Marge:	Where to begin, when introducing a master craftsman? I can start by introducing Robert S. DuPlessis as a graduate of Williams College with a BA degree cum laude, highest honors in history. 
	What propelled him to major in history, ad focus on the early modern Europe? Picking fields is often a mystery, but what young French Canadian Catholic could resist studying the reformation? I don't know when Bob acquired all eight languages he can read, but I am certain that earning a Full Bright in the following year and studying of the Université de Strasbourg, he was honing at least his French and German, and maybe more. He returned to begin his apprenticeship at Columbia University, arriving just in time for an explosion of student protests that rocked the campus in the spring of 1968. 
	DuPlessis picked up his master's degree and moved on to work on his dissertation, urban stability in the Netherlands revolution. And no doubt he gathered more tools of his trade. More languages, perhaps Dutch, Catalan, Spanish, and then in 1975 his first publication, Class Consciousness in Western Cities, 1440 to 1650. 
	By this time, professor DuPlessis had already arrived at Swarthmore College, earned distinction in his doctoral dissertation, and began a long career as a journeyman historian on our campus. Exactly when does one move beyond this journeyman status and into the master stage? In his first years at Swarthmore Professor DuPlessis served on as many committees as the college could command. His classes were packed. His sharp critique on the literature on the transition from feudalism into capitalism stood as the best standard for the new social ... history, and graduate students around the globe. And after picking up an award for teaching, he was granted a Mellon Fellowship to continue his work on textiles in Lille and the Netherlands, only to make himself into a world expert on textiles.
	More committee work followed, but Professor DuPlessis never stopped publishing. His page and a half of papers and publications a test. He came to chair the history, and opened a few windows in our own department to let in new, fresh light. He picked up a few more fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Guggenheim, just to name a few, and somewhere in these years he acquired Italian and Portuguese. 
	His masterpiece was published in 1991, by Cambridge University Press, entitled Lille and the Dutch Revolt, Urban Stability in an Era of Revolution. Three more books would follow. In addition to these many publications, professor DuPlessis was devoted to the ... development of his field, and served on many dissertation committees, organized panels for countless professional meetings, and served as president of the French Colonial Historical Society. Clearly others, outside of Swarthmore, appreciated the mastery of his craft. But it is here at home that our master craftsman is best celebrated. 
	Some of us have asked Bob to comment on our own professional papers and felt the quick sting, and then master summary of our own arguments through his pen. At other times we have listened as he weaves the threads of complicated argument, whether it is witchcraft or Native American trade. Bob can so incisively cut through an argument, it can take your breath away.
	He has mentored many on this campus, and I know the most devoted of his mentees will agree with me, his passion for excellence has inspired us all. He has taught us never to stop growing in our field, as nearly a decade ago we watched Bob lead, and introducing the study of the Atlantic World to all of his colleagues. Even in his last days teaching here, he introduced a new course on the history of the Caribbean in his very last semester.
	And in the final weeks of his semester I stood outside his classroom, just to listen, one more time, to the DuPlessis narrative, to that command of literature so expertly woven, and to the joy of mastery he can convey to an audience. And so this morning, you get to hear the best that history has to offer, from a true master of his craft.
Prof. DuPlessis:	I want to thank Marge for that ... I don't know what to call it, I'd say an obit. But I'm still here in front of you! So ... it's nice to be able to read your own obit. I want to ... anyway, Marge's friendship and colleague-ship, and greatness of spirit have been something that have been incredibly important to me in my years at Swarthmore, and I think also incredibly important to the life of this college. And so I'd like to thank her very much for her introduction.
	I'd like to thank, also, Maurice Eldridge for inviting me to give this presentation, and I'd like to greet the faculty, the staff, the administration, the board, and give my heartiest greetings to the graduates of the class of 2011. This would be my 45th ... anniversary I guess is what it is. And I'd like to greet, also, your families and your friends, and wish them welcome as well.
	Now when Maurice asked me a while ago to speak at Baccalaureate, I thought, for my own interest and as a historian, that it would be a good idea to find out something about the history and meaning of the event. I sort of wanted to know what I was getting in for, and what you were getting in for. So I did a little research, not all of it on Wikipedia. It turns out that he baccalaureate service originated in 1432, or so, probably at Oxford University in England.
