| www.converse.edu Spartanburg, SC May 19, 2007 |
Ellen Bryant Voigt ‘64, renowned poet, author of six books of poetry, and Poet Laureate of Vermont from 2000-2004: |
"Use your mind and your soul. You leave here with a valuable, privileged asset: a liberal arts education, which has as its goal to teach one how to think – not how to compile "information” – that changes faster than we can speak of it – but how to divide the spurious from the real, the false from the true, to leave nothing of your experience unexamined, none of your principles untested. |
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| This is a lifetime task, and it is both constructive of and dependent on the system of values you will each shape for yourself and live by, wittingly or not. Please do make it ‘wittingly’ – keep your wits about you, with you, inside you: many have worked hard and paid dearly to have them so exquisitely sharpened." | |
