Virtual Commencement Brief Remarks
June 11, 2021
John Ott, Professor and Chair
Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2021 Virtual Commencement Celebration of the Department of History at Portland State University!
I would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone attending this afternoon: our current faculty and staff; our alumni and emeritus faculty; the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, DeLys Ostlund; our friends and supporters – especially Board Members of the Friends of History — and above all you, our graduating students, the unbreakable CLASS OF 2021, and your families, friends, and loved ones, wherever you may be. Welcome!
Before we begin, a few brief announcements.
Your invitation to this event should include a copy of the program. A link will also be posted in the Chat bar of Zoom. The final page of the program contains a list of our graduating seniors, Master’s students, and award and grant recipients. Please also remember to mute your audio while on Zoom, which can be done by clicking on the microphone icon in the lower left hand corner of your screen. If you forget to mute yourself, Jeff and Andrea will do it for you. Because this format makes the sharing of audible applause impractical, I would encourage you to cheer on our award recipients and graduates by using your “Reaction” emojis at the bottom of the screen and signaling it in the Chat.
It is also appropriate and necessary that we pause before we begin in recognition of those who have come before us. Portland State is located on the traditional homelands of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Tumwater, and Watlala bands of the Chinook, the Tualatin Kalapuya, and many other indigenous nations of the Columbia River. We acknowledge the ancestors of this place and understand that we are here because of the sacrifices forced upon them. By recognizing these communities, we honor their legacy, their lives, and their descendants.
In this year of years, it is no less important to recognize and remember those who are absent. We have all been deeply affected by the Covid-19 pandemic over the past 16 months. Some of us may have lost relatives or loved ones to the virus; others have suffered hardship and obstacles to our wellbeing. Not all who began this journey with us are here to finish it today. In particular, I would ask us to take a moment of silence to remember one of our own, Noah Skolnick, a double major in History and Judaic Studies, who, earlier this term, was tragically killed together with a companion in a car accident in Washington State. Noah was 27, and an enthusiastic student of History whom I and other colleagues were fortunate to have in class this year.
Please join me in a moment of silence honoring all whose sacrifice made this day possible, and those, like Noah, who could not be here to see it.
Thank you.
It is now my pleasure to introduce Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, DeLys Ostlund, who will say a few words.
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Thank you, DeLys. The first of our awards this afternoon will be presented by John Stephens, the President of the Friends of History, whose generous support makes these awards possible. The Friends of History are a community organization who support the department and its community outreach by sponsoring outstanding public speakers and programming in the form of lectures, colloquia, and other events. They uplift the department’s faculty by sponsoring our research and publications, and the board members contribute to our fundraising campaigns in support of our graduate and undergraduate students.
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We will next recognize our Honors students, who will be introduced by their Advisors. History Honors students pursue a rigorous, 4-quarter-long independent research project. Beginning in their junior year and working in close consultation with a faculty advisor, Honors students identify, research, and produce a thesis, which they then publicly present and which is thereafter made available in open access format on PDXScholar, though the PSU Library. The completion of the thesis entitles them to receive Honors in History on their diplomas. I call upon my colleague, Prof. Brian Turner, to begin our recognition of our Honors students
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It is now my pleasure to introduce the first ever David Johnson Family Awards. David, who is here today, was a faculty member in the PSU History Department from 1979-2019. He was Director of the PSU’s NEH-funded Public History Program (1979-1982); Faculty Advisor to PSU President Judith Ramaley (1992-1993); and a past Chair of the Department (1993-1996). Among other distinctions at PSU, he received the Burlington-Northern Outstanding Faculty Award (1992), the Branford Price Millar Award for Faculty Excellence (2004), and the John Elliot Allen Teaching Award (2000, 2005, and 2015). David believed that Portland State University’s greatest strength is its students. Their striking determination, seriousness, and intelligence are central to the university’s identity. Their scholarly and community accomplishments inspire the faculty and in turn are a central source of the teaching and research excellence for which the PSU History Department is known.
Professor Johnson established three award categories, for outstanding undergraduate Honors thesis, outstanding MA thesis, and outstanding performance in a lower division history class.
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We now move to recognize our undergrad students. Their names can be found on the last page of your program. Those who received the Latin honors of cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude are indicated by those initials following their names.
To say that the Class of 2021 persevered in a year of extraordinary uncertainty and adversity seems, at this point, a cliché. Last year at this time, I could hardly fathom another 12 months of quarantine, social distancing, closures, and remote learning. Yet here we are.
You, the graduating class, have faced down formidable odds. You have overcome the disruption of quarantine and have raised your voices against social injustice. You have grappled with the stress of isolation from friends and community. You have faced economic insecurity, job loss, and the pressures of homeschooling children. You have shown us, and shown graduates who will follow you, what it is possible to accomplish with grit, compassion, hope, and resolve. Your resilience is inspiring. You can truly claim that there has been no class like yours in more than a century. Let us take a moment to appreciate that!
I am also hopeful because you are graduating with degrees in History. In your time at PSU you have learned in our classrooms how to examine complex issues from multiple perspectives; you have been trained to think with discernment and nuance; and to write and argue from evidence. You have conducted research in digital databases, record collections, and archives. You have studied peoples of different periods, cultures, religions, races, languages, and genders, often very unlike your own. In doing all this, you have cultivated empathy for others while retaining a critical eye, and you have made a commitment to learn and to tell everyone’s stories. These are all widely transferable skills, which you will take into a wide range of professions and vocations. But more importantly, these are skills of which our world is in desperate need. As we have seen over and over, a willful ignorance of history and historical thinking forces upon us a terrible price. A lack of empathy and curiosity about others isolates us from different viewpoints. History and the humanities teach us to view the world capaciously, to ask questions, to question assumptions, to carry a healthy skepticism toward our sources of knowledge, and to raise up our common humanity.
I therefore have felt hopeful over this long and difficult year, knowing that you all are going into the world equipped to make it a better place for us all. I know that many of you have overcome significant obstacles to arrive at this moment. Wherever you go, and whatever you do, I hope you will keep in touch with us. Drop a line (hist@pdx.edu), send a postcard, update us on your life milestones. You are now part of a large and distinguished alumni network, who are happy to lend their fellow alumni a hand. Reach out!
To you, the Class of 2021, I feel confident in saying that you will be long remembered for your accomplishments. I know I am joined by all the History faculty, alumni, and staff when I say Congratulations to each and every one of you!
