NZ President’s Report | Welcome
In June I was en route to the US to visit family. Donald Trump, ISIS, and New Zealand’s shadowy trust laws filled the news. Brexit and anti-immigration sentiment were moving towards the front page.
The world seemed to be spiralling ever downwards. Could there possibly be a solution?
Then I sat on the lawn of one of the world’s great educational institutions and listened to President Eisgruber charge his soon to be graduates:
Your Princeton education has provided you with the intellectual resources required not only to connect with one another but also to resist or reverse the partisanship that so threatens America and the world today. We need people who commit themselves to forging a public culture that enables shared, respectful, and engaged discourse through which we can negotiate differences and address the urgent issues confronting us. Taking up that project will call upon all the resources that your liberal arts education has provided you.1
We cheered and applauded these graduates from 57 different countries. This Class, as are all classes since 2001, is a result of Princeton’s “need-blind” admission policy. Acceptance is offered based on the students’ merits and talents, and only later, are the financial grants determined—again, solely on need.2
“Approximately 60 percent of students receive financial aid… (and) 83% of recent seniors graduated debt free…”3 Generations of alumni support for the university underlies this defining programme.
The graduation ceremony followed on three mad-cap days of reunions when thousands of alumni gathered on campus to renew friendships, party, and attend two days of alumni led seminars on campaign finance reform; international energy solutions; legal justice reform; and what’s new in biotechnology. From the Class of 1937 to the Class of 2016, students and alumni mixed perspectives and connected in an environment which encouraged their discourse and debate.
Princeton’s alumni are a diverse group—diverse in culture, religious belief, political perspective, gender and sexual orientation, nationality, and career path, to name only a few. Those differences make us stronger, but they can also sometimes be sources of passionate disagreement or even alienation. Yet despite the arguments—indeed, through the arguments—that we sometimes have with one another, Princeton’s alumni form a meaningful community that persists over time. That community, imperfect though it may be, is part of what we celebrate today and throughout this festive weekend.4
This is the power of education. Our institutions may be a small public primary school or one of our esteemed universities, but each of these, and the range in between, have the power to impact lives and maybe shape the course of the world through the education we provide.
I encourage you all to see the power of our mission. Join President Eisgruber in charging your students and staff and alumni and parents to engage in discourse, to use our education, to embrace our diversity and share our success over the years to benefit others.
We work in education for a reason.
Catherine Boyer
President
NZ Chapter Educate Plus
1 Eisgruber, Chris, “Commencement 2016: Reclaiming Our Civic Culture,” May 31st 2016,
http://www.princeton.edu/president/eisgruber/speeches-writings/archive/?id=16814
2 “Financial Aid FAQ”, https://admission.princeton.edu/financialaid/financial-aid-faq
3 “What’s Great about Princeton’s Financial Aid”, https://admission.princeton.edu/financialaid
4 Eisgruber, Chris, “Commencement 2016: Reclaiming Our Civic Culture,” May 31st 2016
