Class Response by Jackson Pierce-Felker '18, Commencement 2018

What a joyous morning it is, Class of 2018. I'd like to extend a heartfelt and grateful greeting to the families, friends and University faculty here today. Your mentorship over the past four years has been truly invaluable and we would not be here without your help. Thank you for believing in us.

Today, I'd like to encourage you to embrace your own natural geometry, your authentic values and principles, as you embark on the unstructured journey ahead. I implore you to be true to what calls you and to trust in the lessons you've learned in these classrooms. To look and to leap. And while my heart and my intentions lie with today's graduates, I think this courage is something everyone should carry.

If my voice sounds familiar, it's because I've spent the last year working as a caller at the Student Calling Program — try and hang up on me this time. You can hold on to your credit cards. But really, it's been a great opportunity to connect with Bucknell families and gather their wisdom. Your parents have taught me how to maintain relationships from miles away, the wisdom of an 8 p.m. bedtime and the secret relief of an empty nest.

But there's one thing I hear on the phones again and again that strikes me. Maybe you've heard it yourselves: "College is the best four years of your life." Really, the best four years. It rolls off the tongue like a universal truth, with no wiggle room for the breadth of human experience, no variation for major or career path.

The first time I heard that, I felt this big black void open in my stomach. Not because I haven't enjoyed my time at Bucknell, but because I've spent a good chunk of that time bent over books in the library, wishing I was asleep. And I've spent too much of the rest agonizing over the future. So, hearing alumni say that phrase again and again made me anxious — had I wasted the best four years of my life worrying about what was next? Would it be it all downhill from here? To borrow from Mr. Cramer, is life after college a bull, or a bear?

It'll be bullish. And to the idea that the last four years will be the pinnacle of our lives, I also call "bull." I reject the notion that it's all downhill and instead propose that we can only go up. To claim that college was the best four years of your life is to speak as someone who has already surrendered. We wouldn't take one bite out of an apple, then throw the rest away because the first crunch was so satisfying. We wouldn't skim the first few words of the Constitution and burn the remainder because the preamble seemed comprehensive enough. We'd be missing out on a lot. And if we live like our best years are behind us, we're missing out on a lot of life.

I think that the evil seed here is what I call the beeline complex — the belief that we have to take the most direct route to our goals and that we can't stop and smell the roses until we get there. That linearity is the only way and that straying from the beaten path is as good as failure.

As a high school senior in the D.C. metro area, I was prepared to live a straightforward life: graduation to a Maryland state school, an easy business degree, leading into any job that could provide the fiscal security necessary to take care of my family. I was afraid of anything beyond that — afraid of risking my neck for an opportunity and humiliating myself.

But all that changed when someone took the time to tell me that I could find success outside of those parameters. The Posse Foundation gave me the opportunity to leave the only home I'd ever known, to transplant my life somewhere I hadn't even considered. Rural Pennsylvania. A place where growth would be as difficult as it was rewarding. Posse gave me the chance to break away from safety and take a risk.

Had I followed the path of least resistance, I never would've left Maryland. I never would've had the chance to present my own artwork at a diversity summit, or to build communities as an RA, or to research the effects of exogenous oxytocin on voles. If you had told me at 17 that I would spend a summer in Lewisburg writing poetry with other undergraduates from around the country, or that I would team up with one of my best friends to start Bucknell's best boy band, I would've laughed at you. Choosing the comfort of home would have cost me so much.

The very vascularity of our bodies urges us to curve, to bend, to deny normalcy, so I'm going to keep listening. This summer, I'll be moving to Maine to restore a flower nursery and work on my music while I study for the GRE. After that, maybe I'll get a Ph.D. and save the bees, or join the Peace Corps, but I'm not going to attach to any outcomes because I know how things can change.

The calling program has introduced me to alumni who started out as biochemists but discovered a passion for making soap. I've spoken with former English majors who now develop the polymers in our chewing gum, psych majors turned account executives turned nonprofit giants. The one thing they all have in common is that they weren't afraid to step away from what was familiar to them. Stories like these have taught me that we need not fear the unknown — oh no. The unknown needs to fear us. We went to Bucknell.

Life won't get any easier or slower. But we've got to build the sorts of lives that allow every year to be our best. We can only do that by (a) being authentic about our values and (b) rejecting the pre-packaged futures thrust upon us by history. If we can just embody those two principles, our success will nourish the generations that follow to do the same. In turn, they'll learn to ignore our footsteps entirely and pave their own roads to a better society. That's a true legacy.

Behind me lies a piece of the Susquehanna Valley: mountains, forests and wildlife that have withstood the test of time by being adaptive, resilient and diverse. Before me lies a community of scholars capable of that same resiliency and versatility.

Now, more than ever, we're going to need leaders who aren't afraid to bend, to pioneer, to be vulnerable in the face of the unknown. We have a responsibility to disrupt, agitate and crash through the structures we know, to push life in new directions. To follow our natural geometry and let it lead us to truth, love and growth. Don't let graduation make you complacent. The real work has only just begun. But we needn't be afraid. We went to Bucknell.