{"id":4459,"date":"2020-04-21T14:40:11","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T18:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/?p=4459"},"modified":"2021-10-28T17:07:05","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T21:07:05","slug":"encouragement-from-the-pas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/2020\/04\/21\/encouragement-from-the-pas\/","title":{"rendered":"Encouragement from the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>In 2012, the late journalist Gwen Ifill offered these inspiring words to the graduating seniors:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m going to give you some advice, and it\u2019s fairly simple piece of advice, and it is this: Look up. We\u2019re all looking down. We\u2019re all looking down as we walk, as we talk, as we text. How many of you are tweeting about this right now? Look up! Pay attention to what\u2019s going on up here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>If you look up, you will see the chance to speak and to act on behalf of the discouraged and the diminished.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s so much simpler to look down. Your feet are down there, our screens are down there. But our fears are down there too. If you look up and away from the fear you will see the destinations you are headed toward, and you will see the opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/files\/2020\/04\/120527_Commencement_4804-900x600.jpg\" alt=\"Molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler, actor Robert De Niro and PBS \u201cNewshour\u201d senior correspondent Gwen Ifill spoke and received honorary degrees during Bates College\u2019s 2012 Commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 27.The college\u2019s 146th Commencement activities began at 10 a.m. on its Historic Quad, at Campus Avenue and College Street.\" class=\"wp-image-4461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/files\/2020\/04\/120527_Commencement_4804-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/files\/2020\/04\/120527_Commencement_4804-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/files\/2020\/04\/120527_Commencement_4804-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/files\/2020\/04\/120527_Commencement_4804-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/files\/2020\/04\/120527_Commencement_4804-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/files\/2020\/04\/120527_Commencement_4804.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><figcaption>The late PBS <em>Newshour<\/em> senior correspondent Gwen Ifill spoke and received an honorary degrees during Bates College\u2019s 2012 Commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 27. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If you look up, you will see the chance to speak and to act on behalf of the discouraged and the diminished. If you look up you will see the expectation you set for yourself can only be expectations that we are setting for you today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you look up, you will realize you have a responsibility to build a set of steps for those following behind you to climb up. If you look up you will see that a Bates degree is the beginning of your life\u2019s education but not the end.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2012, the late journalist Gwen Ifill offered these inspiring words to the graduating seniors: &#8220;Look up.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":4461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[13,15,16,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commencement-2020","category-commencement-2021","category-commencement-2022","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4459"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4565,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4459\/revisions\/4565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}