Mt. Holyoke College Graduation

After a low-key 101st blip yesterday (thanks to the many blippers who made the 100th a really big one), I'm back to high key:

Here we are with Li Li from Chengdu, China, who graduated today from Mount Holyoke College with her B.A. degree. We have been her host family for four years; although Li lived at the college, we saw her quite regularly. At 14, she was given a full scholarship by Singapore to attend a boarding school there, and from there she was admitted to Mt. Holyoke. It has been wonderful getting to know her--and among much else she taught us some Chinese cooking. Li graduated cum laude--and had the shortest name in her class! :-)

My wife Marylee also is a graduate of Mt. Holyoke (in South Hadley, Mass.). It is the oldest women's college in the United States, founded in 1837 by Mary Lyon, whose grave is enclosed by the iron fence you see at the sides of the image. Still a women's college, it has a very high percentage of foreign students--today's graduating class of over 500 came from 70 countries. Hearing all 500-odd names read aloud as the women received their diplomas brought home that diversity to me more vividly than ever before. (The person reading the names was a professor of Chinese history--and clearly a master of many languages).