I am an alumnus of Princeton University and have been for more than sixty years, though for most of those years the matter went virtually unmentioned. That is because the degree I have is a doctorate. When someone tells you he (or occasionally she) is a Princeton grad, he means that he graduated from the undergraduate college, F. Scott Fitzgerald and all that, except of course that Scott never graduated. After all, the Graduate School is very much a Johnny-come-lately. It didn’t even exist before 1869, and didn’t seriously exist until the beginning of the twentieth century. The fact that its alumni in several scientific fields keep winning Nobel Prizes doesn’t necessarily count for all that much, locally. But my late dear friend John Wilson, who was graduate dean from 1994 to 2002, made a special effort to raise its institutional profile. He vigorously encouraged doctoral graduates to participate in alumni affairs, which mainly involves attending selected events while wearing a distinctive costume that is at least considerably less absurd than those worn by alumni of the individual undergraduate classes. Of course having taught at the institution for nearly half a century I do find it pleasing to connect with former undergraduates of many student generations.
There are only two events for which Dean Wilson sought out our participation, and which I still try to attend in fealty to our ancient friendship. One of these is Alumni Day, which came around last Saturday. Alumni Day mainly features a few award ceremonies, but at its center is a large sit-down lunch which includes brief speeches by the President of the University, the President of the Alumni Association, and sometimes one or two others. There are always more ad hoc brief ceremonies, and the special awarding of a prize to two alumni, special honors bestowed upon one undergraduate and one graduate alumn(a/us). This year the undergraduate alumna was Elena Kagan. Everybody already knew who she was: an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Some of us had to read the program to identify the graduate alumnus: David Card, an eminent Canadian Nobelist economist teaching at Berkeley. I actually chatted with him a little as we sat next to each other for the “class photo”. You can tell from a mile away that he’s a really nice guy.
My saintly friend Frank, who is unstintingly solicitous of his aging friends, transported me to the venue of the lunch—the vast Jadwyn Gymnasium, or “Cage”, as it is sometimes called. My mobility is not good; I am unsteady on my feet. And I tire pretty quickly if I have to stay on my feet too long. A lengthy stand-up gab-session followed by a luncheon for several hundred people on the basketball court floor is a bit of a challenge. This was apparently obvious to the general observer. Three different deanlets approached me during the crowded non-alcoholic pre-lunch nibbles to ask me if I needed a wheel chair. After thrice rebuffing the suggestion with muted indignation, I had finally to agree that that was exactly what I needed. After succumbing to this reality, life became considerably simpler.
The lunch, a cold salmon steak, was above average for such events, and I enjoyed the conversation at my table. There was also an engaging talk by the suave Director of our University Art Museum, which has for several years been being transformed into a much larger and more architecturally imposing space—of which he gave us a detailed slide-show preview. What one sees under construction from the outside may look like a mud wall to the uncharitable, but the new interior is obviously going to be very classy. The next stop was the Memorial Service in the University chapel. In recent years this solemn event has been for me the main attraction of Alumni Day. A shuttle bus dropped us off near its venue, where we repaired after lounging briefly in overstuffed chairs in the nearby library. The University is a big operation—not merely students and faculty but a very large number of support staff in many fields. So the number of people who die each year and are individually remembered in this impressive service—I would describe it as semi- or crypto-religious—is quite large. The Princeton chapel is manifestly a Christian house of worship. In fact it is a mini-Cathedral. But the ecumenical ceremony, acknowledging the considerable religious diversity of the campus, makes room for prayers and chants from all the principal world religions. The printed necrology always includes several members of the faculty and staff, as well as increasing numbers of the alumni personally known to me. Dean John Wilson’s own name appeared in the list in the last two years. The individual memorialization of the recently dead is achieved by means of a very moving march of living members from all the classes which still have living members. The participants, in pairs forming a solemn flow, march down the cathedral’s long central aisle from the narthex to the top chancel steps. There each marcher places a single flower blossom against a specially prepared board. These bright blossoms—this year of a pure white color--gradually increase to the number of classes with still living member to become as it were a single huge flower. And this year I realized, as I should have done years ago, that this ceremony has all the allegorical energy of the various parades and processions of Dante’s Paradiso and was was very probably inspired by that divine poem. Furthermore the procession echoes the words of the service music. The hymnody always includes the classic Watts hymn “O God, our help in ages past…” with its poignant lines “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away…” The word sons is naturally updated to recognize more explicitly than does the English of the early eighteenth century the equal-opportunity mortality that reckons neither of sex or social status.
No comments:
Post a Comment