Rodin welcomes Class of 1999

Together for the first and only time until graduation, incoming freshmen gathered in Irvine Auditorium for their Convocation ceremony. University President Judith Rodin addressed the students, providing them with various statistics about their class. She highlighted students who have made particularly unusual accomplishments in high school. Rodin said 236 students in the freshman class edited school publications and more than 400 are musicians. Seventeen freshmen operated their own businesses and 18 are world-class athletes or Olympic hopefuls. In addition, one student is a nationally ranked figure skater. Rodin emphasized that students should become active members of the community. As an example, she pointed to College sophomore Tal Golomb, an Undergraduate Assembly member who ran a summer camp program at the Turner Middle School in West Philadelphia. Like Golomb, Rodin said students can fulfill the ideals of the University's founder, Benjamin Franklin. She said that students should follow Franklin's advice that "theory and practice, knowledge and service, teaching and research, are merely different aspects of the same thing -- education." Provost Stanley Chodorow also addressed the class, discussing the need to respect everyone's opinions so the University can continue as a forum for intellectual exploration and discourse. Many students said they found the speakers' words encouraging. "I thought what the provost said was really important," College freshman Bill Lester said. "It makes me think that there's a lot of discussion about issues and that it's not a campus that's apathetic." And College freshman Jimmy Friedlander said he was impressed by Rodin's demeanor. "I thought the president seemed like a with-it person." Friedlander said. "She addressed the class with a lot of respect."

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