The following is the prepared text of the Baccalaureate address, titled “Reading the Waters,” delivered by Professor of Chemistry James Keller on May 17, 2024. Keller was selected by the senior class to deliver the address prior to their graduation. He joined the faculty in 2000 as a Camille & Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Awardee, was chair of the faculty from 2012 to 2015, and won the College’s Faculty Advising Award in 2020. Keller’s research focuses on the fundamental questions of chemical physics.
First, I want to express my absolute joy at being selected to deliver this address to you today. Chemistry professors are not often afforded such a stage. It is customary, at this point, to grovel a bit and remind you that there are better orators on campus … but I have some things to say, so I will just take the win. I teach primarily required classes at Kenyon, so this may well be the closest I get to giving a talk of my own choosing.
Students at Kenyon think of me as a storyteller. This, in part, may be the first reason for my selection as your speaker today. In the classroom, I engage students with tales of my family, my childhood, my college struggles, the many adventures of my 20-to-30-something aged children … and, yes, even the antics of our three cats. Many of you have heard these stories; some know them well; and a few may even be able to recite them. Yet, what I enjoy most about teaching at Kenyon is the opportunity to witness the developing stories of our students. Your narratives all began as bright-eyed kids with a wish to excel in all things, a willingness to confront challenges, and a belief that you can persevere in the face of the expected pitfalls of college life. These last four years have tested your resolve and forged your character. Tomorrow, you reach a high point in the arc of your personal stories, buoyed by the company of friends, and celebrated by faculty, staff and family on this glorious hill. May I be the first to officially congratulate you on your success this weekend.
I have, inadvertently, prepared for this day. This spring, I taught a new course called “Chemistry & Climate Change.” We explored the theme of the global change in a variety of ways — essays, oral reports and digital media projects — that highlighted advocacy in the form of scientific communication. We attempted to assess risk, and we imagined a different future. Yet, our principal goal was to craft impactful stories about specific regions or communities that have meaning for each student in the class. It is, first and foremost, a course in storytelling. Pure and simple. How we convey information about ourselves, our environment, our work, and our art is a meaningful achievement. Our stories matter.
I grew up fly fishing the clear streams of northwest Montana amidst storytellers. Each summer I camped and fished with my father, my siblings, and occasionally my grandfather in the remote Bob Marshall Wilderness. My grandfather was a man caught between two wars. Enlisted in the Pennsylvania Cavalry in World War I but too young to see action, he was active in World War II at an age that was almost too old to serve. Deterred from glory on the battlefield, he returned home to be an engineer and a teacher before joining the Foreign Service. My grandfather’s stories were grand and exotic. He could recall verbatim conversations over more than 60 years and loved to tell how he went fly fishing in Persia with royalty. Grandfather brashly filled and commanded any room he entered. My father left Pennsylvania to become a judge in a two-horse town in Montana. He knew everyone else’s story, and he was equally at ease with farmers and Supreme Court justices. Most evenings, our campfire showcased readings that exercised our imaginations and sparked my young awakening. My father favored poetry — Robert Frost for example or Robert Service, the bard of the Yukon. Grandfather would recite Rudyard Kipling or Lord Tennyson. Of course, the main event would be followed by reenactments of the day or familiar retellings of old family tales. Later in life, I was introduced to the writings of Norman Maclean — a Montana native who, like me, attended a New England college, received a graduate degree at the University of Chicago, and then became a teacher in the Midwest. In his autobiographical novella “A River Runs Through It,” Maclean describes how he and his brother learn about fishing and life under the strict paternal tutelage of a Presbyterian minister. “In our family,” he writes, “there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” Maclean explains:
[My father] told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.
Just like Maclean, my father drilled me to a rhythmic four-count casting motion: you pull on the fly line as your rod lifts (to 2 o’clock, no more!); wait a pregnant moment as the line gracefully arcs behind you; now start your forward cast (to 10 o’clock); and watch as the line unfurls — fly line, leader, tippet, then fly — hovering now, just above the rushing water. In Maclean’s words: “The cast is so soft and slow that it can be followed like an ash settling from a fireplace chimney.” He notes, “One of life’s quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful, even if it is only a floating ash.” This is quite a feat — it requires you to quiet your mind and to observe your movements in the world. My best students master this art of visualization. Whether preparing for a class presentation or the 400-yard individual medley, they see themselves at work or at play, confident and in command of their emerging stories — authors of something beautiful.
