Bollinger Urges Imagination to Graduates

Correction appended.

University President Lee Bollinger implored the class of 2007 to be imaginative in their pursuits during University Commencement for Columbia's 253rd academic year, held Wednesday.

With campus awash in blue from the flags and robes and green from the newly-placed shrubbery, degrees were conferred upon nearly 12,000 students from 18 colleges and affiliates from across the University. An estimated 40,000 people watched from Low Court.

In his Commencement address, Bollinger said that this year's class is graduating at the edge of unexplored frontiers. "We do not yet fully grasp the forces that are at work or what exactly is happening and we hope that we have given you the tools to understand them," he said, standing beside Columbia's ceremonial 18th-Century mace, a symbol of the University President's power to confer degrees.

He urged students to be creative in responding to these challenges, to "remember that the book on Alma Mater's lap is always open ... [and] conceive of a world which is different than the one that we are living in."

"Our imaginations have trouble seeing their potential and can do so only when we try ourselves and compare our achievement against a greater achievement and then repeat the process over and over again," Bollinger said. "This is what Columbia does so well and that is what those names chiseled at the top of Butler Library signify."

It was a boisterous event as students from the different schools waved checkered flags and five-foot long toothbrushes, threw flowers, apples, and shredded newspaper, and banged rubber gavels.

At his last University Commencement before departing to become president of Tel Aviv University, Zvi Gali, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, received some of the loudest applause of the day when he asked Bollinger to confer the degrees upon the "solar-powered, acoustically challenged" candidates. "I love you," he shouted to his graduating class in closing, thrusting his hands up in the air as students chanted his name and blew airhorns.

In asking Bollinger to confer degrees to candidates from the School of General Studies, Dean Peter Awn referred to them as "deeply indebted," taking a shot at the University for the financial aid reforms enacted this year. The changes, converting loans to grants for students whose families earn less than $50,000 per year, were targeted at Columbia College and SEAS and excluded GS.

This year marked the first time that Commencement was carbon neutral. Columbia purchased credits to offset the emissions of nearly 5,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide expected to be produced by those traveling to the event, a number that is equivalent to more than 1,000 cars not being driven in a year. "This initiative is symbolic of Columbia's growing commitment to responsible environmental stewardship in its ongoing operations," Robert Kasdin, senior executive vice president, said in a press release.

[Correction: According to Allison Scola, assistant director of communications for the School of General Studies, Awn's use of the phrase "deeply indebted" was not intended as a shot at this year's financial aid reforms. In fact, Awn has used the language during prior Commencment ceremonies.]