Janet E. :	Hi everyone. I'm Janet [Erlick 00:03]. I am the class of 88. This is the only place you will come back and brag about how old you are anywhere in the world. We would have done terrible things to get a pasta bar back then just for the record. I don't really know what the complaint is there. I want to begin today by sharing a story that just actually occurred on my way here. One of the wonderful things about my role on the alumni council is having the opportunity to speak with incredibly brilliant, interesting people doing all sorts of wild and wonderful things out in world, so whenever I'm back on campus I try to set up some meetings. Had one with an alum who currently is a medical examiner in this county and also because he's a [Swatty 00:47] is interested in fossils and has this unbelievable collection of dinosaur things, and these billion year old ... I mean just unbelievable wild wonderful things. 
	He is really interested because it's not enough that he is this brilliant forensic pathologist, but wants to look at combining art and science into some resources that hopefully the college will have access to down the line. That was cool. We had this great talk, and then I was sort of running late to come here. He said "Would you like me to drive you to campus?" I have my luggage because from here I go to a plane back home. I said that would be great.
	We piled into the medical examiner truck and pulled up to the Rose Garden. Standing at the Rose Garden was the wonderful Dion Lewis who you will hopefully have the chance to spend lots of time with here. He's the director of the black cultural center and an administrator. Another administrator who watched the medical examiner car pull up. Of course, thinking that Val and all of the senior staff was involved in meetings with you, he quickly realized he was the top official in charge and had to handle this horrible crisis, tragic awful thing that happened. Which was me just getting dropped off.
	I get out of the car with my bag. Later he said that was what really sent him into apoplexy because nothing good comes out of little black bags, is how he put it. I get out and say "Hi." We have this very awkward weird exchange while he's figuring out what horrible thing happened, and I'm wondering why he was saying hello in such a weird way. Then we put all the pieces together and everybody took a breath. 
	But what was so interesting to me about that was we start with these assumptions that we don't even know we have, but they're based on the context and our perspective. Just by me arriving, which was not really a thing for me, was a really major heart attack inducing moment for this poor administrator and I do owe him at least a bottle of wine Val. I'm sure he will tell you this story. But then he said "Oh, just come. Let's have a talk."
	I went in his office and we had this incredible wonderful moment where we laughed about this and thought about how funny it was and how the story will be recounted down the line. But it really made me think about how many moments like that we will have, and we do have. In my own time coming here, the entire summer before arriving here, I cried because I wanted to go to Vassar. Meryl Streep went to Vassar. That was all I thought, and I wanted to go to Vassar. My parents said "Well, you got into Swarthmore and they gave you a lot more money. It's a way better school, sorry Vassar, and you're going to Swarthmore." It was very traumatic for me.
	Back then, I know I promised my friends I wouldn't do it, but it was before computers when I was here. We were typewriter and paper people. We only had one phone in the hallway. I know. I'm sorry friends. I had to do it anyway. But I got a card in the mail eventually with my roommate's name on it. Her name was Alexandra [Poplex Apullo 03:56]. It was so long that it kind of went all the way almost off the card. She lived in Greece, so that really sent me into ... Well, she's not going to speak English and now I have this whole thing and my whole experience. I was looking for any reason to be unhappy about having to come here. 
	I made lots of assumptions about that. Finally arrived on the day like today where we moved into [Willit's 04:21] third south. Where are my Willit's people? Amazing. So fun. I know they call it Thrillit's now. I feel like gypped. We did not call it there when I was here, so I hope you earn the title friends. But, got there. Opened my dorm room, and she and her mother were "Oh well we already went to Target and we got this and this, but if you don't like the hot plate and if you don't ... " I really had a smack down moment and a very humbling moment, and a moment that was really important to me, because it was the moment where I had to get over myself and really be open and present.
	She and I were vastly different. She was an economics person. I was a theater person. We had a lot of divergent interests and a lot of divergent friends, but we had this incredible, wonderful connection. We stayed roommates the entire time we were here, except the senior year she was an RA but I lived right across from her. I mean, we really had this bond that transcended all of the kinds of things usually you think of when you're friends have to be this, and have to share this, and have to have that. B, I know everybody has said it, but having those moments where you get a chance to reassess those kinds of assumptions that you make, even if you don't know you're doing it can be incredibly incredibly powerful and impactful. 
	When I came, we did not have a theater major. We had a concentration, which I heard a whoop so thank you for theater people. My friends and I, that didn't really work for us, so we worked really hard to have it looked at and considered as a major. I'm proud to say that I'm either the first or second theater major to graduate, depending on the records when you look at that. But that was a really important lesson because like [Setti 06:11] shared, you will be able to leave your mark here as well when there are things that you care about that don't look the way that you think they should. When there's something missing from the curriculum. There was no theater education program when I came, and that was what I became interested in, so there was a theater professor and an education professor who were willing to help me design a course. I went to the local school and did a whole curriculum. That was a place here where you're told yes to those kinds of things. 
	I came in pre-med. I was going to be a pediatrician. That's all I had ever wanted to do. I was the weird little kid that instead of playing outside, my teacher would smuggle me fetal pigs and perches and I had my own dissecting kit. I would teach the neighborhood children these dissecting workshops on our front porch on the picnic table, which I thought was really amazing. I taught them a lot of very excellent anatomy. I took five years of Latin in high school because it would help me write prescriptions. Like that was kind of a waste, but you're not going to hear it from me.
	But I was so set that that was my plan and that was the only thing that I had in my world that I wanted to do. Then I came to Swarthmore and started with curriculum here. Took a bunch of things. Then I had that semester where I took organic chemistry and calculus and I was like "Yeah. I don't know if this is really what I want to be doing." Meanwhile my interest in theater was happening and meanwhile like President Smith said I was looking at that catalog and saying "Well this looks interesting. This looks cool." I ended up leaving here a double major in theater and psychology, not because that was the path that I set, but because I ended up having so many credits in those areas that it ended up being easy for me to do. 
	I can't articulate enough how wonderful it is to have a place here that will say yes to you if you are willing to ask those questions and try it out. I work with a lot of students now on the other end. I'm the director of a non profit youth arts organization. So many people cry when they go to college because they call saying "Well I don't know what to take and I can't take this and I can't take that." When I tell them, "Well go. What sounds interesting to you?" They tell me "Well it's not on our academic major map so we're not allowed to take any of those classes." 
	Because in many other organizations, many other large intuitions, many other colleges and universities, you are so limited in what you are allowed to take and it is so narrow and you're having to declare so so early that here it is not that way. I invite you, I urge you, I celebrate you to take advantage of that incredible opportunity to be told yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Welcome to the alumni. You're now alums, even though you haven't done anything. Isn't that cool? 
	We really look forward to all of the things that you will do. Please reach out to us on the alumni council and as part of the alumni network, you have a very incredible team here. We are all rooting for you. We are all here to support you. If there is things you're interested in, I'm sure we can find one of the 19,000 plus of us in the club that knows something about it that can help lead the way for you as well. Congratulations and I'm so excited to see everything that you do. Thank you.