Convocation 2021

I’d also like to take a moment to acknowledge the faculty, here in their own colorful regalia, or watching at home, with us to celebrate you and this new beginning—thank you! Thank you for all that you did last year, and all that you continue to do to make Mount Holyoke the vibrant intellectual community, the place of inquiry and challenge, that it always is. Please join me in also offering a special welcome to the new faculty joining Mount Holyoke this year.

Let us also express our gratitude to the extraordinary staff of Mount Holyoke— those you see every day, and those whose labor may not be visible to you. Thank you to all of our staff for everything that you do, and have done throughout this difficult period, and for always being present to center the mission of Mount Holyoke College.

Finally, there are others joining this opening moment, near and far. Students, this is a moment for you to acknowledge friends and family who have been a part of your journey, [and who] accompanied you in times of great joy and probably through some disappointments, too. Please give a loud cheer and a round of applause for all those who have supported you on the journey to this day.

We—TOGETHER—are Mount Holyoke! And we’ve been preparing for your return or for your arrival, and for this moment, when we could, once again, be present and together on campus.

Convocation Address 2021

As I wrote in my invitation to you on Monday, this year’s Convocation brings us together in person after many more months of separation and distance than is usual. These last 18 months have been a challenging time in our country and across the world — a time of loss and mourning; a time of isolation, uncertainty and fear; a time of reckoning with racism, injustice and inequity in the many forms that these take; and a time of global political and environmental instability. Even as we renew a sense of community here on the Mount Holyoke campus, it is important to acknowledge the pain and loss; the work yet to be done to address injustice; anxieties resulting from a continuing pandemic, as well as to commit together to the safety, health and the flourishing of each and every member of this beloved community.

Right before the pandemic took hold in the United States, my son sent me a squirrel-proof bird feeder for my birthday. Rest assured, no animals are harmed as a result of this gift, unless you consider withholding food from squirrels so that the starlings can eat it all harmful and something of a travesty —  which I do, I confess. 

I love nature in all its beauty and all its forms; I’m curious about the plant and animal worlds, but I had never, until 2020, fed the birds. And yet, here I was, along with a reported 30% of others, appreciating nature all the more during the pandemic months, perhaps because it was outside (my window) and I was very much inside my Zoom box; perhaps because, for the birds, the squirrels and the trees, life appeared to continue much as before (I watched as new trees took root, several generations of hatchlings took their chances in this world, two fox litters ventured out of their den); and, perhaps, because it was a reminder that we are all, always, connected to something bigger than ourselves. 

And so, little by little, I attracted more and different birds to my feeder, including beautiful and amazing hummingbirds. "Feeding wild birds is a deceptively commonplace activity,” I read. “Yet, it is one of the most intimate, private, and potentially profound forms of human interaction with nature.” “People who feed birds are alert to a wide range of additional natural phenomena," this article continued, with several scientific studies presenting positive data that engaging with backyard nature might have broad ecological impacts, both on nature and on behaviors and attitudes1.  And yet, and yet…while people were going hungry—food insecurity was up by a third, or by 10 million, in 2020(2) and food banks were feeding 55% more people while receiving decreased donations, especially from grocery stores and manufacturers, and with fewer volunteers—while people were going hungry, sales of bird food and feeders, and indeed squirrel feeders, were up by a half (3).  Food insecurity [during the pandemic] was between two and three times as likely to impact Black, Latinx and Indigenous individuals and their families than white, while birdwatching and other outdoor activities have been seen as predominantly white (privileged) activities. It is a paradox that 57 million Americans spend over $4 billion on feeding the birds without fully understanding the environmental impact of doing so, and without a similar focus on the 45 million fellow humans who go hungry each night. Such conjunctions and contradictions require us to think about how we live our lives, how we engage, not just as observers but as individuals who consciously interrogate and act to address that privilege, who are open to seeing and learning, and then to changing whatever we can, and in every way we can.

When Christian Cooper, a Black man birding in The Ramble of Central Park in May 2020, was falsely accused by Amy Cooper, a white woman with an unleashed dog, of threatening her life, the great gulf between her white privilege and safety, and the dangers of living life as a person of color, was yet again brought into sharp focus. In one response of many to this incident, a group  of young Black scientists ran a weeklong social-media series to reclaim the outdoors and to celebrate Black birders and nature explorers, highlighting #BlackWomenWhoBird and #BirdingWhileBlack. Corina Newsome, co-organizer of Black Birders Week, said:

Birding is a hope-giving activity. Birds are […] a symbol for hope, like the Emily Dickinson poem. 

