Siyânemúkèla. Huan yíng. Bienvenidos. Welcome.

These are a few of the many languages that are spoken by members of our graduating class. This also concludes the meaningful part of my speech. Later on today you'll hear three interesting and insightful perspective speeches from some of my classmates, so I'm going to leave the tear-jerking to them.

Apparently, word on the street is that COA is a hippie school. I have no idea where someone would get that notion. All the same, I'd like to take this opportunity to correct a few myths about COA.

For example, myth: COA students don't bathe. The truth? Come on, there are at least two working showers on campus - everyone just takes a number. I hear that the waiting period at the moment is about a month and a half.

Another myth: all COA students are vegetarians or vegans. I myself do not eat anything that could possibly be pronounced Satan. How would you feel saying, "Uh, I'd like the broccoli and a side of Lord of the Underworld, please"?

It is similarly untrue that we are not as technologically advanced as other schools: why, just this year we got a machine that allows us to make proper college i.d. cards. This acquisition moves us firmly into the Bronze Age stage of civilization, and it is the administration's hope that in another few thousand years we will be on par with ironworking societies, such as the Hittites of Colby and Bowdoin colleges.

I would also like to remind everyone that the shrine up the hill is not used for worshiping the all-powerful granola god, it is merely ornamental. And as for that story about a CIA agent in our midst, I'm going to leave that one to next year's welcome speaker.

At this point I'd like to offer congratulations to everyone who is sitting up here on this stage with me. Way to go, guys, we made it! In a few short hours we'll have our diplomas ... and then we get to spend the rest of our lives explaining what the heck Human Ecology is. Here's a little spoiler for those of you who may not know: we're all getting the same degree. All of us that have just finished our undergraduate education will be marching off into the world with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Ecology. I hope everyone back here knew that, otherwise it might be a bit of a shock.

At our convocation in 2003, Dave Feldman said to our class, "What is Human Ecology? Well, we don't know." Nice going, Dave - inspiring us with terror from the get-go. Hopefully over the course of the last few years we've discovered the meaning of Human Ecology for ourselves. If not, many of us may be curled in the fetal position later on today. I'm not counting myself out of that group yet ... we'll have to wait and see.

As the welcome speaker there's only so many ways to say "welcome." Being as how I've already said that a few times by now, my job almost done ... so undergraduates, grad students, families, friends, badgers and mushrooms of all varieties, sit back, relax, have a granola bar, and again, welcome to the 35th graduation commencement of College of the Atlantic.