President Steven Knapp
Convocation Remarks
Monday, September 3, 2007
Charles E. Smith Center

Upperclass, graduate, and professional students; transfer students; members of the Class of 2011:

Whether you’re returning from a summer of work or leisure or arriving here for the very first time, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to The George Washington University. It’s also a pleasure to greet Mr. Ramsey and my colleagues on the faculty and staff, who are here this afternoon to join me in welcoming you to this community of scholars. And it’s a pleasure, finally, to meet the families and friends who have accompanied you on this journey and who have placed their trust in us to guide you as you explore vast worlds of knowledge and prepare for lives that will be rich in meaning and powerful in what they contribute to your families, your communities, your nations, and the world.

Now I happen to be a newcomer myself. But new as I am, as someone who is humbled and honored to be the 16th president of this great institution, it’s my privilege to address you today in a ceremony steeped in academic tradition and yet rich in the spirit and energy that are distinctly GW. Whether you have been on this campus for two decades, two years, or two hours, the truth is that all of us are now part of the lifelong, worldwide community that is The George Washington University, and all of us, then, are a part of the 186-year history of a remarkable institution, anchored in the heart of an extraordinary city.

As you’ll come to learn, our university has played a central role in the life of that city, which is both the capital of this nation and increasingly a crossroads of the entire world. As students at GW, you now have a front row seat at the theater of history, and you also have a chance to be more than a spectator; you have a chance to be a real participant. Think with me, for just a moment, about where we are.

Throughout history, corridors of power have run along trade routes, shipping lanes, rail lines, and mountain passes. In Washington, DC, the corridor of power runs along a single subway route, the Metro Blue Line, which stretches from Capitol South, at the foot of the Capitol; to McPherson Square, across from the White House; to Foggy Bottom, down the street from the Department of State, and then across the Potomac River to the Pentagon.

Along that line, from the Smithsonian on the National Mall, to Metro Center in the heart of the city, to Farragut West on K Street, lie some of the greatest treasures of our world—the remarkable triumphs of science and engineering at the Air and Space Museum; the masterworks of the Renaissance at the National Gallery; the Constitution and Declaration of Independence housed at the National Archives; the Hope Diamond at the Natural History Museum; Dorothy’s Red Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of OZ at the American History Museum; the wonders of sight, stage, and sound at the Kennedy Center—and in between, commerce that has served as the economic engine of this region for decades.

At the very heart of the corridor, at the very center of that grand stretch of power, achievement, and imagination, is The George Washington University—the intellectual center of an international city. As students here, you won’t just learn from some of the best minds in their chosen fields. You will interact daily with leaders making decisions that will affect how all of us live for the next century and beyond.

Pick any decade from the history of this institution—from the early days, when it was known as Columbian College, to the international diversity of GW today—and the testimonials of students to their experiences are extraordinary.

I came across a remarkable one not long ago in a terrific book that was published on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of GW, titled From Strength to Strength: A Pictorial History of The George Washington University. This particular testimonial is by a student who graduated in 1980. During his four years at GW, he wrote, he “had met [former Vice President] Hubert Humphrey only four weeks before he died; watched Jimmy Carter walk down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day; dined at the Georgetown home of one of his state’s senators; watched Pope John Paul II give a speech on the front lawn of the White House; seen the treasures of King Tut at the National Gallery; celebrated the 100th anniversary of The Washington Post at a party given by [the late publisher] Katharine Graham; endured tear gas from Park Police while observing a political rally on the Ellipse; observed Israel and Egypt sign a peace treaty; and protested at an embassy with 200 other Washington-area residents.”

Our nation has a great many fine universities, and I have been privileged to study or work at several of them. But there is only one that could afford a student such a magnificent portfolio of extra curricular experiences in four short years: The George Washington University.

Of course, that’s not by accident—it’s by design. It’s exactly what George Washington had in mind more than two centuries ago when he dreamed of a university that would draw students to the nation’s capital, a community of scholars in which they would forge a shared identity and become the citizen-leaders of a new democracy.

Looking back, even George Washington might be surprised at how much the arc of GW’s history would match the arc of the nation’s history—or the degree to which this institution would welcome both the best and brightest from America, and citizens and future leaders of nations around the world. The history GW has lived is quite remarkable.

Walk four blocks from here, and you come to Lafayette Park, with its statue of the great Revolutionary War hero, General Washington’s French ally and personal friend, the Marquis de Lafayette. In the White House across the street are portraits of Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. Walk up the street to the Capitol and you’ll find statues of legendary Senators Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.

