A Cappella and Dinosaurs at Barnard’s Graduation

by Sarah Elzas

“I am your child; remember me. Oh, Lord, remember me.”

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon repeatedly sang this gospel line while standing at the podium on Barnard College’s Lehman Lawn. Each time she sang it, she changed it, adding a flourish here, more vibrato there.

“I know this is not Georgia. This is not even an African American Baptist meeting. But you can pretend,” she said, chastising the audience for not singing along with her. Eventually, though, she coaxed everyone to “step outside the safety zone” and start singing.

Reagon, a composer, singer and founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, the African American a cappella ensemble, delivered the Commencement address for the 540 blue-capped and gowned graduates and their assorted family and friends. She spoke about the importance of making a mark on the world and changing things that are not right. “I think I come to talk about throwing your life against those things you see that should not be,” she suggested. Using football imagery, she offered herself as a “blocker” for the future generation. “I will move someone aside to give you the chance to come out on the other side.”

Reagon received Barnard’s Medal of Distinction, along with Morris Dees, a civil rights lawyer and activist, Maxine Greene, a Barnard graduate and professor at Teachers College, and Susan Hendrickson, the archaeologist who discovered the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1990 in South Dakota.

“When you thought that the biggest, baddest beast of all creation could have been female, I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever heard,” Nan Rothschild, Chair of Barnard’s Anthropology Department told Hendrickson when she presented her the award. The comment evoked cheers from the graduates.

Several students addressed the gathering, telling inside jokes and memories of their days at Barnard and commentary on the future. “We entered Barnard as apprehensive teenagers, and leave as confident young women,” said Jyoti Menon, President of the Student Government Association. “We will be teaching for America, attending law school, attending medical school, working on Wall Street, looking for a big break on Broadway, and setting out to achieve our dreams.”

To achieve these dreams, Reagon warned graduates not to limit themselves. “Do not think that there is any path before you that you should follow,” she said. “I am suggesting that you have to try to create things that are not here.”

Reagon was not the only one to appeal to the graduates’ sense of service. Elizabeth Boylan, Provost and Dean of the Faculty, presented a breakdown of the world’s population if it were shrunk to a village of 100 people and all the existing ratios would stay the same. Of them, “one [percent]—yes, only one—would have a college education,” she said. “[You] are a very privileged minority with a whole lot of understanding and learning and vision to offer to the world.”

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