	Each graduate was obliged to deliver an oration, or a sermon, in Latin, to demonstrate his, remember this was the middle ages so universities were only open to men, so to demonstrate his worthiness to receive the degree of bachelor, and then to have this signified by being crowned with laurel. So I thought, this sounds pretty good, not much I have to do. I'm just gonna sit back and wait for you guys to declaim. Now I assume everybody is prepared. But actually, to be fair, let's start with the classics majors. Chris Wolt. Any takers? Okay! Just as I fear. Now I understand why this custom has been abandoned almost everywhere. Almost everywhere, don't graduate from a Swedish university because you still have to give a public declamation in Latin when you do. But you probably are not going to.
	In fact, outside the U.S., baccalaureate and higher education have parted ways. Bacca, or le bac, baccalauréat, and laureate, laureate in Italy, now these usually refer to high school examination and degree! So you're sitting here listening to your high school speaker! But in the U.S., and pretty much only in the U.S., the baccalaureate service has survived. And it's survived by evolving. And it's evolved into what we have today, a kind of secular and religious hybrid. But it always involves, or almost always involves, some sort of lecture or sermon. Sometimes these are short, but according to one source I read, baccalaureate sermons can last up to four hours. So in the remaining three hours and 56 minutes, sit back, take off your shoes if you want, you'll be a little late for lunch.
	But seriously, why do we have baccalaureates still in the States? Why has it become what it is now? Why does it survive? Once upon a time, as I just outlined, the baccalaureate service was in effect what we now call commencement. After you had orated and been crowned with laurels, you were a bachelor. You had your degree. But it's not that anymore. Commencement, after all, is a separate ceremony all its own. So come to think of it, why do we have the whole shebang of commencement?
	Once you've written your final papers, once you've passed your final exams, once you've paid your library fines, don't forget! Once you've been voted upon by the faculty, we did that, don't worry. And as long as the alumni fund has your address, that's the really important thing. But as soon as all that's done, you've earned your degree! You can leave! So why do we get dressed up in these archaic robes? Why do we parade in ordered processions? Why do we listen to lectures? And why do we do all of this at Swarthmore of all places? Where I think it's fair to say, dress is usually informal. Where most people march to their own drummer, and where we pride ourselves on the give and take of discussion? And even more, why do we do this not just once, but several times for two hot days in a row? Baccalaureate, last collection, commencement. What's going on here?
	What's going on here, though it's rarely said in so many words, is a version of a rite of passage. You ... you, and you, are in the process of changing your status. Also your parents, but to different status. From people who owe the house, to those who owe a little less than the house. Right? You're in the process of changing your status. You're separating from your one state of being, your previous state of being, undergraduate, and you're doing this so you can be incorporated into another state of being, college graduate.
	Now this is a transition that involves anticipation and celebration, but also uncertainty and anxiety. And all concerned feel all of these. The future is there for you to make, and perhaps to take, but are you prepared to make it and to take it? Have you mastered the skills of the status that you're exiting, so that you can successfully navigate the new status that you're entering? Have we taught you what you need to know?
	Now, transitions like this occur in many people's lives, so societies, and college is nothing if not a society, societies have come up with ways to manage that combination of eager expectation and inevitable apprehension. And those ways are rituals or rites, to assist the transition from one status to the other. Now in societies of a whole, rites of passage embrace a wide range of ceremonies. They employ an array of media and performance, in a range of settings, to separate you from one social status and integrate you into another. But virtually all societies seek to facilitate successful passage by reminding those who are in transition of the society's central values and by urging their observance in the future. To do this ritual work, educational societies like Swarthmore rely on what they know best. That is words. And they, we, try to enhance the influence of these words by embedding them in an environment, academic regalia, ordered processions, inspirational readings, specific music, and so forth. We embed them in an environment that invokes centuries of academic authority.
	So, in my remaining three hours and 45 minutes, I'm going to deliver a secular sermon. In it, I want to speak about some core values that I believe characterize Swarthmore, and will serve you well in your new life stage. These values may have challenged your personal values, may have complemented, supplemented, or enlarged them, or may have affirmed those values. But they were, I beieve, sufficiently articulated here at Swarthmore, so that you had to deal with them in one way or another.
	Now, values talk may make you, like me, nervous, annoyed, even bored. And for good reason. Seeing how the term values is so frequently harnessed as part of a glib phrase intended to impose consensus around some or another toxic brew of prejudice. The very term values has thus been devalued by the repulsively instrumental and frankly cynical uses to which it as been put. No one, after all, trumpets family values more than serial adulterers. Too often, in others, values have been proclaimed most insistently by those who are apparently determined to discredit the notion that values should be taken seriously. But I want to urge you to go beyond your initial reactions to values talk, and to actually take values seriously.
