Christoph Guttentag Introduces the Class of 2017

Today marks the formal beginning of your time at Duke, but I love yesterday even more -- you started it apart, and you ended it on East Campus, together.  Over 500 members of the Duke community volunteered for move-in, and showed you the spirit of cooperation and enthusiasm that is a defining attribute of the Duke experience.  And from what I saw, the parents handled that traumatic occasion with almost as much grace and maturity as their children did.

Each year, I have the privilege of presenting the entering class to the President and to the faculty at Convocation. You represent the final culmination of the most selective admissions process in our history.  We received almost 32,000 applications, and each of you was selected in a process that was careful, personal and individual; the admissions staff thought about you, and advocated for you.  And for each of you, we asked ourselves, "Does this person have something meaningful to contribute to the Duke community?" And each time our answer was "yes." 

You're bringing to Duke an incredible variety of perspectives and experiences.  You've come from over 50 countries, and just like last year, you represent 49 states.  Last year, in fact, I pleaded with your predecessors to find someone from Montana for this year.  Which they did, in fact we have more than one student from Montana, but in doing so they seemed to forget North Dakota.  So please, if you meet a high school student this year North Dakota, encourage him or her to come to Duke. And don't forget Montana. That said, you are still a far flung group.  In fact, we have as many students from Singapore as from Atlanta, and as many from San Diego and Las Vegas as from Chicago and Arlington.  We have an equal number from Istanbul and Austin.  There are as many of you from Sydney as from Syosset, from Palo Alto and Phoenix as from Baltimore and Orlando.  In fact, there are as many of you from Anchorage and Savannah and Harare as from Wellesley and La Jolla and Reston. You've travelled here from Ankara, from Boise, from Hanoi and Johannesburg, from Kill Devil Hills and Kuala Lumpur, from Laramie and Las Cruces, from Princeton and Providenciales, from Rome, NY, Rome, GA, and Rome, Italy, and from Tamaqua & Tracy and Tupelo, and Yuma.

And, like last year you felt free to tweet as you took that journey.

• "I just want it to be tomorrow," you said.
• See ya later Boston
• It's been real, jersey.
• Goodbye Spartanburg. 
• And in a more sweeping sentiment that many of you probably felt, "Just ready to be out of here. Take me to Durham"

And then, when you got here you tweeted:

• New chapter in life starts today.    #afterstarbucks  5:18 a.m.
• 2 Duke 1984 dropping off 1 #Duke 2017 tuba player…who is too happy to care
• Dreams really can come true -- but too bad I'm back being a freshman

And there was pithy advice:

• Don't try to get your room key from Pegram when your dorm is Alspaugh.  That would be silly.

And just pure emotion:

• I'm here!!  I can taste the freedom!  I don't know if I should twerk or cry or laugh or scream.

And perhaps in response, one of your parents tweeted

• I hope my baby has a great time at Duke this year!  Hopefully you can stay out of trouble.

And finally, the parent of a child who moved in last year tweeted:

• Parents -- whether your child got a palatial suite or the tiny single in the Hobbit Hall, have no fear, it's gonna be a great year.  And this same parent last year tweeted: My daughter has been given this horrible little room that doesn't even have a closet.  I just want to cry.

So far flung or local, you're bringing to Duke an incredible range of experiences and some rather impressive accomplishments.  Among your classmates are ...

• A Collector of antique paper money and coins
• A Championship race car driver
• A nationally competitive rock climber
• A young woman who has driven a horse-drawn carriage in downtown Grand Rapids
• A Chinchilla breeder
• The Co-founder of Sassafras Louisiana, a non-profit organization dedicated to coastal restoration in Louisiana, and the sponsor of the Nutria rodeo. Which you might Google, but I suggest doing so after lunch.    
• A world-championship Irish step dancer
• One of the "racing sausages" for the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team. 
• A young woman who helped with the spawning  and release over 100 million scallops in Nantucket Bay
• The President and National Champion of the National Reining Horse Association
• And two of my favorites: The young woman who was the Grand Champion in the Google international Science Fair, by designing a cloud-based neural network program that significantly improves breast cancer diagnosis from the least invasive biopsies. 
• And finally, a young woman with the YouTube channel "speedstackgirl" whose cup stacking accomplishments have earned her over 25,000,000 YouTube views and whose audio was sampled in a Platinum selling, Grammy-winning song by Skrillex.

Now, I can imagine some of you might wonder, after hearing all this, whether we might have made a mistake in admitting you.  We didn't.  Some of you come here having had every opportunity, others of you have made it here with very little help and even fewer resources.  But what we saw, what we appreciated, wasn't the exceptional.  It was your perseverance.  Your thoughtfulness.  That you know how to be part of a community.  And that you know how to use the gifts you've been given.  We admitted you not because of what you did, but because of what you've shown us you can do when given the opportunity.  And we know what you will do with the exceptional opportunities Duke gives you.  And personally, I think you'll be not just the most talented, and the most engaged, but also the most fun class we've had here in quite a while. 

President Brodhead, I am so pleased to present to you, to the faculty, and to the community, a class that we will be especially proud to call our own -- the Duke Class of 2017. Thank you.