UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 34, Page 1
June 6, 1996
Dr. Maya Angelou urges grads to encourage others

     Standing before the largest crowd in University of Delaware
Commencement history, poet Maya Angelou sang out, "When it looked like
the sun wasn't gonna shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the sky."
     Addressing the hushed and attentive crowd of 25,000 graduates,
family and friends, she told the members of the Class of 1996 that
they have "the ability to be rainbows in the clouds."
     According to Genesis, she said, when it seemed that the rain
would never end, God created the rainbow. "But, in the 19th century,"
Angelou said, "some African-American lyricist decided that God must
have put the rainbow in the clouds, because rainbows, suns, moons,
stars, novae, comets, all sorts of luminosities, are in the sky all
the time. However, clouds can so lower and lower that you cannot see
the brightness. So, the suggestion was God put the rainbow in the
clouds themselves so, in the worst of times, in the dreariest of
times, in the most hopeless of times, you can see some light...."
     "There have been people-your parents, your guardians, your
teachers, your beloveds, your professors, people who didn't even know
your name-[all] have been rainbows for you. This is the truth of it:
Every graduate today has already been paid for.
     "Whether her or his ancestors came from Ireland in the 1840s and
'50s trying to escape the potato blight; or, if they came from Eastern
Europe trying to escape the little and large murders, the pogroms,
arriving at Ellis Island, having their names changed to something
utterly unpronounceable; or, if they came from Malta or Greece or
Crete or South America or Mexico, trying to find a place that would
hold all the people, all the faces, all the Adams and Eves and their
countless generations; or, if they came from Asia in the 1850s to
build this country, to build the railroads, unable legally to bring
their mates for eight decades; or if they came from Africa,
unwillingly, bound, lying spoon fashion, back to belly in the filthy
hatches of slave ships and in their own and in each other's excrement
and urine, they have paid for each of you already," she said.
     "Without any chance of ever knowing what your faces would look
like, what mad personalities you would foist upon the world, what
brilliances you would give to us, what rainbows you would become, they
have paid for you."
     The challenge for the Class of 1996 is to pay for those still to
come, she said. "In that case then, all you have to do is see
yourselves as rainbows. There are young men and women, maybe in your
families, maybe not; maybe in your neighborhoods, maybe not; young men
and women who will never see you, to whom you owe incredible
responsibilities because you have been paid for. I think it is a
wonderful thing to take on the responsibility for the time you take up
and the space you occupy. It is exciting. It is onerous. But, it is
honorable."
     She told the graduates that it is her prayer that they continue
with their educations, win awards, fall in love and accept it in
return, but she added, "In any case, where you will be greatest, the
area in which you will be the most important will be the area in which
you inspire, encourage and support another human being."
     Angelou concluded her remarks by reading the Class of 1996 a
poem, entitled "A Brave and Starling Truth," which she wrote for the
United Nations in 1995. The poem ends:

        When we come to it,
        We, this people, on this wayward, floating body,
        Created on this Earth, of this Earth,
        Have the power to fashion for this Earth
        A climate where every man and every woman
        Can live freely without sanctimonious piety,
        Without crippling fear.
        When we come to it,
        We must confess that we are the possible;
        We are the miraculous, we are the true wonder of this world.
        That is when, and only when
        We come to it.

     "I pray, Class of 1996, that you have come to it," she said.
     The University's 147th Commencement ceremony opened with the
traditional procession of alumni delegates, led by the four winners of
the Alumni Association's 1996 Emalea Pusey Warner and Alexander J.
Taylor Jr. awards for the outstanding senior man and woman.
     Leading the representatives of the Classes from the 1930s through
1995 were Warner Award-winners Gretchen L. Kohl and Emily M. Rome and
Taylor Award-winners Guillermo A. Navarro and Michael J. Skinner. The
alumni procession represents the more than 88,000 living alumni of the
University throughout the world.
     Barbara Owens, president of the Alumni Association, offered
greetings and officially welcomed the Class of 1996 into the Alumni
Association, presenting a banner to Jennifer Whelan, president of the
senior class.
     Damian O'Doherty, the 1995-96 president of the Delaware
Undergraduate Student Congress, told his fellow graduates that "the
label of Generation X always seems to loom over our success. They call
us a generation of slackers, whiners and apathetic couch potatoes.
Well, we're here today, ladies and gentlemen, to tell them that they
are wrong. With our education, with our experience and our parents'
support and encouragement, we cannot fail," he said.
     Noting that "X always marks the spot of hidden treasures," he
promised, "In time, X will no longer connote dispassion and
disinterest. We are Generation Next, and our X will mark the spot of
nothing but excellence."
     University President David P. Roselle observed that many of the
day's graduates shared a common bond of voluntarism. "This class has
volunteered its time, its talent, its energy and its resources to help
those persons who are perhaps less fortunate than you yourselves are.
     "Four years ago, at the New Student Convocation ceremony, we said
that much of what is really important to our nation depends upon our
willingness to volunteer our assistance to our fellow citizens. We
have to help one another. I am pleased that so many of you listened!"
     Although each graduate brought a unique set of characteristics
and experiences to the ceremony, Roselle said they all are starting on
"an even more remarkable path than the one that brought you here to
the University of Delaware.
     "All of you will meet challenges, you'll face them with the tools
that you have acquired at the University and you'll make better lives
for yourselves and for the people of the world," he said.
     Also, as part of the ceremony, the Senior Class Gift presented a
contribution of $6,950 to be used to enhance Alumni Park, originally
established by the Class of 1983 and recently moved to a new location
on West Delaware Avenue, next to the Trabant University Center.
     Delaware Gov. Thomas R. Carper presented Sonia Rose Dingillian
the award for achieving a 4.0 cumulative grade index, upon completion
of seven consecutive semesters at the University. Dingillian received
a bachelor's degree in anthropology, with minors in art history and
geology.
     Her honors included the American Association of University Women
Award, the Edwin C. Buxbaum Award and induction into Phi Beta Kappa.
In the fall, she will begin a master's degree program in anthropology
at George Washington University.
     At the conclusion of the ceremonies, graduates and their friends
and families attended college convocation ceremonies, held at sites
across the campus.