Reflections, 25 Years Hence

It is 2038. The Harvard College Class of 2013 is about to reconvene for its 25th alumni reunion. What will its members find?

It is 2013. The answer to that question is unknowable, but one hint is to consider what the members Class of 1988, the current 25th reunion class, observe as they reminisce. When its members were College Seniors, Japan was Number One. Its economy, its manufacturing processes, its consensus approach to decision making, and its technological versatility had dazzled the world in preceding decades. Three years before Commencement, in 1985, the countries we now know as the members of the European Union had signed the Schengen Agreement to open their borders to each other to permit the passport-free movement of the citizens of member countries. In 1986, the Single European Act dramatically changed the rules for economic transactions between member countries, unleashing the promise of European prosperity in years to come. Also in 1986, Spain and Portugal joined as full member countries, in recognition of their successful transition from dictatorship to democracy, and deployed policies to nurture impressive economic growth. On Commencement 1988, the Soviet Union’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, appreciably younger than the president of the United States, embodied the prospects for economic reform and a more general openness that augured well for the superpower’s future and for change also in Communist-rule Eastern Europe. Much good had happened, but no simple straight-line projection would have served as a reliable forecast for the quarter century yet to follow.

The Harvard College of the Class of 1988 had many fewer students who held passports from countries other than the United States. Approximately one out of five graduating Seniors of the Class of 2013 hold such passports. In 1988, the Harvard Summer School had not yet invented its impressive array of courses and programs abroad, which would be available to the Class of 2013. In 1988, Harvard College’s rules discouraged study abroad. In 1988, Paul and Harriet Weissman had not yet established their programs for internships the world over, nor had David Rockefeller’s magnificent gift to encourage and facilitate all kinds of undergraduate international experiences yet been made. The Class of 2013, therefore, found a Harvard College more open to, and readier to equip you for, the world as it has been changing. On Commencement Day, a significant majority of the Class of 2013 has had a significant international experience during their years at Harvard.

Yet, the connections between the world and the College are often still elusive. Do members of the Class of 2013 think much about the fact that the United States has been at war uninterruptedly, each and every year, for most of their lifetimes? Have they cheered that, within the past two decades, hundreds of millions of formerly poor people have stopped living in utter misery, mainly in China, but also in India, Brazil, Mexico, and other countries? Yet, have they also noticed that the poor still people much of the world, and that, for many years, the promise of prosperity for the median citizen in the United States, Europe, and Japan has seemed remote at best?

One of the older formulations about the meaning of a liberal arts education is a residual, that is, whatever may remain after you have forgotten all the facts. With the facts about to be forgotten, then, your parents, your teachers, all who care for you, and you above all, hope that you have learned to think, analyze, interpret, perceive, ascertain, imagine, emote, research, compute, test and otherwise embody other active verbs that have earned you the greetings of the President on Commencement morning, as she welcomes you to the fellowship of educated men and women.

Today, even more than a quarter century ago, we also expect you to be alert to the world all over the world, understand that the global begins at home wherever home may be, and that globality is not an invention of the present but part of a legacy of sensibilities and understandings on which the present builds and connects to the distant past. In a world still torn by war, you must focus honorably, albeit critically, on why and how others may disagree with you, and must consider respectfully aesthetics, systems of belief, and approaches to life that may be quite at odds from yours. Affirm your values, deploy your competence, but always in the certainty that veritas requires ongoing struggle in its search, sustained uncertainty en route, and the pleasures of its encounter some time, somewhere—but never before your 25th reunion—for a life of learning, accomplishment, and contribution to the world.

Jorge I. Domínguez is the Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico and Vice Provost for International Affairs.