One of the things these great men had in common was that they all attended this university’s first commencement ceremony in 1824.

When the Medical School first opened, there was a shortage of cadavers. Some charged the director with improper acquisitions—in other words, grave-robbing! The charges were dropped when a bright young attorney came to his defense. That attorney was Daniel Webster, whose statue can be found 10 blocks from here.

Years later, that same Medical School was home to a well-known doctor named Walter Reed—for whom the Army Medical Center is named—as well as Dr. Frederick Russell, who introduced the typhoid vaccine to the United States Army.

And so it went. During the Civil War, first the infirmary—and then, the entire campus—was taken over by Union troops. Professors took to teaching classes out of their houses—giving a whole new meaning to the term “home schooling.” It was not far from here that Walt Whitman used to wave to Abraham Lincoln as the President rode past on his way to the White House, and it was here that Whitman, inspired by the courage and suffering he saw among wounded Union soldiers, composed some of his most famous poems. A GW doctor treated Lincoln when he was in the White House—and another GW doctor was with him on that fatal night at Ford’s Theater.

In the fall of 1888, more than three decades before women won the vote, Mabel Nelson Thurston became GW’s first female undergraduate. Remember that occasionally when you walk into Thurston Hall, which is named for her—although I understand that it has now become somewhat famous for other reasons! When you walk into Mitchell Hall, think of General Billy Mitchell: a student who left GW as a sophomore to fight the Spanish American War in 1898, finally came back to earn his degree in 1919—and went on to become known as the father of the U.S. Air Force. The director of the FBI for half a century, J. Edgar Hoover, studied here—as did John Foster Dulles, America’s Secretary of State during the early days of the Cold War; and J. William Fulbright, whose famous scholarships some of you, I am sure, will one day win. The first moot court in America was created here. And this is where the first veteran of World War II came to attend college on the GI Bill.

In 1939, the great scientist Niels Bohr first announced the fission of uranium at a conference here, ushering in the nuclear age. Years later, GW scientists and engineers joined with NASA to create the Joint Institute for the Advancement of Flight Science, which played a key role in the exploration of space.

Of course, like this city itself, our history has not been without trouble. The brand-new Lisner Auditorium was christened in 1946 with a Broadway-bound play called “Joan of Lorraine,” starring Ingrid Bergman, less than four years after she made movie history with Humphrey Bogart in the film “Casablanca.” The star was disappointed to learn that Lisner, like many Washington institutions at the time, was open to whites only. Perhaps she pleased to learn that, after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, it was GW’s School of Education that helped lead this city through desegregation—accepting a larger share of African-American students than most other formerly all-white schools. And I am happy to say that Lisner is now widely known for its multi-cultural programming.

During the civil rights movement, GW was the place where students gathered almost exactly 44 years ago—on August 28, 1963—to walk over to the Lincoln Memorial to hear the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech. During the Vietnam War, so many students met here to organize peace rallies on the Mall that we became known as the “Holiday Inn of the Revolution.” During the 1990s, student demonstrations here against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund shut down much of downtown Washington. And, unforgettably, on September 11, 2001, our students could see the smoke rising above the Washington skyline from the terrible attack on the Pentagon.

We have not just been at the center of history. We have helped make history. And perhaps the greatest testament to the history we continue to make is the network of GW alumni spread across the world 220,000 in all, with 70,000 of them in the greater Washington region alone.

Students who walked our halls a few short years ago now walk the halls of Congress. Engineers and scientists who worked in our labs now work at NASA and the National Institutes of Health. Artists and teachers who studied here are now enriching minds and educating the next generation.

As members of that new generation, this is the day you have dreamed about for years. At long last, you are a college student. We not only selected you from an extraordinary class of applicants—you selected us. On behalf of everyone at GW, I want to thank you for the opportunity to teach you. As of today, you are free: to follow your intellectual passions wherever they may lead, to choose your classes, to pick your major, to eat ice cream for breakfast, and to leave clothes on every square inch of your dorm room floor, without anyone there to tell you to pick it up.

But that freedom comes with a certain burden: what you get out of GW will be entirely up to you. We will offer advice, of course, but no one will compel you to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunity that you have earned and that your families are helping you to pay for! It will be up to you decide where to go, and how much time to spend exploring the City of Washington and all the historical and cultural riches it has to offer. You have the freedom, if you choose, to make this entire city your campus. If you are politically active, as the Princeton Review has just noted that so many of you are, this is the best place to be. If art, science, literature, music, or drama is your passion—this is also the best place to be. You happen to be arriving in Washington at the same time the paintings of Edward Hopper arrive at the National Gallery of Art’s East Building, the photos of Annie Liebovitz and Ansel Adams arrive at the Corcoran, La Bohème comes to the Washington National Opera, and The Taming of the Shrew comes to the Shakespeare Theater. It will be up to you to experience as much of this as you can.

