For CC, time to 'party like it's 2010'

“Whenever I can walk out of Low Library and not be in handcuffs, it’s a good day,” Columbia College Class Day speaker Ben Jealous, CC ’94, joked on Monday.

Jealous, the current president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, had a tumultuous undergraduate life at Columbia—he was suspended at one point for demonstrating. But he encouraged graduates to “always go with your gut. It’ll always pay off in the end.”

His experience as a student protester seemed to pave the way for bigger fights, as he recounted traveling to Mississippi after graduating to prevent the governor at the time from turning a local historically black institution into a prison. His efforts were met with threats from the Ku Klux Klan. “Yes, the Klan has a press secretary,” Jealous said.

After Class Day, Jealous planned to attend a press conference to file a lawsuit against the controversial new Arizona immigration law that gave police the power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, and made it illegal for immigrants not to carry documentation.

“Let’s party like it’s 2010. Let’s party like it was our nation that brought the world the 21st century and like it’s your generation that’ll define it,” Jealous said. “It’s time for us to declare that we will move this country forward and never backward.”

Columbia College Dean Michele Moody-Adams also urged graduates to pursue engaged lives. “For true happiness, you must care about … something other than your own happiness,” she said, adding, “The examined life is ultimately a life full of wonder.”

Moody-Adams introduced University President Lee Bollinger, and while the class of 2010 booed when Moody-Adams mentioned the Manhattanville expansion, they gave Bollinger a standing ovation when he stepped up to the podium. While he stuck to inside jokes that may have gone over a few parents’ heads, he encouraged students to return to campus.

“We hope you will come back and sit on the sunny Steps … and look at the talented Columbians who will follow your footsteps,” he said.

He might not have to look far to find soon-to-be-alumni enthusiasm—92.7 percent of the class has given to the Senior Fund, exceeding the goal of 91 percent participation. The seniors set a new Ivy League record with $18,622 in contributions, and received a matching gift of $50,000.

“We’re here to celebrate the impossible—we managed to get all 1,100 seniors together in one place without free food or T-shirts!” senior class president Cliff Massey joked.

For salutatorian Jeff Spear, it was partly his time volunteering in an osteology lab in Schermerhorn Extension, working with a large skull nicknamed “Big Boy,” that showed him how Columbia students have been able to pursue their passions, no matter how outlandish they may have seemed.

This is proof, he said, “that our strange and diverse passions can take us to wonderful places.”