91´«Ã½

May 29, 2025

It is a privilege to address the class of 2025 on the occasion of your Commencement.

You look magnificent!  You also look fabulous, beautiful, handsome, and elegant.  Not to mention short on sleep.  But what you most especially look is magnificent.  Hold on to that word.  I’ll come back to it in a minute.

We have spent four years together on campus.  But this is only the second time I have addressed you as a class.

The first time was upon your arrival at Washington and Lee.  You assembled in the Chapel, 480 barely acquainted teenagers, the evening before Fall term got underway.  You were nervous about the same things that have worried first-year 91´«Ã½ for generations.  Will I get along with my roommate?  Can I handle the work?  Is the food any good?  You had a lot on your minds, and I’m sure you remember next to nothing from my “welcome to college” speech.

I confidently predicted, way back in 2021, that some of you will eventually marry each other.  I stand by it.  And this morning I reissue my warning to the parents:  be nice to each other, because you might be sitting next to your future in-laws.

I also posed a serious question, as you embarked on your W&L journey:  Why are you here?  What do you hope to get out of college?  How can you make the most of the opportunity?

At that moment, you felt like you had all the time in the world.  But now here you sit, in what feels like the blink of an eye, surrounded by your classmates, wearing identical gowns, waiting to receive your degrees.  It is a surreal experience.  This is the day toward which you have been aiming since you entered college.  But it is also a transition so momentous and abrupt that it is difficult to believe it is actually taking place.  It’s an out of body experience that feels like it must be happening to someone else.  Your minds are swirling with emotion as you anticipate, a cruelly short time from now:  saying tearful goodbyes to your closest friends, with whom you have spent these precious years; simultaneously sharing joyful reunions with your families, who are bursting with pride; and then facing the hard, inescapable reality of driving down the road, while your beloved campus recedes in the rearview mirror. 

Before you do, let’s take a moment to reflect on what you have done here, and on what your time in this place has done to you. 

For starters, I hope, you have had a lot of fun.  College is supposed to be fun.  Making friends.  Practicing and competing with your teammates.  Singing, dancing, and acting.  Lounging in the sun on front campus.  Hiking, climbing, and tubing.  Traveling far and wide.  Sometimes you have even included me in the fun.  We have played chess, pickle ball, and golf, gone fly fishing on the Maury River, had meals together at D-Hall, Hillel, and Lee House.  Spending time with you is, hands down, the best part of my job.

While you were at it, you were also becoming adults increasingly capable of making meaningful differences.  That’s the purpose of education.  It’s compatible with fun.  And it prepares you to live a richer, more satisfying, happier life.

In that long forgotten “welcome to college” speech, I suggested that Aristotle offers a good way of thinking about why you are here, about the ultimate aim of pursuing an education.  Yes, you come to college to meet new people, to learn new things, and to improve your professional prospects.  But what you really want — what we all really want more than anything — is to be happy.

Being a philosopher, Aristotle begins with the deceptively simple question: “What is happiness?”  To which he responds by writing a long and complicated treatise.  He concludes that true happiness is not the fleeting pleasure you get from an ice cream cone on a hot summer day — although that is good too.  Full blown happiness is the deep and lasting fulfillment that comes from a life well-lived.  Such a life includes ice cream cones, but also family and friends, and meaningful work that puts our talents to good use.  Education makes this possible.  Education sharpens our intellect and strengthens our character, honing the traits, which the ancient Greeks called “virtues,” that are conducive to human success and satisfaction. 

And that’s why you are here.  Because W&L exists to do just that.  Here’s our mission statement:

“91´«Ã½ provides a liberal arts education that develops 91´«Ã½’ capacity to think freely, critically, and humanely and to conduct themselves with honor, integrity, and civility. Graduates will be prepared for life-long learning, personal achievement, responsible leadership, service to others, and engaged citizenship in a global and diverse society.”

The first sentence stresses the investment W&L makes in you.  The second sentence stresses the kind of life you are now prepared to lead. 

The words are easy to say.  More difficult is knowing what they mean.  If I said important words without considering their meaning, I would lose my philosopher’s license.  So, every year I teach a course in which my 91´«Ã½ first read Aristotle on virtue and then examine the W&L mission statement, one word at a time.  

They ask themselves, “what are free, critical, and humane thinking?” “what are honor, integrity, and civility?” “what are responsible leadership and engaged citizenship?” and “why do these things matter?”  The 91´«Ã½ also consider whether we have left anything out.  Are there other virtues that deserve to be enshrined in our mission? 

