i think my first harvard commencement is making me terribly homesick for charlottesville.

now that i have been here a while i recognise the opportunities and resources that harvard offers me that uva never could have offered - and i recognise too, that harvard is the right place for me, at this time and stage of my life, that if i had returned to uva it would have been a mistake. i know too, now, that cambridge can be a home to me, that i am ready now to live in this city, in a way i could not have five years ago. but for all that i love virginia and shall always be glad to have spent my undergraduate days on the lawn. this year, as in previous years, i wrote to all the new uva first years from singapore - there are fifteen of them - welcoming them to uva and offering any help i can give them. i like to think that charles vandersee would have approved. and tonight my heart is bursting with hope for all of them. let uva be a new, true home to them, let them find mentors and friends, let their hearts be lifted each day as they walk on the lawn, and let them find reasons of their own to love the university as i did.