Friday, May 21, 2021
Emma Rose Davison ’21
Ambassador Thomas Greenfield, Dr. Collins, President Boroughs, Provost Freije, Dean Paco, Members of the Board of Trustees, Honored Guests, Faculty and Staff, Parents, Relatives and Friends, Fellow Members of the Class of 2021:
I am so grateful to be in such good company at such a wonderful place this morning.
In one of my Arabic courses, my professor distinguished between two types of translation: اﻟﻤﺒﺎﺷﺮة ﺗﺮﺟﻤﺔ (direct translation) and اﻟﺜﻘﺎﻓﯿﺔ ﺗﺮﺟﻤﺔ (cultural translation). Direct translation is exact—a formulaic approach to finding meaning in the unfamiliar. Cultural translation, however, lacks rules for memorization—it, instead, demands experience. Luckily, I learned this while sitting in a classroom in Amman, Jordan. So, I embraced Jordanian music, food, history and contemporary culture. I learned Arab recipes alongside my host mother Noha, discussed world religion with my host father Nasser, roamed the Wadi Rum Desert with native Bedouins, danced the traditional Dabke with Jordanian friends, even successfully hitchhiked back from the Roman ruins of Jerash. With time, I was able to draw on these experiences as tools in translation assignments. Previously daunting colloquial or religious phrases were no longer unfamiliar as they were part of my beloved reality.
When we decided to attend the College of the Holy Cross, there was a clear direct translation for our intended outcome: receiving a degree from this institution. We have achieved that concrete aim today. The cultural translation for what we gained from our time here on Mount St. James, however, is far from formulaic. If we were to attempt to explain what these diplomas mean to someone unfamiliar with our experiences, we would need to take great care in detailing our beloved reality.
The College has referenced “experiential learning” countless times over the past four years, a consistent nudge that we commit to expanding our understanding of what it means to be a Holy Cross student. Now, to express what it means to be a member of the Class of 2021, to have that cultural competence, we have to understand the plurality of our diverse learning experiences.
Each of us has specific moments, classrooms, activities, and people that add great meaning to our degree. Whether it be the Dinand reading room or our favorite Science Library cubicle, the random roommate turned long-term friend or the classmate turned late-night study partner, the professor who challenged our assumptions, the chaplain who expanded our understanding of faith, the Worcester community partner who ignited our commitment to social responsibility, or the coach who motivated us to refine our skills.
I am reminded of the extensive opportunities at Holy Cross every time I hear the passion in my roommates’ voices as they talk about virology or ordinary-differential equations or cognitive neuroscience. They’ve refined competencies I can just barely scratch the surface of, unlocking intellectual worlds that their translations depend on.
There is power in knowing that we don’t know everything about a place, moving forward knowing that the impact and experiences of the Class of 2021 are far-reaching and diverse. We each have four years of Holy Cross somethings, somewheres, and someones that have altered our beloved reality.
I am not sure what I thought it would feel like to graduate from Holy Cross, but it is strange that this moment—one we pondered in slight disbelief would ever arrive beyond the laundry-list of opportunities and the ever-present academic coursework—is now reality. We each found a place for ourselves in this ivy-covered landscape.
We’ve found belonging spending more time than planned with friends at Kimball tables, reading scripture in Saint Joseph’s Chapel, bowing after a successful opening night of the musical or midnight theater performance in The Pit, multitasking team bonding with study sessions on bus rides back from games, tutoring or serving meals in the Worcester community, strategizing with an e-board for our next RSO event in Hogan, or even tucked away in a Boulevard Diner booth waiting for late-night pancakes and french fries.
In our communal reckoning with present and historical injustice, we’ve learned that spaces of genuine belonging are spaces dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion and, in turn, we’ve demanded more of ourselves, of our peers, of our campus, and of the wider community.
We’ve become part of the cultural translation, integral facets of an institution that once caught our interest so greatly we decided to attend it.
At times, we’ve carried our Holy Cross experience a little further—throughout the country to immersion sites, to New York or Washington for semester internships, overseas to study in any country we felt called to, to our hometowns—waiting eagerly for that invitation to return, even to nights braving the cold standing in line outside of Compass or Canal.
When we commit to upholding what we’ve learned it means to be a Holy Cross student, our actions become a living prayer of what we have learned here.
When we are eager to experience, when we choose to learn in community with others, the capacity for abounding joy at a small college on a hill proliferates.
It may sound naive to focus so adamantly on joy after the events of the past year, but I know we recognize all that we have endured. We have each felt great sadness, frustration, and uncertainty and, today, I want to focus on everything that is not that. I choose to illuminate the joy I know persists because I believe that our Holy Cross experience will translate, above all else, to the joy that we found here.
Such joy redefines—a residence hall becomes the eighth wonder of the world, a Montserrat project becomes foundational to future plans, an off-campus apartment becomes an arena for absurd shenanigans, Holy Cross sunsets become the greatest reminder to pause at the end of busy days, the city of Worcester becomes our city.
The invitation to “experiential learning,” the opportunity for living prayer that reflects the values of this community, will extend beyond our time at Holy Cross. When a transformative change occurs, like graduating, the question of “where do we go from here?” often arises. Such a question need not be elusive, but inviting: an invitation to engage with the world around us, to experience with devotion, with intention, and with joy. If we commit to accepting this invitation, the translation of our resultant experiences will swell, and joy will endure.
We’ll one day be on the receiving end of the question, “What was Holy Cross like when you were here?” Then, we’ll be tasked with attempting to encapsulate all of our Holy Cross somethings, somewheres, and someones with brevity. The plurality of our defining experiences, however, might just make it so that our most effective cultural translation is that we were one part of this collective “you had to be there” moment. We’ll see the impact we had on this place, we’ll feel the impact it’s had on us, and we’ll know that that impact is enduring, and it is joyful.
Thank you, ﻟﻜﻢ ﺟﺰﯾﻼ ﺷﻜﺮا , for being critical to the translation of our beloved reality.