HWS News
26 August 2024 Convocation 2024: Explore, Connect and Flourish By Andrew Wickenden '09
The academic year begins with Convocation.
Welcoming the HWS community for the official start of the 2024-25 academic year, speakers at the Convocation ceremony invited students to embrace their curiosity and explore the many paths available on and off campus.
In his remarks, President Mark D. Gearan recalled a conversation with alumnus Charles Rutstein ’94, P’23 whose approach to climbing the Alps this summer offers a metaphor for students as they pursue their degrees.
“He feels more alive and free and in touch with the earth and its magnificence when he doesn’t have a rigid plan; he prefers to see what each step offers in terms of a new opportunity — a new perspective, a new option,” Gearan said. “That for him makes life more interesting and presents more opportunities. That said, you still need to make good choices and to learn to adjust to the options that may turn out to be the best choice. But learn from them.”
The Rev. Nita C. Johnson Byrd, HWS chaplain and dean for spiritual engagement, opened the Convocation ceremony calling on students to “embark on these years with the heart of a pilgrim, which means to begin every day with a sense of awe; to view each conversation with others as a moment in time that can never be repeated; to allow new experiences to be transformational; and to view every step of your life and every breath that you take as a gift.”
Reflecting on the tradition of matriculation — “to be formally recognized as a member of the college community” — Senior Associate Dean Kelly Payne said the intent was to “awaken” in students “a sense of curiosity about what will be possible in the next four years, and the next 40 years after that.… [B]y becoming a student at HWS you have given yourself an opportunity to author your path forward — to flourish, to live an intentional, ethical, intellectually-grounded life, and one connected to this place and its history.”
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Matthew Church ’14, who offered the faculty address, advised that “[i]t takes vision to recognize an opportunity — it takes vision to predict if something will benefit your life and career, now and in the future. And it takes an open mind and a receptive mind to seek them out or make them come to you.” To harness that vision, Church encouraged students to identify where they are comfortable “and push those boundaries.… I promise you will be surprised at what you can achieve, what you can feel, the confidence you will find, if you take a leap of faith into the unknown despite all those little voices in and around your head that tell you otherwise.”
HWS Student Government President Sophia Mughal ’25 reflected on the opportunities she has had to make the most of her academic curiosity — from studying abroad, to her internship in Poland with the Galicia Jewish Museum, to her ongoing Honors project.
“HWS is a place that not only helps you find your intellectual passions but is a place that does everything it can to help nurture it,” she said. “Forming academic connections with faculty, staff and other students has the potential to propel your academic and intellectual journey far past what you could ever imagine, as it did for me.”
Provost and Dean of Faculty Sarah Kirk and Executive Director of Alumni and Alumnae Relations Chevanne DeVaney ’95, P’21, P’23 also welcomed new and returning members of the HWS community, encouraging them to make the most of their time on campus.
As DeVaney said, “We are here to support your goals, dreams and aspirations…. I ask that you take care of each other, exercise patience, be curious, step outside your comfort zone, and open your eyes and hearts to the possibilities you will find here.”
Top: Hobart and William Smith President Mark D. Gearan speaks during Convocation held on the Stern Lawn.
