 It's now my pleasure to ask Dean Daniel Jutka to say a few words, Dean Jutka. Ladies and gentlemen, friends, it is with great pride and gratitude that I stand this morning to pay tribute to the class of 2011. A month ago, as exams were winding down, I came to my office in the morning to find little scraps of paper like these in my mail. On each one was inscribed a few words of thanks. Some were signed, others were anonymous, but each one of them warmed my heart. Somehow, a group of students had gone through the trouble of organizing a campaign of gratitude within the Faculty of Law, printing unpretentious little thank you cards and spreading them around like seeds of goodwill and decency. In this thoughtful and transformative act lies the spirit of the class of 2011. Since I became a dean of the Faculty of Law, two years ago, I repeated to myself that a greater treasure of the Faculty of Law resides in the student body, in the extraordinary group of men and women who join each year. You're sitting here today wearing identical gowns, hoods and mortars. The convocation ritual melts your distinct identities into a shared belonging to the McGill community. But in this faculty identity never means identical. This faculty embraces uncertainty, cherishes the hybrid and the plural. The plurality of identities and aspirations that you brought here that we now each carry within ourselves, the civil, the common, the aboriginal, the queer, the not queer, the French, the English, the local, the transnational, the Montreal, the Hong Kong, the not-for-profit and the high roller, the absolutely certain and the completely mixed up. We wear this plurality of identities and aspirations as a badge of honor. We welcome you to the faculty not as diamonds in the rough or as shapeless beings begging to be reassembled, but as unique, gifted and optimistic individuals. We welcome you to the faculty as a chorus of complex and distinctive voices, the product of all that you are and of all that you have been given by your families and friends present here today. The soul that each of you brought to McGill a few years ago is still intact. We, your professors, we have seen that soul in the classrooms and the hallways of Chancellor Day Hall, on the streets of Montreal and in overheated meeting rooms of an NGO in Uganda. We have seen your soul on the scene of Skid Night and on the third floor of the Bibliotheque now in Galber. We have rolled with you at the Christie Bipride and shared with you the madness of Quidnavig. We have celebrated with you at the Faculty Council and ate with you the Mateo's club sandwich. We've seen you in the different lives you lived at McGill. We've seen you write as gifted scholars, teach one another as reciprocal mentors, and reach out to the community as responsible citizens. We have heard you move effortlessly from French to English and back and parfois dans la même phrase. We've seen you struggle with moral dilemmas and stand on your feet to passionately defend the unlikely. We have learned from you at every encounter. We have seen you outraged, elated, compassionate, insightful, and yes, mildly intoxicated too. We've seen you checking footnotes, editing law journals, studying through the night, and Facebooking in our classes. We've seen you worry about your future, juggle too many commitments, and fall back on your feet every time. In all this, you were alive, awake, and unique. You did the unexpected. You dared to be just a little weird. This clone was offered to me by 2011 students. It carries a very important symbolic charge. It reminds me every day of the virtues of self-duration, humility, respect for differences, compassion, and unexpectedness. It's one of the most precious things I have. To me, this red nose is the legacy of the Class of 2011. And so today we celebrate your graduation with the hope that you will be awake, alive, compassionate, and most of all different. We hope you will dare to do the unexpected, to constantly reinvent yourselves, and to be just a little weird as you have in the past. That, if anything, is the McGill Law sound. Je termine en m'adressant à vous les parents conjoint amis et rejetons de nos diplômés. You have known for a long time that your child, your spouse, your friend, your mother, your father, who is graduating today is an exceptional human being. You know how great it is to be around him, to be next to her. Imagine spending your days with 170 of them. This is the life of professors at McGill's unique Faculty of Law. This is our life. On this beautiful day, I stand here and say on behalf of all my colleagues how incredibly fortunate we are to live this life. I want to thank the men and women of the Class of 2011 for sharing with us a bit of their own lives. Félicitations et long vie à la classe 2011.