Part of the joy of birding is looking for different birds and immersing yourself in their diversity. […] Every single species is like a jewel. It’s a treasure hunt and it’s thrilling. […]

A hummingbird weighs 0.1 ounces, […] they have fragile vertebrae, and yet they fly incredibly long distances with no land in sight. […] Even when I feel weak or fragile or not cut out for something, birds remind me not to disqualify myself.4

This movement reminds us that we all need this deep connection with nature, that it is a gift to us to share the planet with each other, and with all the species, the “jewels,” of the natural world; that we can draw upon its diversity, strength and beauty in ways that are not about exploiting it, or denying each other the opportunities to share in its lessons and its joys.

Just as the fledgling wrens were leaving the tiny wooden nesting box that I received for my birthday, I received another gift—a book that reminds us to appreciate gifts in all their forms, especially the gifts of nature, to understand the responsibilities that come with our own gifts, and to cultivate the uniquely human gift of gratitude that fully honors them. That gift was Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass,” a book that draws us into its deep knowledge and experience, its harmonies of life and art forms, its restorative reciprocity; into a culture of gratitude, reminding us that “all flourishing is mutual.”  We are, Kimmerer tells us, “bound in a covenant of reciprocity, a pact of mutual responsibility to sustain those who sustain us.”5 And I feel immensely grateful for the gift of this sustained and sustaining reflection--for the indigenous stories, wisdom and gratitude that Kimmerer shares, as  a plant ecologist and member of the Citizen Pota-watomi Nation, “so that they might do their work in the wider world,”6 so that they might do their work within each of us.

Asked in an interview about how she thinks about Braiding Sweetgrass through the lens of these pandemic times, Kimmerer replies that “the coronavirus has reminded us that we’re “biological beings, subject to the laws of nature.” She wonders, though, whether we can see that “the vulnerability we are experiencing right now is the vulnerability that songbirds feel every single day of their lives,'' whether “our sense of ecological compassion might be extended.” That vulnerability and compassion are connected in grief—the grieving for each other, for our values, for the living world—and Kimmerer’s great achievement is to show us that all of these emotions derive from love and “compel us to do something, to love more.” Elsewhere, she has said that “When we’re looking at things we cherish falling apart, when inequities and injustices are so apparent, people are looking for another way that we can be living. We need interdependence rather than independence, and Indigenous knowledge has a message of valuing connection, especially to the humble.”  She pulls out a story to illustrate this point, to connect the earth to the idea:  

The other day I was raking leaves in my garden to make compost and it made me think, this is our work as humans in this time: to build good soil in our gardens, to build good soil culturally and socially, and to create potential for the future. What will endure through almost any kind of change? The regenerative capacity of the earth. We can help create conditions for renewal.7

This, Mount Holyoke, is a moment for renewal, for connection to each other and to all living things. The regenerative capacity of this ever-changing and evolving community, the heart and the will of those in it, is immense. If we can use our sense of grief and loss to love more, to preserve, respect and protect; if we can reflect on and live in interdependence, and better use our gifts, acting out of gratitude in ways that are truly radical and deeply reciprocal, then we can do a very great deal to help the environment, to advance equity and justice, and to create great potential for our future.

Welcome back, Mount Holyoke!

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1. Ashley A. Dayer, Connor Rosenblatt, David N. Bonter, Holly Faulkner, Richard J. Hall, Wesley M. Hochachka, Tina B. Phillips, Dana M. Hawley, “Observations at backyard bird feeders influence the emotions and actions of people that feed birds,” People and Nature, 25 March 2019.
2. “The Impact of the Coronavirus on Food Insecurity in 2020 and 2021,” Feeding America, March 2021.
3. Neel Dhanesha, “Birdwatching is a Bright Spot in a Pandemic-Stricken Economy,” Audubon, August 6, 2020.
4. Kathleen Hou, “Black Birding is about Hope,” The Cut, June 4, 2020.
5. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass. Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milk Weed Editions, 2020), 373.
6. Ibid, 378.
7. Elisabeth Egan, “Timing, Patience and Wisdom Are the Secrets to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Success,”  New York Times, November 5, 2020.