And it will also be up to you to take full advantage of the intellectual and social resources that GW has to offer! So what, exactly, are those resources? To name just a few:

First, the faculty. GW has an exemplary faculty, superbly skilled and dedicated to your best interests as students. Listen to them. Learn from them. Talk to them. Above all—write this down!—go to their offices! In some cases, you will have as your teachers professionals who hold great positions of responsibility in their respective fields. So, once again, don’t just wait to see them at class—push to see them in their natural environments, whether at a law firm, the Smithsonian Institution, or the emergency room down the street. Take advantage of every opportunity to partake of the practical as well as theoretical knowledge they possess.

The second resource I would like to mention is GW’s astonishing array of extra-curricular and co-curricular activities. There are countless activities to choose from, and, once again, it will be up to you to make that choice. Athletic, theatrical, journalistic, musical, terpsichordian—opportunities to play, to create, to perform, to volunteer, to serve. You can’t do it all, but if you choose wisely, you will acquire skills that will serve you and friends who will support you for the rest of your lives.

Third, there are your fellow students. This may be the most important opportunity of all. In coming to GW, you have joined a truly extraordinary community of your peers, and there is no limit to what you can learn from them. Let me illustrate that by focusing on the largest group of you here today: the class of 2011.

You hail from 47 states, 41 countries, and 1,352 different high schools. You happen to have the highest SAT scores and the most valedictorians in our history. Nearly nine of every 10 of you finished in the top 20 percent of your class; nearly seven in 10 finished in the top 10 percent.

Forty percent of you speak two languages; 25 percent of you speak three or more languages. Half of you were varsity athletes; one in five was President of your class; nearly one in five served as editor of your school newspaper or yearbook. Sixty-two percent of you participated in community service projects. Much as you have to learn, you also have an astonishing amount to teach each other!

I’ve just described the freedom you are about to enjoy, and I imagine that subject may make some in this audience—the parents among us—just a bit nervous. So let me say to my fellow parents, as the father of two young adult children, I understand how you feel. This is the day you have both dreamed of and dreaded for years. On one hand, your heart is ready to beat out of your chest with the pride you feel for your son or daughter today. At the same time, you are sending your child—in many cases, very far from home—into a world more uncertain than it has been at any time in recent history: with our nation at war; danger across the globe increasing; our relationships around the world in question; and a country witnessing the first presidential election in eighty years in which an incumbent is not on the ballot—an election your children will experience first-hand.

We are profoundly aware of the trust you have placed in us during this difficult time in our nation’s history. I want to assure you that we will continue to take every precaution to keep your sons and daughters safe, even as we offer them an opportunity to make their mark on that history. And I am pleased to say how much I look forward to living among them, and sharing in their experience.

As you may have heard, the university is creating a presidential residence right here on campus. When renovations are completed some months from now, my wife Diane and I will be living at 1925 F Street—right across the street from one of the buildings I mentioned earlier, the famous Thurston Hall!

The address also has a special place in the history of this city. Built in 1849 for U.S. Navy Captain Charles Steedman, it was a private residence until the Prohibition era, when it was turned into a club, known as the F Street Club. It became a salon for thought and discussion, with topics ranging from the founding of NATO to ownership of the Panama Canal. In time, it hosted parties for Richard Nixon and Jackie Kennedy. Presidents Carter, Bush, and Clinton all attended events there. President Reagan and his wife Nancy hosted a candlelight dinner party there to introduce themselves to Washington Society in 1980. Most recently, it has housed GW’s alumni offices, which are moving to another building across the street.

By turning it back into a residence, Diane and I also hope to restore 1925 F Street to its role as a venue for discussions on issues of importance, from global warming and health care to Social Security and the 2008 Presidential election—with national and international leaders. I hope to see all of you there at some point over the next four years.

This is one of the many ways in which I plan to become part of the GW community and to participate, in some small measure, in this university’s long and continuing involvement in the history of the nation’s capital. It will be up to each of you, once again—with our help, support, and advice, but nevertheless up to you—to decide what you will add to the unfolding story of The George Washington University. I look forward to sharing your adventure.

Congratulations. Welcome. And the best of luck to you all.