Peter S. Nurnberg, Valedictorian
It Takes a College
My Grandpa Joe taught me two things when I was a little kid:
Number 1: Using a trick taught by all Jewish men born between the years 1900 and 1930, I could trick my friends into thinking that I had 11 fingers. Watch closely: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 ... plus 5 is 11!
Number 2: Even though grandpa wasn’t always the smartest person in the room — and since he is a Nurnberg, I can guarantee you he was never the best looking person in the room — he succeeded because he always worked harder than everyone else.
He would always say that hard work is the key to success.
Of course, this piece of advice is not unique to my grandfather. I bet most of you have heard something similar to this before.
I have always held my grandfather in high esteem and I took his advice to heart as I began my time at Williams.
After four years at Williams, I now know that Grandpa Joe was ... wrong. Well, he was partially wrong. Hard work is important. Completing the mountain of work and all of the other activities Williams students tend to take on requires a tremendous effort. However, that is not all it takes. The other critical element to success is the support we receive from all of the people in our lives. Getting to today’s ceremony was a group effort. While the word commencement indicates that today is in many ways a starting point in our lives, graduating from college is in and of itself a major accomplishment. To get to this day, we each spent countless hours studying, sat attentively through hundreds of class periods — and perhaps inattentively through a handful — written god knows how many papers, problem sets, or lab reports and taken dozens of tests. In short, we have worked our butts off. Grandpa Joe would be proud of all of you.
However, most of us have also received a tremendous amount of help along the way. We are here today because of the support provided by countless members of our campus and home communities. Some of that support came in big “life saving” chunks dispersed throughout our time at Williams, but most of that support was just part of our day to day lives and taken for granted.
Examples of the help we received are all around us.
In the Fall of our freshman year, I remember dozens of you sitting with me every Thursday night in the math and science resource center as the class tutor, Todd Shayler — who one of my entrymates still incorrectly insists was the actor who played Stiffler in American Pie — unlocked the mysteries we needed to understand in order to solve Professor Adams’ Multivariable Calculus problem sets.
Many of us survived freshman year because of the advice and care of our JAs ... and some of our JAs only survived because of help from their frosh — especially in Sage D.
A lot of math majors in the crowd remember huddling in professor Stoiciu’s office well beyond office hours and late into the night as he explained orthogonal subspaces over and over again.
For those of you who are much more athletic than I am — which is about 511 of you — I have been told that your coaches were there to help you balance the demands on a student and the demands on an athlete.
Our professors helped us pick classes, wrote recommendations for us and advised us on our future plans.
The college Chaplains always had time for any student wishing to discuss religious or any other concerns.
Our custodians took care of us, and dining services made sure that we were well fed so that we could focus on our school work and extracurricular activities.
Administrators warned us when we were in danger of not completing our requirements and did what needed to be done around campus so that we had the luxury of not worrying about the day to day operations of the college.
Our friends helped us through the daily trials, arguments, encounters, struggles, joys, and difficulties that shaped our experience.
And lets not forget our parents, siblings, other family members, guardians, and high school mentors who gave us the home support base we needed to thrive in the distant, foreign, and not so exotic environment known as Williamstown.
All of these people and many more made it possible for us to succeed at Williams and to be here today. As we reflect on what led up to this day and what we have been through over the past four years, we are certainly justified in taking this occasion to celebrate ourselves and our accomplishments. However, we should also use this celebration to think about and thank everyone who helped us along the way.
Fellow Classmates,
I cannot speak for everyone, but I certainly know that I did not get here alone; it took a college. So thank you to everyone who helped me navigate through Williams. Most of all, thank you to all of the members of my class in front of me right now. It has been an honor to get to know you and spend time with you over the last four years.
As Grandpa Joe might say if you caught him on the right day: zol zayn mit ma’-zel as you enter the real world (that’s Yiddish for good luck).
Finally, I hope you remember grandpa’s wisdom when you are old and gray — not the part about the hard work, but how you can trick your grandchildren into thinking that you have 11 fingers.
June 7, 2009