How The Vassar Network Fuels Success
“Many of us here, we can’t imagine what the future holds,” Maldonado, an author and educator, told the graduates. “Whatever your future holds, know this: You are your ancestors’ wildest dreams.”
He then described how, upon moving to campus from his home in a Brooklyn housing project LIFE magazine had dubbed “one of the 10 worst neighborhoods in the United States,” his single mom had seen fit to present him with a baseball bat to defend himself against potentially hostile older students.
Maldonado recalled how his mother, Carmen Lilly Negron, instructed him, “If anyone comes in through your window, hit them.” This made him laugh, he said, because he knew it was unlikely he’d need this gift. “Now, this is Vassar. We need a bat under our bed, right?” he joked.
Eventually, Maldonado came to know Vassar as a place of openness and opportunity, and his mother was able to laugh about having gifted him a useless weapon. But that’s not to say Negron hadn’t given him anything of use during his time at Vassar.
“My mom, she was sort of my Star Wars Yoda. Not just ’cause she was short,” he explained. “She would tell me quotes that sounded like Yoda was speaking. Yoda’s ‘In a dark place, a little more knowledge lights our way’ [is just like] Ma telling me Maya Angelou’s quote, ‘Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.’ That’s another valuable attitude as we go into our futures.”
Maldonado noted that throughout his 30-year career, “the pen, words, education have been my weapons. As both a teacher and a published author, I’ve been reminded that the power is not in wielding a bat or any weapon of crass destruction. But the power is in wielding weapons of mass instruction—stories, words, connectivity.”
Before leaving the podium, Maldonado said he was presenting the graduates with a gift, which would not be a baseball bat but “whatever made you feel luminous at Vassar”—be it a special interest, skill, anything that lifts them up and could, as they make their way in the world, lift others.
In his invocation, Reverend Samuel Speers, the recently retired Associate Dean of the College for Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices, noted that some graduates were without those very people. “We feel especially our connection with all those who cannot gather with us in person—including the families of our students from around the world for whom travel is not possible at this time—but whose joy in you and what you have accomplished is not dimmed by distance,” he said.
President Elizabeth H. Bradley also acknowledged the challenging political climate in which the graduating students had had to function throughout the year and said that “staying in conversation is really the strongest way forward. I’ve seen this happen in your class again and again for four years, and it gives me immense hope in these challenging times.”
Bradley closed with a poem by Mary Oliver that describes “a thread that can bring us back to who we are,” and told the graduates, “I hope you’ll remember, there’s always a thread—a connection—between you, your friends at Vassar, and with Vassar itself … I hope you will keep close your Vassar memories and those relationships.”
Outgoing Vassar Student Association President Emily Doucet ’25 continued this theme by describing what she found when she surveyed classmates about their favorite Vassar memories. She said connection to people, places, and little moments are what made Vassar feel like home.
The graduates then heard from two more alums, Board of Trustees Chair Sharon Davidson Chang ’84, P’19, and Monica Vachher ’77, President of the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College.
Chang told a story about her toddler granddaughter Chloè, whose wobbly steps sometimes led to falls, bumps, and tears—but not for long. Chang said Chloè’s resilience served as a wake-up call to live her life differently. Chang urged the graduates to embrace their own awkward, wobbly steps “and know that they’ll become steady.” Meanwhile, she added, seek support from “our lifelong Vassar community.”
“As of today, you are each an essential part of a dazzling community of over 42,000 Vassar alums, and each of you will bring added brilliance to it,” added Vachher. “So, as you depart to make your distinct and distinctive impressions upon your world, I hope you will always find time to connect with Vassar, and that you will cherish the special bond that ties us all together, forevermore.”
