The Story
Charter Day 2003 Ceremony to Deliver 'Message of Desperate Significance'
“We can love what we are, without hating what we are not, without hating who we are not.”
So will begin Charter Day 2003. The words of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, delivered in his Nobel Lecture on 10 December, 2001, will be sung by the William and Mary Choir in the world premier of a piece written by William and Mary alumnus Greg Bartholomew, Class of 1975. The faculty will assemble, the graduating seniors will process into William and Mary Hall and over 2,000 students in addition to alumni and community members will hold their breath in anticipation of hearing more than a musical adaptation of Mr. Annan’s words, which are certain to echo profoundly at his timely appearance at Charter Day.
“It’s a message of desperate significance,” Dr. Constance DeFotis, director of the William and Mary Choir, said of the piece they will be performing. “[It] invites reflection as well as action.”
The people filling William and Mary Hall on Saturday morning look forward to hearing a similar message of desperate significance delivered by Mr. Annan. Through his work with the United Nations, Mr. Annan, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is the voice of peace and security in the international community. With the United States hinting daily at going to war with Iraq and other United Nations members appearing far more hesitant to join, Mr. Annan’s speech at the College could carry significance.
“I think there’ll be some sort of signal from his office to the national media [in the next week],” College President Timothy J. Sullivan said. Whether that signal comes on Saturday morning, the first day following a week full of expected developments concerning Iraq, is the question.
“I think it’s that kind of notion of indirect diplomacy,” Government Professor Katherine Rahman said. She believes Mr. Annan will take his chance to speak to two audiences on Saturday – the College as well as the United Nations Security Council – about the United Nation’s position that “if [war] is necessary, it’s not necessary now.”
The opportunity for the College to hear his argument which, according to Ms. Rahman, is not currently carrying the day in the United States, is one that will be remembered by all. Indeed the College deserves to be proud of itself.
“I hope and believe it’s […] a reflection of the standing of the College,” President Sullivan said about Mr. Annan’s visit. He is confident that students will remember having attended Charter Day at such a critical time period, but also hopes that they will leave the ceremony with fonder memories of the College, the only American college ever chartered.
“I hope they will also appreciate the significance of the ceremony,” he said. “It’s a very graceful kind of event.”
This graceful event includes the reading of excerpts from the College’s charter and the awarding of two honorary degree citations to General Anthony Zinni (Ret.) and James Brinkley, Class of 1959, as well as the designations of the Thomas Jefferson Award and Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award to two faculty members and the Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy to a student.
Through its 310 years in existence, the College has experienced peace as well as war, sometimes at its own front door. As we honor people we deem to exhibit the values of the College in humanity, we will be inspired by the words of a man of peace and come away with a greater sense of what it means to be a part of a College loved of old.