If I had to select one word for this year and this occasion it would be celebration: We are celebrating a new year — We are celebrating a 100th anniversary — We are celebrating international women ' s year — We will be celebrating the beginning of this country ' s bi-centennial — We are certainly celebrating — in joyful confusion — the largest freshman class and total college enrollment in the history of Mount Vernon — And we are also celebrating for the first time in many years a near-world peace, tenuous though it may be. In a time of celebration, however, one cannot help but look forward, and on such an occasion as this, I am reminded of the young girl when asked who made her, replied: I don ' t know, I haven ' t finished yet. ' ' Today — individually and collectively — we are like that young person. We know where we are and where we have been, and we are looking forward — sometimes eagerly and sometimes with uncertainty — to what we may become. A convocation is a beginning; it helps to make us aware that we haven ' t finished. That ' s the way it should be. But the trick is that we are never really finished, never really all we would like to be or never quite able to contribute all we would like to for future generations. The best we can do is to make improvements as the process of personal and institutional evolution takes place, and the simplest way to do this is to look with candor and affection at the present and with creative anticipation to the future. In that way — the process of celebration is never ending. By 1875, only seven years after admitting her first students, Elizabeth Somers had formally established Mount Vernon as a distinctive girls ' school offering a unique six-year, secondary and post-secondary program of studies. Today — on the occasion of Mount Vernon ' s centennial convocation — we continue to appreciate, en|oy, and respond to the creativity of this distinguished woman, who was dedicated to the possibilities which life and learning provided. And that is my hope for each and all of us today: that in 1975-76 we share in a willingness to define our individual and collective possibilities and to use that potential effectively and with exhilaration in exploring that which we may currently conceive of as the impossible. Elizabeth Somers said it best: Every work of the past is incomplete unless the present sustains it. The college motto — She who conquers herself conquers all things — documents that belief. And Emily Dickinson provides the appropriate climate for implementing individual and collective actions. Writing in 1875, she said: That love is all there is Is all we know of love. Today ' s convocation provides not only an occasion for a loving recollection of what has been, but also an exhilarating example of what is and what may be. The possibilities are yours — and ours. Let us use them well and lovingly. Convocation Address President Peter D. Pelham September 19, 1975
Are you trying to find old school friends, old classmates, fellow servicemen or shipmates? Do you want to see past girlfriends or boyfriends? Relive homecoming, prom, graduation, and other moments on campus captured in yearbook pictures. Revisit your fraternity or sorority and see familiar places. See members of old school clubs and relive old times. Start your search today!
Looking for old family members and relatives? Do you want to find pictures of parents or grandparents when they were in school? Want to find out what hairstyle was popular in the 1920s? E-Yearbook.com has a wealth of genealogy information spanning over a century for many schools with full text search. Use our online Genealogy Resource to uncover history quickly!
Are you planning a reunion and need assistance? E-Yearbook.com can help you with scanning and providing access to yearbook images for promotional materials and activities. We can provide you with an electronic version of your yearbook that can assist you with reunion planning. E-Yearbook.com will also publish the yearbook images online for people to share and enjoy.