To me, beauty and perfection are not the same. Too often, I have watched a student freeze or even retreat when they sense that their actions do not align exactly with a preconceived script. Norman Maclean knows this when he writes, “Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart…. Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.” As you move from Gambier hill — continuing to write your professional and personal stories — do not make “perfect the enemy of good.” Embrace a full and imperfect life. You will certainly find beauty in the world if you have the conviction and courage to look for it. Maclean writes, “My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things — trout as well as eternal salvation — come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”
A second reason that I am speaking to you today could be the nostalgic pull of former President Decatur’s Commencement addresses peppered with his thoughts on protein folding. I, too, am a chemist, but I study the behavior of an exotic phase of matter called plasma. Plasma is an ionized gas — a cloud of ions and electrons that coexist amidst the turmoil of opposing forces that balance their movements (kinetic energy) and their relative positions (potential energy). In my work, this balance is achieved through powerful interactions — some serendipitous, some by design. I began this project several sabbatical cycles ago when I took my young family of five to Vancouver, British Columbia to enjoy seven months of splendor in the Pacific Northwest and, for me, in a newly-equipped laboratory. Our experiments start with a dense cloud of neutral molecules with no electrostatic attraction or repulsion. These molecules are produced in a very cold state — roughly one-half a degree above absolute zero — so they rarely collide with one another. A series of lasers excite electrons within these molecules to high energies and to orbits much larger than the average distance between them. Gaining a dipole, these molecules now strongly interact. They collide, exchange energy, and redistribute momentum — ejecting electrons in an inevitable, ionizing cascade. The resulting plasma is dynamic, energetic and full of potential. Although the path each molecule takes is distinct, the final state of the system is invariant and lasting — a highly-correlated collective. At Kenyon, the trajectories of your lives have repeatedly intersected a close community of peers, mentors and friends. Although it may be possible to walk Middle Path in isolation, the pushes and pulls of fellow travelers force you to change your path. On this campus, you are inexorably part of a linked community of individuals — dynamic, energetic and realizing the potential of your shared stories.
Scientific analogies are easily contorted. I do not, of course, equate you with small molecules buffeted to conform to a fated trajectory. Indeed, for each of you, the last four years signify a search for autonomy — a sense of self and fortitude — that distinguishes you from others and promises a truly unique future. How do you find this? How do you nourish this? How do you know that you are on the right path? I think you accomplish these through the power of story.
As an example, I turn to the Apple TV series “Ted Lasso” in which an American football coach is exported to the UK to manage a Premier League football team. I realize that, like this address, this series focuses on relationships between sons and fathers … but, fans of the show know that the women get the best parts! Amidst many quotable Ted-isms — “Be a goldfish!” or “I do love a locker room. It smells like potential!” — sits a famously misattributed Walt Whitman quip. You may know the scene: protagonist Ted and antagonist Rupert, the vindictive former team owner, place a significant wager on a game of darts. Taking his final turn at the board, Ted shares a leadership lesson borne from a billboard: “Be curious, not judgmental.” (He throws a dart.) “Have you played a lot of darts, Ted?” (He throws another dart.) “Yes sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from age 10 until I was 16 when he passed away.” (Ted throws a bullseye to win the game.)
My father was curious and nonjudgmental. He found success, like Ted Lasso, in forging relationships and carefully reading people. He would fish only the streams of Montana. My grandfather could visualize himself in the Lar River outside of Tehran. I love both their stories.
Back in Montana, Norman sits at the bank of a stream and asks of his father,
“How many did you get?” He said, “I got all I want.” I said, “But how many did you get?” He said, “I got four or five.” I asked, “Are they any good?” He said, “They are beautiful.”
The two men turn to watch Norman’s younger brother Paul catch his limit …
[Wading into the water, he] began to cast again, but he was far enough away so we couldn’t see his line or loops. He was a man with a wand in a river, and whatever happened we had to guess from what the man and the wand and the river did.
[His] big right arm swung back and forth. Each circle of his arm inflated his chest. Each circle was faster and higher and longer until his arm became defiant and his chest breasted the sky. On shore we were sure, although we could see no line, that the air above him was singing with loops of line that never touched the water but got bigger and bigger each time they passed and sang. And we knew what was in his mind from the lengthening defiance of his arm. He was not going to let his fly touch any water close to shore where the small and middle-sized fish were. We knew from his arm and chest that all parts of him were saying, “No small one for the last one.” Everything was going into one big cast for one last big fish.
Perhaps, a final reason for this address is an emerging resonance between village inhabitants. I arrived at Kenyon in July of 2000, but it was only this December that my wife and I moved from the nearby metropolis of Mount Vernon to Gambier. You and I now get mail at the same post office. We search through the same limited offerings at the Market — too often settling on ice cream and beer. We wait, in vain, for the toaster to be fixed at Wiggin Street Coffee. My weekend music is currently provided by some student in the New Apts at the northernmost edge of campus … surprisingly, a lot of music from my era. It is a comfortable existence — one that sustains me. No longer a commuter, I more fully understand the rhythm of the campus and your reluctance to depart from it. Yet, it is now time for you to relocate and immerse yourself in another place. You will begin the difficult task of starting fresh, with new acquaintances, new experiences and working toasters. I believe that you can do this, because you have already succeeded in building a strong, lasting community here. I fully expect you to demonstrate the courage to write the next chapters in your stories.
As you leave Kenyon, remember the power of your story. A story that did not begin here, but has been enriched and shaped by this place. I promise you that the next chapters will come into focus. Trust the process. Remember to be curious about the stories of those you meet. Know that perfection creates neither an interesting story nor an interesting life. Observe. Reflect. Act. When you do tell your story, be kind to yourself. You control the narrative. Know, though, that we are still here and that you can always come home!