	For values are, to quote a common definition, principles, standards, or qualities considered worthwhile or desirable. In other words, they're not sound bites. They are aspirations, commitments, and convictions, that guide your behavior. As we all know, of course, values are not necessarily good, per se. Nor inevitably are they templates for correct action. On the contrary, some values can lead to discrimination, to dishonor, to destruction. These are not, needless to say, the kind of core values that I believe the college has helped to nurture.
	Now, in speaking of core values that I hope the college has helped to nurture, I do not mean to suggest that Swarthmore College has provided you all, or even most, of your core values. You didn't arrive at the college as little tabular razes that were manipulated and molded by insidious intellectuals, wielding abstruse theories to impose nefarious agendas. Well, not only that. You were already moral beings with value systems of your own.
	But what are these Swarthmore core values that I want to celebrate? Well some are rooted very specifically, and are very close to Quakerism. These are things like an emphasis on justice, a kind of quotidian egalitarianism, and a habit of plain speaking. These values ... good. Too bad grades are in. These values, and there are others, are important. And in your future years I'm confident that you will both see how they were part of the fabric of daily life at Swarthmore, and you will want to implement them in your new surroundings. But beyond these, I want to emphasize three values, or three clusters of values that I believe lie at the heart of the educational mission of Swarthmore, and I believe should be carried from this environment to your lives after Swarthmore.
	The first of the three is a global outlook. By this I mean that knowledge must be sought across and beyond confining boarders of race, class, gender, religion, nationality. I mean global in the sense of an inclusive appreciation of the multifarious peoples, societies, and cultures past and present. In this country and across the world, that you can learn from. In this wide definition of global lies an insistence that true knowledge necessarily involves engaging with as many perspectives as possible. In this definition lies the realization that only by encountering and attempting to comprehend the origins, the assumptions, and the logics of people and of perspectives that are different from, even repellent to, our own perspectives. Only in this way can we adequately understand, and adequately exemplify our own convictions. 
	True learning requires broad exposure along as many parameters as possible. This is a type of deep diversity that's not politically correct, but educationally mandatory. Still, exposure to even a wealth of exciting, startling, even frightening perspectives does not, by itself, guarantee productive learning. It's a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. And so a second cluster of Swarthmore values is vital.
	This cluster involves resolute but civil discussion, questioning, and debate. It is what the philosopher Martha Nussbaum has called respectful argument. And it can be, and should be, combative in the sense of entering into an engagement, a real engagement. But it should not be conquering. It doesn't seek to win, but to explore. It doesn't seek to gain advantage, but to advance knowledge.
	Third, and finally, I guess I'm not gonna use all four hours. Third and finally, the advancement of knowledge in the ways I've outlined, is inextricably linked in the Swarthmore value system with a concern for the collective welfare, or as it's sometimes express, the common good. This value does not for a moment deny the individual satisfaction, the real aesthetic pleasure of learning that you do on your own. Rather, it asserts that a chief desired outcome of broad ranging rigorous conversations at the college and elsewhere, is knowledge and skills that not only can, but must be used for positive ends in the wider world.
	To be sure, these values are not always, and perhaps in your view not sufficiently, exemplified in, at, and by the college. But this is no reason to ignore them in your own life. Moreover, they're not static. Though they're now central to the college's mission, they have emerged over time, they have taken on new urgency, they have required new understandings and means of implementation. But this too it no reason to ignore them in your own life. For they're not abstract statements, facile to proclaim, and requiring only unthinking and ... effortless consent. Rather, they are values embedded in pedagogic and community practices. 
	For at the end of the day, of course, it is the practices that values motivate that truly matter. It's not sufficient for you to know what you should do if you don't do it. It's easier, we all know, to trumpet values than to live by them. But as Swarthmore graduates I believe you have an edge in practice. The values that I have emphasized have certainly been articulated at the college, but at the best they've been more than words. They've been manifested in people, in policy, and in programs. They've been made intrinsic to your educational experience. Your edge, then, is that you've already been living by these values, and this familiarity should both make you attentive to these core values, and make it easier for you to manifest them in the future.
	Now I'm too much of a historian, too aware of the play of contingency, to assure you that by exemplifying the core values you've experienced at Swarthmore, you'll be guaranteed something in the future. But I'm also something of a structuralist. So I will affirm that welcoming difference, engaging in respectful argument, and attending to civic responsibility, make more likely a successful passage to a life that I believe you and the larger societies will find richly rewarding and deeply satisfying. Thank you.