This is my rejected commencement speech. It is about what it means to be an Emory student. It is called, “Bulldozing the Past: A Swan Song for the DUC.”
Too often seniors attempt to classify Emory students in generalization – all of which fail. Emory is too diverse for broad, sweeping generalizations. If I were naive enough to offer my own generalization, one that is not explicitly racial, religious or classist, I would say that Emory students are resume builders and fanatically studious, but we have fun parties. But even this is wrong. It ignores the international students. It ignores the conclave of humanities students who “major in life.” In fact, the only real way to generalize Emory students, and capture them all, is to say that we all went to Emory. The only truly unifying characteristic of Emory students is that we studied in these buildings. These buildings, then, are the only thing that have relevance to every Emory student.
Of course, to discuss Emory students is to discuss Emory’s culture and traditions. One cannot exist without the other. Emory, as an institution, bulldozed buildings and traditions in a single-minded race to the top of the charts. We cut the real Wonderful Wednesday, not just because we changed from a quarter to semester calendar but also because a day off in the middle of the week is not befitting of a top institution on the rise. Pushball, a hallowed tradition, opened the door to injury lawsuits. It had to go. Freshman caps from long ago constituted hazing and had no place once women entered our good ol’ boy’s club. There is a long list of traditions that fell by the wayside or were pushed off a cliff and made to look like an accident. Besides Dooley’s Week, which is a fairly new tradition relative to the age of our university, we don’t have any. We cut them all.
In fact, the only tradition Emory really has is a proud tradition of cutting.
In light of this tradition, I present a cautionary tale. Once in Emory’s history, it failed to bulldoze the past and uphold our hallowed custom of cutting. The University did not demolish Alumni Memorial Hall to make room for a new student center. Emory yielded to pressure to keep that beautiful building, erecting the new center around it. The result is the DUC, perhaps the greatest architectural failure on campus.
Choosing to build around the old building, enshrining it, ruined the concepts that were going to make the DUC functional and beautiful. The amphitheater seating, already a horrid and confusing choice, makes the “Coke Commons” a cavern. It defeats the purpose of the skylights. The light, airy feeling provided by the high ceiling is lost. The beautiful glass dome does not illuminate the bookstore or the dining hall food court. The bookstore was too small. The whole building is an exercise in wasted or misused space.
Enshrining the past, instead of bulldozing it, ruined the thing we tried to save. Alumni Memorial Hall is a exquisite building exterior, but keeping it ruined both the new DUC and made the old building so much uglier. It would have been better to bulldoze Alumni Memorial because its present state is worse than being demolished.
Like our university, the greatest danger to students of my generation, besides the job market, is premature nostalgia. This danger goes beyond the cultural obsession with the ’90s. It is largely the product of Facebook and the access to all those pictures of “good times.” College will take on a rosy hue once we meet the challenges, monotony and failures of the real world. Emory students, who are accustomed to success and achievement and suckled on the ideology of “positive reinforcement,” are most prone to the dangers of premature nostalgia. Cushy memories will soften the harsh blow of career stagnation and romantic failure.
The best thing you can do, then, is remain true to the Emory tradition and bulldoze the past. Commencement may be the beginning of something new, but it is also an end. We must take this time to remember that everything we have ever loved or enjoyed about Emory is gone forever, and we can never make new memories like the ones we have. The worst thing we can do is build a DUC because we are too afraid to bulldoze what is beautiful and comforting about our memories. If you try to build your new life around these days, these memories, you will create something new that, by accommodating the past, is worse than if you had just let go.
Emory bulldozed because it strove to reach the top. So must we all. Emory students, like the school that houses us, are, at our best, relentless strivers. We strive for the best. The true Emory student strives for prestige at the expense of all else. That is not all of us, but that is the best of us. The truest Emory students among us will cut anything that keeps him or her from the top, just like our University.
We are Emory. We cut. We bulldoze. We strive.
I dedicate this final column to College Dean Robin Forman. They made of you a sacrificial lamb. Your vision is clear. I admire and respect you and your judgment. History will vindicate you.
I love and cherish my parents. Thank you, Mother and Father. Thank you for everything.
– By A.J. Artis
Photo by Jenna Kingsley
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
I’m glad this was rejected! It is so negative, which is the opposite of my Emory experience.
On the contrary, it celebrates Emory’s strength! Cut this, cut that, compromise yourself enough in the pursuit of eminence and to hell with everything and anyone that lies in your way! Jettison the ballast! Full steam ahead cap’n!
The author isn’t being sarcastic.
That’s what makes this piece great.
It was just ambiguous enough to convince both pro and anti-cut people that he is on their side.
Shut up, Gina.
There is something profound in this piece, something deeply ambiguous, and something deeply sad, too. Good luck out there AJ.
Thank you for your kind words and sympathy. I had no idea people read the Wheel.
“Like our university, the greatest danger to students of my generation, besides the job market, is premature nostalgia. This danger goes beyond the cultural obsession with the ’90s.”
AJ, I’m really gonna miss your columns. They were really a breath of fresh air and while extremely insightful, made me laugh as well in the process.
Good luck!
Thank you for your kind words, I had no idea people read the Wheel.
Witty, chilling, and thought-provoking. An elegant piece, AJ, great job.
Thank you for your kind words. I had no idea people read the Wheel.
Soooo glad this was rejected.
You are a twit.
I didn’t even go to emory and I found this piece and would note that it hit home way harder than I would like to admit. Bulldozing traditions to please the general populous is aggravating.
-UF Law 1L.
Thank you for understanding. I had no idea people read the Wheel.
“The true Emory student strives for prestige at the expense of all else. That is not all of us, but that is the best of us. The truest Emory students among us will cut anything that keeps him or her from the top, just like our University.”
Yikes. I guess the ‘best of Emory’ only care about the US News rankings these days and not what they learn in the classroom. I’m imaging Emory striving to be equivalent to the cut throat premed kids in my classes. Someone that will get to the top no matter who they hurt to ‘earn’ their overly inflated A. What a disgusting and irresponsible attitude. Let’s just throw any sense of compassion or altruism out the window shall we? Something has seriously gone awry at Emory if this column encaptures the sentiments of the best of the student body. I can only hope the above column reflects the worst of Emory: those seemingly bloodthirsty students who could care less about their fellow classmates and only about their own attempt to achieve ‘prestige’. But hey, AJ had the audacity to compare Dean Foreman to a sacrificial lamb so he must have some streak of morality in there somewhere…right? Et tu, Emory?
Altruism is for Laneyfags.
I don’t know if I’m being sarcastic anymore.
Beng a bigoted asshole via an anonymous username? Sounds like you’re being pathetic to me, bro.
Oh, so you’re the “Crafty’s Brother” username. How many aliases do you have, again? I’ll bet you’re responsible for like 90% of the comments on here.
AJ would be touched by your comments. After all, he has no idea that people actually read the Wheel.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
I want to meet Ron.
SO happy this was rejected! This is the exact OPPOSITE of my Emory experience!
You are blind. You are sentimental. You lack critical reading skills.
You wish. YOU are the one who’s blind, sentimental, and lacking critical reasoning skills.
I, A.J., would never say that. I only say, “thank you for your kind words. I had no idea people read the Wheel.” Or something like that.
But, I am a little embarrassed that your only response to my doppleganger (if that works because we’re on the Internet) was to say what he said. I don’t want to be mean, but you should try to say something a little more original. Again, I don’t want to be rude, but I think you could do better.