{"id":116209,"date":"2018-05-27T14:45:25","date_gmt":"2018-05-27T18:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=116209"},"modified":"2023-01-24T14:44:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T19:44:00","slug":"get-proximate-to-people-who-are-suffering-bryan-stevenson-tells-bates-college-commencement-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/05\/27\/get-proximate-to-people-who-are-suffering-bryan-stevenson-tells-bates-college-commencement-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Get proximate to people who are suffering,’ Bryan Stevenson tells Bates Commencement audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the start of his undergraduate career, Bryan Stevenson loved college. In fact, he would say it to people all the time. \u201cI was a very uncool college student,\u201d he told a Bates audience on May 27.<\/p>\n

But as a senior, he looked at different choices for graduate study and wondered if he\u2019d find one that he could love and one that would align with his concerns about advancing social justice. Stevenson got his answer at Harvard Law.<\/p>\n\t\n\t

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Rakiya Mohamed '18 of Auburn, Maine, hugs her brother Mohamed Mohamed, who just graduated from UMaine-Augusta, after graduation on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Adedire Fakorede '18 of Newark, N.J., listens to President Clayton Spencer during Commencement. (Theophyl Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Piper Tom Ryan has a commanding view of the Quad and the processional during Commencement on May 27, 2018. (Theophyl Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Brooke Drabkin of Roslyn Heights, N.Y., celebrates her Bates Commencement on May 27, 2018.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Lindsey Beauregard of Hollis, N.H., listens to President Clayton Spencer speak while Bates celebrates its 152nd Commencement on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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In the context of a course, he spent a month working with death-row inmates. \u201cI got proximate\u201d to the prisoners, he said. \u201cIn proximity to the condemned, everything changed for me. I found a calling.\u201d And that experience set Stevenson, now a nationally esteemed human rights lawyer, on the path he still follows.<\/p>\n

Offering an address that was a riveting mixture of reminiscence, humor, and urgent exhortation, Stevenson was the featured speaker and one of four honorary degree recipients<\/a> at Bates\u2019 152nd Commencement. He spoke to 473 graduating seniors, their loved ones, faculty, and staff on a cool gray morning under the trees of the Historic Quad.<\/p>\n

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Bates granted degrees to 473 members of the Class of 2018 during Commencement on May 27. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Also receiving honoraries were:<\/p>\n

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  • Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist;<\/li>\n
  • Jill Lepore, historian, professor, and New Yorker<\/em> staff writer;<\/li>\n
  • and Bob Ludwig, whose expertise in the field of audio mastering has made him a music industry legend.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    There may be no shortage of \u201cchange the world\u201d messaging at college graduations, but Stevenson and Senior Speaker Rakiya Mohamed of Auburn, Maine, tackled the concept in ways that were disparate but equally convincing and appealingly personal. Stevenson offered four steps to making the world a better place, of which \u201cgetting proximate\u201d was the first.<\/p>\n

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    Video playlist of the Bates College Commencement on May 27, 2018:
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