Selected Transcripts
commencement 2024
Jesse Whelan-Small '24
Senior Speech
May 19, 2024
Good morning to the faculty, staff, administrators, friends, family, and community members here today. And, congratulations to my classmates sitting in the chairs before me. As you prepare to embark on the next part of your journey, whether it’s a new job or a new city, always remember this: the Advancement office is accepting monthly recurring donations so please see Bob O’Connor when this ceremony is over.
On a serious note, I could not ask for a better group of people to have spent these last few years with. I want to share a brief reflection on the main thing I’ve learned during my time at HWS: the importance of picking your family.
In the summer before my senior year of high school, my mom and I were completing the Northeast Liberal Arts college loop, and our last stop (the best stop) was Hobart & William Smith. As we pulled into the parking lot, she read a quote from a speaker at a convocation ceremony, what speaker and in what year, much less the exact wording of the quote, frankly I do not remember. But I remember the sentiment. I remember that the speaker said something to the effect of: “I’ve never been somewhere with a more tangible sense of community.” Of all the places they had been, HWS and Geneva stood out for its ability to make everyone feel welcome the second they arrived.
My mom turned to me and said “isn’t that beautiful. You should think about that for your next four years, having that sense of community is important.” I thought two things: 1) don’t kill some poor person walking through the parking lot (to be fair I’d only had a license for a month) and 2) cool mom, sense of community is definitely how I will pick my college. It might not be why I picked Hobart and William Smith, but that sense of community has become the most important part of my time here. Almost every day since then I’ve been reminded that, as usual, Mom is right.
They say that you can’t pick your family. I’d challenge whoever said that to look at us today and tell me that we all didn’t pick to be here. Whether we realized all that this family would come with or not, we certainly did pick it. And, I can say with 100% certainty, that I picked the best family in the world (of course to my Mom, Dad, brother, Andrew, and Aunti Di, you guys are better than my classmates, just please don’t tell them that).
All year, I’ve had this feeling that I should be sadder about this day. I should dread the day that HWS decides my time is up and kicks me to the curb. They tell me I must get a “job”, whatever that means. I should feel like I did at the end of high school, where I had so many people that had touched my life, but I wouldn’t be able to see them and say thank you. I wouldn’t be able to share one last hug or one last laugh. But every time I think I should be sad, I get happy instead. And I know this feeling of happiness is the emotion I should be feeling. Because when I walk across this stage shortly, shake President Gearan’s hand, and receive that special piece of paper, I will do so lined up with my family. And more importantly, I will do so with the family that I chose.
Whether you have been here since August 2020, or whether you joined our family a year or two later, we have all, for a million different reasons, chosen to spend our time on this campus, in this city. Not only have we all chosen to be here, but we’ve chosen to stick it out, through the good times and the bad. I can’t express how deeply you have all impacted my life, and how excited I am to see all the things you do. But, more importantly, I’ve been grateful to share a home with you.
I leave you with this. Wherever you call home next, enjoy it. Whoever you pick as your next family, think long and hard about who you want that to be. But while you enjoy your time at your next home and with your next family, never forget the city, and the family, that raised you.
Thank you.