One virtue Aristotle emphasizes is magnificence.  Remember, you look magnificent.  Let’s talk about what that means.

The Latin roots of the word are “magnum” — meaning “large” or “great” — and “facere” — which is the verb “to make.”  So, a magnificent person is one who makes great things.  The Greek equivalent, which Aristotle used, is “megaloprepeia,” which means being “suited for greatness.”

The kind of greatness Aristotle praises has to do with being exceptionally generous.  To be generous is to give to worthy causes in accordance with our means.  Magnificence, as Aristotle defines it, is generosity on steroids.  It involves giving enormous sums for grand purposes.  To be magnificent, in this sense, one must be wealthy, and the virtue comes from using one’s wealth to make a large and lasting difference to the common good. 

We are literally surrounded by examples at W&L.  Let’s take a long look at the Colonnade.  The Colonnade is physically magnificent:  grand in scale, architecturally splendid, a national historic landmark.  Its central building, Washington Hall, turned 200 years old last year.  It is named, of course, for George Washington, whose personal magnificence — in the form of a very large gift to Liberty Hall Academy — made possible what is now 91´«Ã½.  Talk about making a lasting difference to the common good.

We are all beneficiaries of Washington’s gift, and of the other extraordinary gifts made by those who have followed his magnificent example.  To name a few:  Lettie Pate Evans, for whom Evans Hall is named, directed that 15% her foundation’s distributions would come to Washington and Lee, forever.  Since her death in 1953, W&L has received more than $300 million, which makes Mrs. Evans — the first woman to serve on the Board of a major American corporation — our largest benefactor.  We now receive more than $20 million from her foundation every year, which means she paid for more than 10% of your education.  Dick Duchossois ‘44 provided the lead gifts for our athletic center, our indoor tennis center, and many of our outdoor sports facilities.  Gerry Lenfest ’53, funded our Center for the Arts, and endowed more than 15 faculty positions.  40 of you in the class of ’25 are Johnson Scholars, and your W&L educations have been paid in full by the $100 million endowment established by Rupert Johnson ‘62.  Most recently, just this year, Bill Miller ’72 donated $132 million to endow need-blind admissions at Washington and Lee, providing the resources to educate exceptionally talented low- and middle-income 91´«Ã½ in perpetuity.

When my 91´«Ã½ consider these acts of magnificence they are awed and humbled.  They are full of admiration and gratitude.  But some of them are also uncomfortable with the idea that there is a human virtue achievable only by those who have extraordinary wealth.  My 91´«Ã½ want to excel in every way.  They want everyone to be able to strive for excellence.  How can magnificence be a human virtue, they wonder, if it is within reach of such a small percentage of people?  Is there a way in which all of us, regardless of our financial capacity, can aspire to be magnificent?

I believe there is.   

When I say that you look magnificent, which you do, I’m not saying you look rich.  I am saying you are capable of great deeds.  Great deeds can be done by rich or poor.  They are done, sometimes, by individuals.  More often, they are done by people who come together and dedicate their hearts and minds to a noble enterprise.  Collective magnificence, we might call it.

I know you can do this, because I have witnessed some of what you have already done.  You have triumphed with teammates to win athletic titles; performed with peers to make award-winning music and drama; earned academic honors and fellowships that testify to your intellectual accomplishments; and you have given of yourselves in service to the common good, volunteering countless hours in local schools, youth organizations, and non-profits.

You have also embraced and participated in the shared ethos of the W&L community.  Saying “hey” to people you encounter on campus, friend and stranger alike, isn’t magnificent.  It’s just what we do.  Being honest, whether or not anyone is looking, isn’t magnificent.  It’s just what we expect.  But a community in which decency and honesty are the norm, in which people trust each other, respect each other, are kind to one another, is a rare and magnificent thing.

We might think of the honor system and the speaking tradition as spiritual endowments — values we have inherited from those who came before us, and which we sustain for the benefit of all who will follow.  Every one of you has contributed to the collective stewardship of these foundational values that make Washington and Lee magnificent.  It hasn’t cost you a penny, and we are all immeasurably richer for it. 

This last kind of magnificence — the spirit that characterizes a special community — is the most important.  At W&L, we raise a lot of money, and we build a lot of buildings.  But the point of the money and the buildings is to serve the mission.  Every dollar we spend, and every facility we construct, is aimed at providing the finest education on the planet.  Money, bricks, and mortar are essential means, but the ultimate end is the creation and sustenance of an educational community like no other.

