September 6, 1999Holly Ornstein Carter, a 1985 CC graduate, received an alumni honorary degree at opening convocation. Carter is a photojournalist and award-winning television producer.
This is utterly overwhelming, and I wish for each of you that someday you will be up here, too. I thank everyone here in the Colorado College community for making this possible, and I want to thank each and every one of you sitting in this room today for sharing with me this most auspicious, incredible day, which is the first day of an incredible journey – whether it’s your first day at Colorado College or your 951st. This is quite a journey that you’re embarking on and I’m very grateful to you for allowing me to be part of that.
Many of the new students here are probably quite nervous. You don’t know if you’re going to like your roommate, you don’t where the party is going to be tonight, you don’t know if you can find your classroom, you’re not sure you can actually survive the food here. But my job today is to assure you that you will survive all of those things. But I feel my true service is to give you a bit of the broader picture.
Having lived 15 years after my wonderful four years here, I have a bit of a feeling for those things that make this place so unique and so special, and that is part of the reason I feel so envious of each of you who get to stay here while I have to go back to New York. I envy you for the challenging experience before you. The challenge I put before you is a very simple one; however, it’s a huge task. My challenge to each of you is to find your passion. You’re coming here with many expectations set by yourself, by your family, by people you have known. And I really implore you to take each moment here, each precious moment, and make sure that you’re finding the thing that makes you happy – the thing that is your true love – because that is the greatest key to success, both here and for the rest of your life.
I’ve thought a lot about what made this experience so special for me, and it doesn’t mean so much for me to stand here having said you must find your own passion and rehash the roadmap that I took, because that is antithetical to the advice I’m giving you. To look for the things you love in a magnificent place like this is a very personal journey. It will be rife with obstacles, challenges, tears, and laughter. But, I’ve thought a lot about the specific things that I experienced here. On my first day, I would have welcomed somebody saying, “While you’re here, don’t miss the following things.” Some of them I did, some of them I didn’t, and I hope that the list of things that I have to suggest to you might be helpful.
First and foremost, take a geology class. Take it early. You will create a world that you will find nowhere else at this place. This makes Colorado College different from Harvard, different from Yale, different from Stanford, different from Williams, whatever other choices you had. Take a geology class. It will teach you that you are a small part of an evolving world and that you’re part of something much larger than yourself.
Second, I would ask each of you to find an international friend here. If you’re from a foreign country, make an American friend. If you’re from Colorado Springs, make a Danish friend. That single act will broaden your life, not just for the four years that you’re here, but for the rest of your life. I have two friends – lifelong friends – that have so enriched my life, not only with their perspective, but in taking us places both in our minds and in our bodies that were quite remarkable.
Third, if possible, climb a mountain. I came here a shy, non-athletic girl, and I got dragged up a mountain – a very steep mountain – and it served from that moment forward both as a metaphysical and a physical model for my life. It was very meaningful. Get out there and try.
I would also suggest that each of you take advantage of visiting professors. You’re very lucky to be at a place that has the Block Plan and is an incredible draw for people who are able to come out of their lives and share with you for three and a half weeks. As I was being [introduced] talked about too much and too long, I remembered that I had two visiting professors while I was here. One was a photographer, and he came in the dead of winter and took us up to the CC cabin. We took photographs for three and a half weeks, and it was his passion that created a spark in me that has never gone away and was really the reason I set down the photography path. The other class that I took was, come to think of it, from a visiting professor who was a journalist in New York, a fairly well-known writer who came and taught me the very few things I did learn about journalism, other than what I learned at the Catalyst and from Ruth Barton. So, take advantage of visiting professors. They’re really quite spectacular.
This may be my most important suggestion, so I’m not sure why it’s in the middle. As soon as you can – it took me four years to do this – befriend a professor. Create a relationship in which you understand that while they have the academic knowledge of a subject, you too have something to offer. You create a reciprocal relationship in which you see yourself as a worthy and viable entity. That was a very important step I took, and I wish I’d done it much sooner.
If the Aspen bike trip still exists, try that. To get your butt up and over Independence Pass and celebrate with a new group of friends is something that should never be missed.
Almost last, create a group of friends that really nurtures your ability to find your own passion. As Kathryn was saying, challenge yourself. Don’t make easy friends, don’t make friends that fan your ego. Make friends that see you for who you are, can recognize the sort of sparks that are starting to fly in your life, and can really nurture and protect those. Pick friends that will endure for your life. Pick friends that you will be pleased to have your children meet, that will be happy to visit you in your old age home when you’re 80 and be thrilled and excited. I have friends sitting out here today who have followed such different paths and of whom I’m so proud, and the bottom line with all of them is that they learned here how to take a risk.
And I think that my message is really that you spend four years in a relatively comfortable environment in which you can truly test your limits, push the envelope, try on new things. I once said that Colorado College felt to me like a clothes closet – you could try things on, discard them, and try something new. It’s comfortable. It’s safe to do that here. It’s much more difficult after you graduate to try things on in the real world. The resources here are tremendous, so put them to good use.
Last – I’m not sure if this should be on my list of things I did do or didn’t do – but it’s to learn to write. There is not one of you here who shouldn’t be a fantastic writer. It is the key, in my mind, to a great life. I should have done a better job of it. But Ruth did her best, and David did his best.
The things I did miss – I’m sure there are many – but 15 years hence, I really regret not taking physics. It’s a missing piece, and I will someday get around to doing that, but I implore you to get it done here. It’s fantastic. I would also take a drama class; I didn’t do that. That would have been great. And I would say start something new. Whatever that passion is that gets sparked in you, start something with that and leave it behind.
Once you’ve found out who you are and what you love, just continue throughout your life to gain the courage to take the risks that allow you to keep pushing and keep trying. It’s a lifelong journey. This is an incredible family, of which I was a part for four years and which has continued in every aspect in my life from the day I graduated. I welcome you to the family, and I wish you great luck on the journey. It’s a very exciting thing. Thank you.