Good afternoon. To my faculty and staff colleagues, welcome back. I know many of you have been tremendously busy this summer with your research and scholarship, and other work on behalf of the College, but I hope you also had a chance to enjoy the Maine summer with family and friends.

To our returning students, we are so glad to have you back with us and I hope you are having a joyful reacquaintance with your friends and with the College.

To our transfer students and exchange students, we are delighted that you will be continuing your education here, and we welcome you into the Bowdoin family.

And to our 503 first-year students—the great Class of 2020—welcome to Bowdoin. Today marks the start of a remarkable journey that, at its best, will include many successes and challenges, new ideas and possibilities, engagement and discovery, and ultimately, accomplishments you likely never thought possible. Each of you worked exceptionally hard to be here, and we can’t wait to get to know you and to join with you in making Bowdoin an even stronger community.

It’s been just over a dozen weeks since we closed a great academic year with two events: Commencement for the Class of 2016, and a Reunion Weekend that brought more than 1,800 alumni and guests back to campus for three days of renewal and celebration.

The intervening weeks have been busy too.

Faculty pursued their research, writing, and course development. And many students engaged in research, or study, or service, here on campus and across the country and world, as far away as the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. For the others, there were all manner of jobs.

Maine is, of course, a beacon in summertime, and this summer was no different, as thousands visited our museums—including “This is a Portrait If I Say So,” a major exhibition at the Museum of Art that has garnered rave reviews nationally and that will remain open through Family Weekend in October.

Many others enjoyed Maine State Music Theater productions right here in Pickard Theater, and Bowdoin Summer Music Festival performances in Kanbar Auditorium, or simply toured this extraordinary campus cared for and enhanced by Bowdoin’s great facilities staff, who worked all summer—around the clock, it seemed—to prepare our buildings and grounds for the academic year that starts today.

Twenty-seven members of the faculty have left on sabbatical to dive deeply into their areas of interest, to think anew, and to collaborate with other scholars, while twenty-six members of the faculty are returning from sabbatical this year.

We welcome thirty-eight new faculty members to this community of great teachers and scholars.

And on a personal note, I will be returning to the classroom this week after a hiatus last year, and it is simply great to be back!

Of course, while all of this was going on here, the world has become an increasingly tumultuous and disturbing place. That reality and how we at Bowdoin best engage with it is what I would like to focus on this afternoon.

The places and the people lost this summer are, sadly, terribly familiar:

The list is incomplete …

Forty-nine killed and fifty-three wounded at a nightclub in Orlando.

Alton Sterling killed by police in Baton Rouge, and Philando Castile shot dead by police outside St. Paul.

Five police officers—Lorne Aherns, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa—gunned down in Dallas, and three other police officers—Brad Garafola, Matthew Gerald, and Montrell Jackson—murdered in Baton Rouge.

And beyond our shores the tragedies mounted. Forty-six killed and about 150 injured at the airport in Istanbul. More than fifty killed at a wedding in Turkey a few weeks ago.

Eighty-four people mowed down in Nice by a truck driver who also injured more than 300 others.

Nine killed, many of them teenagers, by a gunman outside Munich in an attack that wounded three dozen more.

On and on …

This terrible violence—along with increasingly polarized politics around the world, and the ongoing struggle of people across the globe who are facing war, terrorism, lawlessness, economic hardship, and injustice—have combined to create a mounting level of distress, anger, and anxiety that is nearly impossible to escape.

But as difficult and unsettling as this all is, we cannot and should not try to turn away.

Our hearts go out to the many individuals and the families directly affected, as we brace for the very real possibility that we have not seen the end of this violence and heartache. All we know for sure is that we don’t know what the year ahead will bring.

As I said to the Class of 2016 at Baccalaureate in May, those who graduated in the 210 years before them entered worlds of war—civil and global, hot and cold, state-sponsored and stateless—economic calamities, great political dysfunction, religious strife, civil unrest, and unequal access to opportunities. Yet, they also saw the dawn, development, and power of the world’s greatest democracy; the wonders of industrial, medical, and technological revolutions; the ability of capitalism to lift so many out of poverty; the triumph of good over evil; and the realization that differences among us are reasons for celebration, not division.

Great challenges, threats, and tragedies, but also amazing accomplishments and powerful reasons for hope.

So, what can we do, here, together, at this great College in this moment?

As I have thought about where Bowdoin stands in these times and what we are uniquely suited to do in response, I keep returning to two fundamentals: our mission and our community.

Our mission, of course, is to educate and create knowledge. To educate our students to think critically, to reason objectively, to analyze, communicate, and to continue learning.

It is a mission that holds the promise of better comprehension and of potential solutions for these seemingly intractable problems. It is a mission centered on the creation and extension of knowledge; on the ruthlessly objective examination of data, facts, and ideas; and on a willingness to engage in honest, respectful discussion and debate on the toughest, most vexing issues of our time. It is, as I said to our first year students on Saturday, a mission of intellectual fearlessness.  It is a mission that holds great promise in confronting the profound and often too terrible challenges we face today.

For more than two centuries, we have been a College that values different perspectives—even profoundly different perspectives. A College that goes beyond simplistic, one-sided thinking and tired rhetoric that we find too often in the world. A College that finds energy and purpose in the hard work, creativity and courage required for progress.

These times demand a willingness to dig deep. A willingness to set aside seemingly easy and common answers. A willingness to listen. A willingness to challenge how we think about the issues. A willingness to step out of the echo chamber that tells us only what we want to hear. And a willingness to consider all manner of ideas.

We have done this throughout our history, and we remain a College more than ready for the challenge of these times.

Much of this work—this focus on our mission—takes place in our classrooms and is led so well by our faculty, but not exclusively. It also happens in our residence halls and College houses, in our dining halls and social spaces, in organized debates and informal discussions.

It happens through full, open, and respectful engagement with others and with ideas that can be unfamiliar and challenging.

This is what we do, this is who we are, and this work has never been more important or more virtuous.

Which brings me to the other fundamental—our community.

Our community is remarkable. It is built on a foundation of strong values lived here every day: intellectual curiosity, integrity, respect, warmth, and humility. At this moment in history it is more important than ever to hold dear and continue to live these values every day, and to carry them beyond our campus.

This is important for at least two reasons. First, quite simply it is because this is who we are at Bowdoin.

But, also, making this extra effort to connect creates and nurtures the conditions for this deep intellectual engagement.

These values can allow us to be fearless. They give us the support required to confront the most difficult issues and ideas, and to move beyond the worry of saying the wrong thing, which often prevents us from saying anything at all. This is exactly the moment when we need to make an extra effort to talk to one another, to listen carefully, to be open minded, to understand there are differing points of view—sometimes profoundly different—about critical issues.  We need to see the truth in different perspectives, and we need to forgive when we make mistakes. Our values—our community—give us the ability to do this.

Even with the tragedies of the summer and the profound challenges we face in this country and around the world, I am optimistic.  I am optimistic because here, at Bowdoin, we can be bold and engage these problems in ways not available to so many others. It won’t be easy. We may have some very difficult moments. But I have no doubt we can do it.

I am optimistic because at Bowdoin we have one another.

As we begin our 215th academic year, I hope that for each of you it is a year filled with deeply satisfying work and continued discovery, that you enjoy good health, and that you experience the joy of family, friends, and the amazing bonds of the Bowdoin community.

I now declare the College to be in session.

Thank you.