NORTON - What can happen in 40 years?

That was the question posed to the graduating class at Wheaton College's 173rd commencement exercises on Saturday.

Keynote speaker Katharine Bartlett, former dean of the Duke University Law School and the university's current A. Kenneth Pye Professor of Law, reflected on the changes in the world since her graduation from Wheaton in 1968, 40 years ago.

Bartlett recalled a world without liposuction, laser eye surgery and spell check, when MRIs didn't exist and landing on the moon was still a dream.

Research was done without the aid of Google and Wikipedia, people got to know each other face-to-face - not through social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook - and communicated without the convenience of cell phones, e-mail and text messages, instead lugging change to the pay phone to make a call. She described sitting in the common room of her dorm watching a television with just three networks, no cable, and certainly no TiVo.

"These were neither the good old days, nor were they the Dark Ages," said Bartlett, who was awarded an honorary degree on Saturday.

Bartlett also imagined 40 years in the future, speculating that graduation might be held virtually, people may have clothing that adjusts to temperature and graduates may be conquering not just geographic boundaries, but the time-space continuum.

"If looking back over the last 40 years reminds us how rapid and dramatic change can be, so it also reminds us that many things come in cycles," she said.

She praised the advances of the modern world, but cautioned that luxury, consumption and convenience has its price - depleted natural resources, shrinking biodiversity and melting ice caps among them.

She encouraged the graduating class to meet the challenges of our ever-evolving world, drawing on their Wheaton education as a resource.

"Wheaton has given you opportunities to prepare for these and other challenges," she said.

"You are one of the most exciting junctures of your life. You now enter the 40-year period during which you will live the answers to these questions."

In her work, Bartlett focuses on the rights of women, children and marginalized individuals; one of her articles, "Feminist Legal Methods," is among the most cited law review article on any subject.

During her address, she harkened back to 1968 as a time of voter registration drives, boycotts and freedom marches for civil rights, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had recently been assassinated, and there were no women's studies or gender courses at Wheaton, then a women's college, or anywhere else. Sexual harassment, domestic violence and anorexia existed, but didn't have names.

"This degree of change would have been hard to imagine in 1968," Bartlett said. "Will race and gender come to make no difference at all in the next 40 years - your 40 years ? Hard to say."

The ceremony, which also included an address from President Ronald Crutcher, words from class President Rebecca Harvey and the bestowing of honorary degrees, was held under the protective arch of tree branches in the Dimple, a green area in the center of campus.

As the sun emerged on what began as a cool, overcast day, Bartlett challenged the Class of 2008 to make the most of their adventure beyond the Wheaton world, to begin a journey that will end in change, accomplishment, and stories to tell.

"What do you want to have said about you in five years, 10 years, or 40 years, when you return for your 40th reunion?" she asked. "What do you want to become?"

LAUREN CARTER can be reached at lauren-carter@hotmail.com.