“What Was College For?”

Introducing a $1,000 New Critic contest

On thousands of elm-dappled quads this spring, hordes of proud parents and gowned graduates will gather under party tents. Programs will rustle, beads of sweat will drip from scented armpits to damp belly-buttons, and commencement ceremonies will debut a new crop of students to the real world. Come June (God willing), we three founding editors will be seated among such a throng, awaiting our diplomas on the green at Dartmouth College. Considering the occasion, our college president, an honorary speaker, the valedictorian, and others shall be called upon to make remarks.

The commencement address, as a genre, demands grand statements and moral mandates: What should the world expect of a young adult? What should a young adult expect of the world? What were the tuition and toil really worth? But most often in these speeches, the soporific reigns. (What sort of person is valedictorian, anyway?) The most interesting part of any graduation ends up on the periphery — the badly-behaved child destroying fresh turf, the gossipers loitering in the mid-morning sun, the feverish couple fucking in the library stacks.

Yes, rarely do graduation speakers do as they should — scandalize the settled, agitate the ossified, and invigorate that rollicking mass of youth destined for embourgeoisement. Therefore, The New Critic seeks a commencement address of its own. An address that would make siblings scream, grandmothers gape, and fathers faint. An address worthy of equal quantities boos, frowns, and applause. An address that would make the evening news. An address that would prompt the audio technician to cut the mic.

In the interrogative spirit of our friends at The Point, the essay should answer to the following question: “What Was College For?” We offer a $1,000 prize to the winning address. Excerpts from other submissions will be collected into a symposium.

For consideration, one must be:

• A member of generation z

• An annual paid subscriber of The New Critic

All submissions are due to editors@thenewcritic.com no later than Wednesday, May 27th.

Write and be merry!

*Paid subscribers make possible all the work we do at The New Critic, especially projects like this contest. Subscribe for just $30 a year to access Postscript — our gen z interview series — or become a TNC patron by joining as a $250 founding member.*

THE YOUNG AMERICANS