This May, Botswana comes to Burlington as St. Michael’s welcomes Justice Unity Dow to campus for the 2008 commencement. Dow, in addition to writing and participating in human rights activism, is the first female judge to Botswana’s High Court, according to a Feb. 20 news release sent out by Buff Lindau, director of public relations.
The number one choice
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Justice Dow will be sending the St. Michael's class of 2008 into the real world with her inspiring words of wisdom. (Photo courtesy of St. Michael's Public Relations) |
Dow was chosen to speak at the commencement ceremonies this year because of the outstanding work she has done in the world of human rights and social justice, says Bill Wilson, St. Michael’s College provost.
“Unity Dow has been an advocate for human rights in her professional capacity as a lawyer and a judge, as well as through her literary works, all which reflect a testimony to the human spirit that resonates with the mission of the college,” Wilson says.
When Dow received the invitation from St. Michael’s, she felt overwhelmed with honor, she writes in an e-mail.
“I feel honored that young, questioning and no doubt skeptical minds will sit down and listen to whatever I have to say,” Dow writes. “I just hope that they have mercy and not fidget with restlessness and impatience as I repeat what I can imagine countless adults have told them. What can I possibly say that is new? How do I inspire 20-something smart, young adults? Impossible.”
After presenting the list of possible commencement speaker candidates to the board of trustees, the advisory committee for the Commencement speaker came to a unified conclusion that Dow would be the best candidate, says Marilyn Cormier, secretary of the Board of Trustees.
“We all decided that if there is any chance of getting her here, she would be our number one,” she says.
The class of 2008 vice president Molly Riendeau believes Dow will be the perfect speaker for commencement and is a great fit for the St. Michael’s community, she says.
Dow was awarded an honorary degree from St. Michael’s at last year's commencement, but was unable to attend due to bad weather and flights, Cormier says .
“The reason she received an honorary degree is partially for her work with social justice, and it is also the reason we’re here,” Riendeau says. “Everything we try to do on this campus is for the greater good of the entire world.”
The dish on Dow
Although the Board of Trustees was hopeful to bring Dow to St. Michael’s, they were not sure how logical a proposition it would be, Cormier says.
Thato Ratsebe, a graduate student and residential director at St. Michael’s, is a Botswana native and close friend of Dow’s. When getting Dow to come seemed a little unrealistic, the committee approached Ratsebe, Cormier says.
“Marilyn came up to me and said, ‘Do you think Unity would say yes if we invited her?’ and asked me to propose the question,” Ratsebe says. “I called her when I returned home and told her a formal invitation was on the way. She said she would look at her schedule and wait to hear from St. Michael’s.”
The college could not have found a better commencement speaker to uphold the values that the college was founded on, Ratsebe says.
“She believes in everyone having equal rights and that represents St. Mike’s in so many ways,” she says. “[St. Michael’s] is, in many ways, a caring community. It is one of the reasons I came here; because St. Mike’s really cares about people as a whole.”
Dow is a human rights activist and has strong commitments to protecting the civil liberties of women and children, Ratsebe says.
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Dow speaks at the March 2008 launch of the Women's Sector of Botswana Response to HIV / AIDS. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Karl J. Stahl) |
Throughout her life Dow has worked on a multitude of social justice issues especially those concerning women and children, according to a May 28, BBC radio 4 Woman’s Hour broadcast. As a judge she has worked on passing legislation dealing with issues such as: child support, rape, married women’s property rights, and some of the most controversial issues in the Botswana law system. She has also set up a Women’s Centre in Metlhaetsile, her home village, according to the BBC.
Growing up as a woman in Botswana, Dow believes that the hurdles she has faced have influenced the person she has become, she writes.
“I am who I am because of the values, challenges, opportunities of my childhood, and of course that childhood was in Botswana,” Dow writes. “And I am a woman; therefore I was a girl, a teenager and a young woman in a world that kept throwing hurdles on my path.”
Dow has had a great influence on the world not only through her work in the legal system, but also through her fiction writing, Ratsebe says.
She has written three novels concerning women’s and children’s rights: Far and Beyon’, The Screaming of the Innocent and Juggling Truths.
Reaching a verdict
“Whatever the message I bring, I feel honored to be part of this important ritual, this pausing in our hectic lives to honor success.” |
-Unity Dow, commencement speaker |
When the class of 2008 president and vice president first met with Wilson and Cormier, Dow was not on their list as a possible commencement speaker, Riendeau says.
“We sent out an e-mail to the class to have them throw out some ideas for a speaker,” she says. “After we introduced the list to Bill and Marilyn, it was out of our hands.”
Each year the junior class president and vice president meet with an advisory committee to begin the process of choosing a commencement speaker for their class, Cormier says. The committee is usually made up of the provost, the secretary of the Board of Trustees and the director of alumni and parent relations, she says.
“As an advisory committee we do research on the list of possible speakers to make sure that they uphold the values and the mission of St. Michael’s College,” she says. “If anybody does not meet all of the criteria then we have to take them off the list. When we decided Justice Dow would be the best candidate, she was easily approved because the board had already decided she upheld the values of the college when she was awarded an honorary degree last spring.”
So far the senior class officers haven’t discussed the choosing of Dow as their commencement speaker with their classmates, Riendeau says.
“I think she’ll be great,” she says. “Hopefully it will be a positive reaction.”
In the invitation President Neuhauser sent to Dow he wrote that the St. Michael’s College community would be honored to have her speak at the college’s 2008 commencement.
That honor is mutual, Dow writes.
“Whatever the message I bring, I feel honored to be part of this important ritual, this pausing in our hectic lives to honor success,” she writes.