The following is the text of the Baccalaureate Address delivered by President Richard C. Levin in Woolsey Hall on May 24.
Four years ago, at your Freshman Assembly, I spoke to you about the task of self-discovery. I suggested that here at Yale you would encounter ideas and take them seriously, develop the capacity to think critically and independently, discover deep interests and consuming passions, and define the kind of person you want to be. This morning, I want to consider how the self interacts with the wider society. I want to reflect this morning on the task of citizenship, on how you will use what you have learned at Yale to shape our nation and the world.
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A little more than 100 years ago, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner set forth a provocative thesis about the effect of the American environment on the character of the individual. I begin by quoting at some length:
... [T]o the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom -- these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.1
It has been exactly a century since America's last territorial expansion, but the distinctive elements of American character described by Turner persist: independence, self-reliance, ingenuity, entrepreneurship. They manifest themselves today in the realms of scientific discovery, artistic creativity, and economic innovation -- spheres of activity in which America leads the world. Even without new land to tame and cultivate, Americans continue to seek out new frontiers in every direction.
Turner believed that the distinctive traits of the American character had been shaped by the frontier, but their persistence in the absence of free land suggests that we must look beyond geography to explain them. Might not the persistence of independence and self-reliance also derive from America's openness to immigrants who came to its shores seeking freedom from religious persecution or economic deprivation? Might not the persistence of ingenuity and entrepreneurship also derive from the relative permeability of barriers to social and economic mobility in America? And does not the persistence of representative government and the individual rights embedded in our Constitution protect us from the kind of tyranny that might arbitrarily penalize the independent, self-reliant, ingenious, and entrepreneurial?
This line of thinking in fact pre-dates Turner by a half century. In his classic study, "Democracy in America," Alexis de Tocqueville describes the American character in terms much like Turner's, but he sees the source of these traits in America's openness to immigrants, absence of hereditary class structure, and democratic institutions.
I am well aware that some scholars see America's history as a sequence of conflicts in which the interests of class (the ruling one), race (the white one), and gender (the male one) have prevailed again and again. But one need not join this debate to assert a mere fact: Relative to other nations, the opportunities for social mobility and intellectual freedom in America have been and remain abundant. These opportunities have been seized by generations of citizens from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds. They have been, for the past several decades, increasingly available to women as well as men, to racial minorities as well as white Europeans.
Your University reflects this distinctive American openness, and you and your classmates are the assembled proof. You already give evidence of possessing those distinctive American traits. As individuals you have been shaped by American society and microcosms within it -- family and university. These environments have given you abundant opportunities. As you graduate, it is now your responsibility to contribute to the shaping of the larger society and to preserve for others the opportunities that it has made available to you.
What does this responsibility entail? It requires, first of all, that you cherish the democratic institutions that support individual liberty. This means taking seriously your obligation as citizens. It is easy, too easy, to become cynical about involvement in public affairs, but, I assure you, if you and your contemporaries across the nation fail to participate in public life, and fail to serve when opportunities arise, you will undermine the very basis for your own freedom.
Your responsibility also entails participation in civic activities beyond those associated with politics or public life. Long ago, Tocqueville noted that the vitality of American democracy depended crucially on the exceptional degree to which its citizens joined together in voluntary associations directed toward civic betterment. As he observed:
Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which they all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. ... Nothing ... is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations of America.2
In recent years, an apparent decline in civic participation through voluntary service has been noted and lamented. In a well-known article published three years ago, Robert Putnam reported some disturbing evidence.3 Between 1973 and 1993, the number of Americans who attended, within the year prior to being surveyed, a public meeting on town or school affairs declined from 22 to 13 percent. Participation in parent-teacher organizations, the League of Women Voters, Boy Scouts, and the Red Cross also dropped dramatically. Overall, the Census Department's Current Population Survey indicates that between 1974 and 1989 there was a 16 percent decline in the number of adults who volunteered regularly in any civic organization.
The good news is that graduates of Yale College are not among those who have chosen to disregard their civic responsibilities. Recently, the Mellon Foundation conducted a survey of three cohorts of alumni that measured, among other things, their involvement in voluntary community service activities.4 The three Yale College classes surveyed were 2, 15 and 40 years beyond graduation. Nearly two-thirds of the most recent graduates participated voluntarily in local civic activities and organizations, and 20 percent had leadership roles in such activities. Of the group 15 years beyond graduation, more than two-thirds had served as volunteers since graduation and nearly 30 percent had served as leaders. Of those 40 years beyond graduation, 83 percent had participated as volunteers and 56 percent had taken leadership positions.
If, to these local commitments, we add involvement with national
charitable organizations, environmental and conservation groups, the
percentages of those who had participated in at least one volunteer
activity rise even further. Among recent graduates, the participation rate
was 71 percent, and 22 percent had leadership roles. Among the most senior
of the alumni cohorts, the participation rate was
88 percent, and 60 percent had served in leadership positions.
I believe that you, the class of 1998, will carry on this tradition of civic involvement, because of your outstanding record here at Yale. Hundreds of you have been actively engaged in community service. You have given music lessons at the Cooperative High School, taught chess to school children at the New Haven Free Public Library, read four times a week to third graders at the Timothy Dwight School, written, directed, and produced plays performed by children from around the city, counseled young teenage women at the Troup Middle School, and organized a science fair for students at the Troup and Roberto Clemente Schools. In these activities, and scores of others, you have helped others to develop the skills and self-confidence to take advantage of the opportunities that this country offers them.
Last week, I received a letter from a second-grade teacher in New Haven. She wrote:
I have been teaching more than 28 years in New Haven and have NEVER had anyone stay as a volunteer in my classroom for two consecutive years, let alone four consecutive years! ...
[This] consistency while working with the children is particularly important to my students who often have much inconsistency in their lives...
They and I have been truly fortunate to have had [this] presence in the classroom weekly for the last four years.
This is just one example of what sustained involvement in a community can mean.
Women and men of the class of 1998: You have been challenged by great teachers, confronted by new ideas, and stimulated by interaction with extraordinary classmates. You had the opportunity to develop your powers of critical thinking and expression, and you have had the time to discover your own interests and passions. Each of you has acquired the capacity to learn and grow, and some of you, like Yale graduates in every class that has preceded you, will reach the very frontiers of human achievement.
Now it is time to use what you have learned here not only for personal fulfillment, but for the benefit of the wider society. You are fortunate to live in a nation that gives opportunity to those with great potential; it is your responsibility to preserve that opportunity for others. Your generosity of spirit has made a difference for life on campus and in New Haven. May your generosity now expand to encompass America and the world.
1. Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," Report of the American Historical Association, 1893, reprinted in Turner, "The Frontier in American History," Huntington, New York: Robert E. Kreiger Publishing Company, 1976, p. 37.
2. Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America, Volume II," New York: Vintage Books, 1945, p. 114, 118.
3. The data that follow are reported in Robert D. Putnam, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy, January 1995, pp. 65-78.
4. I am grateful to William G. Bowen for granting me early access to
the College and Beyond data base recently assembled by the Mellon
Foundation. Doug Mills provided timely and reliable computer assistance.
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