Georgetown's newest students began their time at the Hilltop with advice from university leaders -- and a rap performance from upperclassmen.
Indra Sen, a Georgetown University senior, accepted a prestigious academic prize at the 2007 new student convocation this past Sunday, then picked up the mic and began to rap.
“We need to stop the drama, we need to stop Osama, I see your faces going places like a Barack Obama…” rapped Sen, a 2007 Harry S. Truman scholar who accepted the McTighe Prize for fostering diversity awareness and advocating for social justice. “…I put passion in my actions, my heart began to grow, I saw hopeless homeless, others on welfare, children die from AIDS, couldn’t afford freaking health care. Wake up everybody we gotta make this work fair.”
Sen had taken a 1975 tune called “Wake Up Everybody” by Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes and changed some of the words. Ian Thomas, a 2005 graduate and a first-year Law Center student, sang the chorus: “The world won’t get no better, if we just let it be, the world won’t get no better, we gotta change it, yeah, just you and me.”
After the song Sen said, “As philosopher Nasir Jones professes, ‘sleep is the cousin of death.’ Find your passions and cultivate it -- in and outside the classroom, find what’s inside … fall in love with what you do.”
Helping change the world for the better became a consistent theme at the convocation, as Georgetown University leaders and faculty members welcomed a new undergraduate class of 1,580.
President John J. DeGioia told the audience that Georgetown is a community for “people preparing to engage in the world, people preparing to make a difference, people preparing to battle injustice, and people preparing to be a force for hope and peace around the globe. In other words, people like you, who -- in the tradition of Georgetown -- seek to heal the world.”
DeGioia asked the new students to imagine that all the convocation participants in the university’s McDonough Gym represented the world’s 6.5 billion people.
He asked students with red stickers on the backs of their programs to stand.
“You represent over half the world -- more than 3.3 billion people -- who live on less than two dollars a day,” DeGioia said.
When those with yellow stickers stood, he told them they represented the 37 percent of the world -- 2.4 billion -- who don’t have access to adequate sanitation or clean water.
Those with orange stickers represented the 852 million people across the world who suffer from chronic hunger.
Finally, he asked everyone with a green sticker to stand.
Only one student -- senior Christine Fraser -- stood.
“Christine represents the 1/100th of one percent of the world’s population who share with you the opportunity to attend a major American research university,” DeGioia noted.
“All of us enjoy a privilege that is very rare in our global community,” he said. “And what you do with this privilege matters.”
Provost James O’Donnell told the incoming undergraduate class of 2011 that they had been selected from an applicant pool of 16,163 and hail from 49 of the 50 United States (Idaho is not represented), Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. International students are from 43 countries. Like last year’s class, 55 percent are women and 45 percent are men.
Religious affiliations, O’Donnell noted, include Baptist, Buddhist, Catholic, Congregational, Episcopalian, Hindu, Jewish, Latter-Day Saints, Lutheran, Methodist, Muslim, Orthodox Christian, Presbyterian and United Church of Christ.
“You have come to a community that not only respects but values each and every form of your individual faith experience,” O’Donnell said.
A mix of humor and seriousness were in the air at the convocation.
“If school was Disney World -- safe, and insulated and fun, and sometimes really long lines -- then this is more like wilderness survival training," the provost said. "My advice is to keep your canteen full and brace yourselves for the adventure of a lifetime.”
The faculty speaker, Charles King, Ion Ratiu Professor in Romanian Studies, took a more serious tone.
“What is our role in this, as professors?” King asked. “It is to anger and shock you, to help guide and mentor you, and on occasion, if we’re lucky, to inspire you to be even smarter, even more conscientious, even more globally aware than you are at this moment, as you prepare for a life outside Healy Gates.”
Visiting students in their junior year from the university’s School of Foreign Service program in Qatar were acknowledged during the convocation and all 1,580 new students donned bachelor’s gowns.
Tony and Marilyn Abrahams of Woodbridge, N.J., came to the ceremony with their two younger children, Britney and Joshua, to support their daughter, Martina, a new business major at Georgetown.
“I thought they were very insightful,” said Tony Abrahams, when asked about the speeches. “And I thought (Provost O’Donnell) who was overseeing the whole show did a great job. He was fantastic. The senior who talked about waking up -- I thought he had a very youthful approach to get a message across. I think the students will remember. We certainly will.”
