“Forging a New Path in Community”
Good afternoon family, friends, faculty, and loved ones. My name is Ishi, and my name is Elaine. And welcome to Commencement for the Class of 2023. Thank you all for coming on this beautiful day to see our class graduate!
(Elaine) I’d like to take a minute and recognize those who couldn’t be here with us today. Although they may not be here physically, their absence is filled with the love and care of those present, excited and ready to take the next steps with you and your journey beyond graduation.
(Ishi) When Elaine and I first met, we were two young naive first years. Elaine was sitting with her group of friends, and I was about to eat a quick meal by myself. We had only met twice prior to this, but Elaine invited me over to sit with her friends and there a friendship blossomed. As excitement filled the air and conversations began to finally feel authentic.
(Elaine) We were sent home.
What was supposed to be spring break turned into a year-and-a-half-long period of growth. Traditions that we were promised seemed to slip away and loneliness began to consume us. We were all divided into our own corners of the world, placed into virtual learning environments, and forced to unmute to say the dreaded lines, “I can’t see your screen, professor.” We seemed to be placed into a new room with no walls or doors, just silence and blank stares.
However, we persevered. We all tried our best. We were shaken, forced to confront our values, and learned how to live in isolation. Some of us entered the workforce, others took a step back from college, and some even changed their majors to follow their passions, but through our darkest days, we hoped to one day come back to Scripps and spark change.
(Ishi) Once we stepped back onto campus, we were not only reinvigorated with new life experiences but with a new drive to change the course of our remaining years. Our class created clubs from our newfound passion, restored old clubs that had been lost from the pandemic, and contributed to initiatives such as Nobody Fails at Scripps, which began over the pandemic and continues to be a source where students can support one another. One group of students sought to change Core I, and now there’s a group made up of professors and students alike hoping to reconstruct it. Together, we forged this new path in community.
(Ishi) For Elaine and me, our paths were forged by our parents. My parents immigrated here from India and shouldered much of the responsibility of moving to a new country, leaving our extended family behind. We would try to visit every summer or every other summer to every year, but my parents were all alone in the United States. However, they sought community for me. They took me to Indian affiliate groups around Phoenix, hosted cultural events at my house, and created a badminton club at my school. Having their support allowed me to blossom into who I am today, someone to be proud of and confident in.
(Elaine) For myself, I immigrated with my family from Taiwan. This was our second home and slowly became where I found friendships, hobbies, and joy. Despite leaving our larger extended family back in Taiwan, our small family unit of my dad, my mom, and my younger sister was strong. I could always count on them to help me finish my projects, encourage my aspirations, or watch my capstone day presentation on Zoom. Family is ever evolving, but its strength lies in the people. And I think this is what truly drives the community at Scripps.
(Ishi) We’re a small class, only 270 of us sit here today. But the choice to come to a smaller school, where you’re surrounded by familiar faces, is a unique one. The collective care and empathy of our class is evident in our day-to-day lives at Scripps.
(Elaine) We are constantly in awe of how we show up for one another. We see it in so many different ways that we want to acknowledge today. Our class mural on Graffiti Wall was done by the graduating art majors who decided to imprint their work as a collective. Our amazing and dedicated affinity groups at Scripps such as AASP, AASU, Café Con Leche, Watu Weusi, Blend, Family, and Kehillah work tirelessly to make sure Scripps is an inclusionary space for students of color in a predominantly white institution. The Motley was brought back by our seniors, willing to put in so much time to bring back an institutional memory that we feared was lost in the pandemic. We also have major-specific clubs from all kinds of disciplines from economics, legal studies, to psychology working to strengthen the relationships between the professors and the students. Scripps international community helping to build community amongst Scripps students who may feel far from home. The Scripps student investment fund works to give back to Scripps CLORGs by helping to fund events to increase community vibrancy. The Scripps advocates work parties/events to make sure our students are safe. Even Ishi and I couldn’t write or do this speech alone. We couldn’t do this job alone. It’s the help from our network and community that we all stand in today. It’s amazing to see how we all work together to be in a community and support each other’s missions and goals.
(Ishi) And I truly believe it is because of our innate passion. It is this innate passion that drives and motivates us to strive for these positions. When I say passion, I don’t mean a career path, I mean a passion to wake up and slay every day. And I think that’s something so unique about a Scripps education. Scripps makes you embrace your passions. It’s a blank slate where you can find opportunities or even create them on your own. Here, no one judges you for what you want to be or who you will become. We encourage each other to explore what we enjoy, pursue our goals, and then create our own opinions from there. We have self-confidence, a self-assuredness that we got by learning, living, and growing together.
(Elaine) It was nerve-wracking but freeing to be a part of the change that we see today. Every one of us here is some kind of leader, mentor, advocate, or friend. We are all a part of what Scripps is and will become. Beyond Scripps, we cannot let the learnings and progress that we’ve made pass us by. We had to open doors for ourselves because no one else was going to. We had to innovate new solutions to continue our own communities and find our ground. There were no other options for us but to take on this responsibility. And, we must continue to open and create new opportunities for those that will come after us.
(Ishi) From go-getters to leaders around campus to self-starters the most important label that I would give to any Scripps student is a friend. No matter who you are, you can always have an interesting conversation with another Scripps student. In our darkest times, when we were angry with administration, annoyed about moving online, or even put into isolation at CCA, we all chose to reach out to one another. We conversed with friends, ranked each dining hall’s dessert selection, and debriefed our days with one another.
A Scripps friend is one for life. We each have a shared experience going here, where we can look at one another for who we are and accept each other’s flaws, armor, and character. We can listen to one another’s stories and embrace each other even years down the line.
(Elaine) We carry our shared experience at Scripps ready to embark on our coming journey. Serving as your senior class presidents was one of the greatest pleasures of our college experience. We are so happy to be here, commending all of you for being who you are…the best class ever. As we stand here today one last time as your senior class presidents, we urge you to fight, to dream, and to live courageously beyond Scripps.