“The words for Emily were relatively easy to choose, given her passion for life, literature, and learning. Dante, from Canto 27 of Purgatorio in the Divine Comedy, offers some of the best parting words ever from a teacher to a student: “[We the faculty have] brought you here through intellect and art;/from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;/you’re past the steep and narrow paths…. Await no further word or sign from [us]:/your will is free, right, and whole—to act/against that will would be to err: therefore/[we] crown and miter you over yourself.”
-Dr. Bradley Herling