George Washington understood the importance of this a long time ago.  He donated a great sum to Liberty Hall Academy because he knew that democracy depends upon well-educated citizens.  In his first state of the union address he famously proclaimed: “There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”  235 years after George Washington said those words, his gift remains part of our endowment and directly supports the education of every student at W&L.

It is one thing to do great deeds.  And it is another to preserve them.  Magnificence requires maintenance.

Walking to work last week, I saw our Facilities crew touching up the paint along the Colonnade, ensuring that the columns look as magnificent this morning as they did in 1825.  Please join me in thanking everyone who works in Facilities for their outstanding efforts to maintain the beauty of our campus.

Just as buildings require maintenance, so do endowments.  All of us at W&L have a role to play in maintaining what I have called the spiritual endowment of this place — the honor system, the speaking tradition, and the community of trust, respect, and kindness that they foster. 

The Trustees and I also have an obligation to manage W&L’s financial assets responsibly.  Our job is to spend as much money from the endowment as possible on the education of you, our current 91´«Ã½, without cheating the 91´«Ã½ of the future by diminishing its real value.

That balance is difficult to strike in ordinary times.  It is even more difficult at this extraordinary moment, when the budget bill just passed by the House of Representatives includes a five-fold increase in the tax on our endowment earnings.

There are good and important discussions to be had about the ideal relationship between the federal government and private colleges and universities.  Reasonable people can and do disagree about the appropriate level of federal funding for academic research and scholarships.

But we should all want American science, medicine, and education to continue to set the standard for the world.  International 91´«Ã½ flock to our universities because they are the best on the planet.  The W&L class of ’25 includes 30 international 91´«Ã½ from 18 different countries.  To those 91´«Ã½:  I admire your courage in traveling so far from home to pursue your dreams, and I thank you for everything you contribute to our campus.

The American dream depends upon making first-class education widely available.  That is what we do with our endowment at Washington and Lee.  The endowment pays more than 40% of the cost of educating our 91´«Ã½.  And more than half of our endowment spending is dedicated to scholarships.  Generations of alumni, parents, and friends have been collectively magnificent in their support of the university because they, like George Washington, want to benefit society by making enduring contributions to educational excellence.

But now their gifts, and George Washington’s gift, are being taxed.  W&L is older than the United States.  For the first 240 years of this country’s existence, college and university endowments were tax exempt, allowing these funds to be spent entirely on educational purposes, as the donors intended.  In 2017, Congress imposed the first-ever tax — of 1.4% — on the endowment earnings of the private colleges and universities, including Washington and Lee, that have been most successful in attracting and stewarding magnificent gifts.  We have now sent more than $2.5 million to the federal government, which is equivalent to 40 full-tuition scholarships.  Unless the Senate modifies this provision of the budget bill before it becomes law, our tax rate will go up to 7%.  That adds up to a lot of money in a hurry.

This is not a partisan issue.  It’s a civic issue.

George Washington made America great.  He literally made America.  And he exhorted his fellow Americans to invest in education, leading by his own example.  Washington would have found it incomprehensible that Congress might one day tax the charitable contribution he made for the purpose of educating young people for the public good. 

Taxing endowments puts these extraordinary investments in the young people who are the future of America at risk.  Taxing endowments hurts the 91´«Ã½ and families who need help the most.  Taxing endowments threatens to erode the magnificence of colleges and universities, of the communities they support — like Lexington and Rockbridge County, where we are the largest employer — and of the nation they serve.

We need Washington and Lee to be great.  We need American higher education to be great.  We need America to be great.  And in the interest of institutional and national greatness, we need the Senate to eliminate the endowment tax, or at least to exempt small schools, like W&L, that focus on teaching and receive very few federal research dollars.

These are serious issues.  There is a lot at stake.  Higher education matters.  As George Washington knew, it is essential to a healthy democracy.  It prepares citizens to think critically about complex issues, and to work constructively with those who see things differently.  Our world needs people with these abilities — people like you — more than ever.

I am optimistic because you look magnificent.  You are prepared to do great deeds.

Washington and Lee has prepared you for leadership, service, and citizenship.  You are ready to make significant contributions wherever you go, for the benefit of yourselves and your families, but also for the benefit of those less fortunate and the communities in which you live.  By investing in you, W&L has made a long-term investment in the public good.

I don’t know who you are going to marry.  But I do know some of you will marry each other.  And I don’t know which great deeds you will do.  But I do know that the class of ’25 is destined for greatness.  I look forward to seeing you at reunions and hearing all about it.  For now, I send you on your way with congratulations, pride, and my very best wishes.  Thank you.