand of cell biology. Once past, the students
scatter like quail from a peregrine-riven covert, and I rarely see them until
graduation ceremonies.
Despite the joy of commencement, there is a wistfulness, even a sadness, as
well. I will never again see most of my students. The bonds formed during their
time with me, however tenuous, are now irretrievably broken. I will rejoice
in the successes of the occasional graduate of whom news reaches me, but that
news is rare. The ivory tower is a haven, but time streams past it, like the
inexorable flow of an ocean-bound river.
Commencements are like going to heaven; all sins are forgiven. (At least I forgive
those of my students; I hope they forgive me mine.) After four years of achievement,
tears, hard work, frustration, unlooked-for success, quiet satisfaction, and
occasional argument, both students and professor can bask in the warm satisfaction
of a goal achieved. No matter whether the pathway to that goal was circuitous
and rocky or direct and easy, it has now been met, and the past is of relevance
no longer.
The future stretches out ahead endlessly when you are twenty-one, full of promise,
rich with idealism. For some of my students, plans for the next few years are
clear: medical school, graduate school, a waiting job. For others, the future
is less certain. It's as if a thick fog obscures the proper course; there are
forks aplenty, and no clear guidance as to which will be best. Ambiguity abounds;
paradox beckons. But from the lighthouse of commencement ceremonies, the voyage
can be undertaken with a stalwart heart and a positive attitude, if not a certain
route. The geography of hope does not require a road map.
My students and I line up. They are flushed with excitement, flitting about
like butterflies in a sun-dappled field, chattering like birds of the dawn chorus.
Dressed in the ceremonial robes of a distant time and place, we will, incongruously,
march into the unknowable future as if it is the unchanging past. At this particular
moment in time, at this unique place, life is as good as it gets, and each of
us knows it. The strains of Purcells' Trumpet Voluntary drift in from
the auditorium, and the line begins to shuffle forward. We move, walking toward
the bright light of dreams and hope, and vast potential.