Hoyer Delivers St. Mary's College of Maryland Commencement Address
ST. MARY'S CITY, MD – Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) delivered the commencement address at the St. Mary's College of Maryland. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:
Click here for a link to the livestream.
“Thank you, and congratulations to our graduates! If there’s an eighth wonder of St. Mary’s College, we can all agree it is the class of 2024.
“I thank President Tuajuanda Jordan, Board Chair Susan Dyer, my fellow members of the Board of Trustees, our distinguished faculty, SGA President Lily Riesett, and the many family and friends for supporting our graduates. I also want to thank our student speaker, Sabrina Kuhn, for her fantastic remarks. Most of all, I thank our students for all their work to reach this occasion. It’s an honor to share it with you.
“You will never forget this day – no matter how late you leave the Green Door tonight. I do not, however, expect you to remember every – or perhaps any – word I say these next few minutes. What I hope you will remember is that you sat here together. With your families, with our outstanding faculty, with your fellow students, and, crucially, with your friends.
“That was not the case when most of you began this journey four years ago. You spent years wondering what college would be like. When you arrived, however, you found circumstances that you could never have imagined. None of us could. A deadly, global pandemic. Social distancing. Quarantines. Hybrid classes. Thousands of Americans dying of the virus every day.
“Four years ago, many of you attended your high school graduations over Zoom or in parking lots rather than in-person with caps and gowns like today. I mention that difficult time not to dwell on what you lost, however, but to reflect on what you gained.
“For while your generation knows better than any other the pain of being apart, you also know better than any other the joy that comes with joining together. Because you felt the sorrow of separation, you understand the treasure of togetherness. You saw the devastation of distance, and now you have appreciation for the power of proximity.
“You can relate to a poem called ‘blessing the boats’ that former poet laureate of Maryland Lucille Clifton penned on this very campus: ‘may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear, may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back, may you open your eyes to water, water waving forever, and may you in your innocence sail through this to that.’
“The class of 2024 sailed through this to that – through the storm of the pandemic. You went beyond the face of fear. You kissed the wind blowing against you, and now you feel it at your back. It would have been well within your right to throw up your hands and give in to the isolation of the pandemic. Instead, you built camaraderie as a class even amid those challenging circumstances. You made friends at bonfires and beach parties. You smiled and laughed through masks. Who could have blamed you if you chose to fixate on all that was taken from you? But no, you sought out ways to give back, to serve others. I saw that firsthand when your Senior Class President, Maddy Lager, interned in my congressional office last summer.
“Those first semesters could have left you weary and ruined your appetite for fun and excitement. Thankfully they did not, because I hear the class of 2024 has kept some time-honored St. Mary’s traditions alive – from tossing your classmates into St. John’s pond on their birthdays, to organizing the slightly less dignified ‘Natty Boh Hunt’ each Easter. The most important tradition you kept alive, however, was following the ‘St. Mary’s Way.’
“For four years, you contributed to a community founded on the principles of mutual respect, honesty, integrity, and trust. You learned the value of open discourse and diversity of viewpoints, backgrounds, talents, and customs. Our country needs more people with those skills and values today.
“You venture out into a world that can often feel just as isolating – just as uncertain – today as it did during the pandemic. People fear what lies outside their experience and their ideology. There is an urge to quarantine those who don’t share our perspectives. The ‘social distance’ between us often feels far greater than a mere six feet. Many people think our divisions are insurmountable, our political fragmentation inevitable, and our social estrangement intractable. You know better, however.
“You know that it is always possible to come together because you did so as a class at the height of COVID-19. Indeed, there is no one better equipped to bring people together than those who know what it’s like to be kept apart. There is no one better equipped than you, the class of 2024.
“You understand what Robert F. Kennedy said to a group of students at the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa 58 years ago. ‘Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor time nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.’
“The challenges we face are too great, our time is too short, and the stakes are too high for any of us to forfeit our control over our own fate. I can already tell that the class of 2024 will not. My hope is that you will reject nihilism, apathy, and indifference – that you will not only serve others but bring them closer together. You will do so armed with the reason and the principles you developed here on the banks of the St. Mary’s River. As the saying goes, ‘life is indeed better on the river.’
“I’m reminded of a lyric from one of my favorite songs, ‘The River,’ by Garth Brooks. He sings ‘I’ll never reach my destination if I never try so I will sail my vessel ‘til the river runs dry.’ So I encourage you all to keep sailing your vessel ‘til the river runs dry. If you are too young for Garth Brooks, take it from Beyoncé instead. She sings: ‘If you don’t seek it, you won’t see it. If you don’t think it, you won’t be it.’ Today, however, all I want you to do is follow her advice and ‘release the stress, release ya wiggle.’
“Thank you, and Godspeed!”