Addressing a crowd of about 750 students, faculty and staff during Monday’s convocation exercises, College President Phil Hanlon started by alluding to a special moment — one where a student’s passion collides with intellectual curiosity.
“It’s the moment when the switch goes on and you decide where you want to make a mark on issues that elude your professors and great thinkers and policy makers of our time,” Hanlon said.
He went on to evoke the 1882 launch of America’s first central power plant, the Pearl Street Station headed by Thomas Edison. This breakthrough led to opportunities, but it also presented challenges that people still grapple with and that institutions like Dartmouth are committed to solving, he said.
“It was a way to put on the table, in front of students and the audience, one of the really compelling issues facing the world,” Hanlon said in a post-ceremony interview with The Dartmouth, explaining that he chose the power plant as an example of innovation.
Adjusting his coat after he took off his ceremonial robe in a squash room near Leede Arena, Hanlon elaborated on points from his speech. He said he wants students to be leaders who will take on the world’s biggest issues, and he said he hopes attendees took away the need for big ideas and creative innovation.
“You can’t address these issues as I said through incremental advances — otherwise, they would have been solved by now,” Hanlon said. “It takes out-of-the-box, game-changing ideas, and part of their Dartmouth training is to grow their creative capacity.”
Like Provost Carolyn Dever and student body president Casey Dennis ’15, who also spoke at the ceremony, Hanlon stressed the importance of diversity. He alluded to Scott Page’s book “The Difference,” in which Page posits that diverse groups working together solve problems more effectively.
“The more talents you bring to the table, the better chance you’ve got to have an idea that’s a winner,” Hanlon said after the ceremony.
Dever, who began as provost on July 1, spoke of her commitment to recruiting and retaining minority faculty and a diverse student body.
“Just as excellence isn’t easy, it isn’t one dimensional,” Dever said.
In his remarks to the Class of 2018, Dennis spoke of a vision — one which he said ignited his campaign last year — of a Dartmouth where individuals understand that they have an important role to play.
“There’s something about you that stood out to those who read your application,” Dennis told the Class of 2018. “Don’t hide what made you different. Bask in it. Live with it. Conformity is not an option nor was it the reason for your acceptance.”
Manmeet Gujral ’18 said that although the Class of 2018 had heard from Hanlon a few times already, it was good to hear what speakers thought students should garner from their Dartmouth experience.
“We’ve been hearing a lot lately about how to make the Dartmouth experience, but [Hanlon] kind of pushed it a little bit further to say remember to take what Dartmouth gives you and change the world too,” Gujral said.
Calin Mason ’18 spoke of the “spark” image, the merging of passion and intellectual curiosity that Hanlon alluded to, as something that resonated with her most from the convocation speeches.
“Right now the things I really love and the things I am interested in academically are different so I’m looking forward to when those things collide,” Mason said.
Convocation kicked off Dartmouth’s 245th year.
