|
Who Tells Us Who We Are?
There's nothing quite like the day you graduate from college. I remember my own college graduation like it was yesterday. I remember who was there, I remember what the weather was like—I think I remember everything about it except the closing remarks by the President. So I'll be brief.
When I welcomed you four years ago as we both arrived, new to this campus, I remember ending my welcoming address to you with the words of the freshman address I had heard when I started college some 30 years earlier: You've never been this free before, and you may never be this free again, so enjoy the privilege of doubt, and make the most of it.
In the same way I've never forgotten those sage words of welcome to my undergraduate years, I've likewise never forgotten the message of the speaker at our diploma ceremony four years later, a truly great man who sadly died just a few weeks ago and to whom I dedicate these remarks, the Reverend William Sloane Coffin.
The title of his address asked the question "Who tells us who we are?" The challenge he set before us is the challenge I'd like to leave our graduates with here today.
Reverend Coffin described how bright successful people like all of you graduating here today are inevitably prone to letting others define you. First your parents, of course, and then various teachers and coaches and religious leaders, but then, ultimately, institutions like universities that in fact make a studied practice of defining who you are.
Many of you will leave here today and join yet another institution—a graduate or professional school or a company—that likewise has a vested interest in telling you who you are: that you are part of them, part of their aspirations, their value structure.
In words much more eloquent than these, Reverend Coffin concluded with the observation that, while we have to accept that we have much to learn from these powerful socializing institutions, there comes a time in one's young adult life when you have to stop letting all these external forces tell you who you are.
There comes a time when you have to accept the awesome responsibility of telling yourself who you are. Reverend Coffin modestly suggested to us—as I suggest to you today—that a good day to start taking this responsibility—to stop letting others define you so much and instead to start telling yourself who you are—is the day you graduate from college. The day you graduate from college—today is that day.
I know that you are ready to meet this responsibility to yourself and your community because again and again in the last four years, I've seen you acting with the highest personal values and ideals in ways that support our common humanity, from your outpouring of service efforts in our local community, to lending your strong backs down South to the relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
Future generations couldn't ask for more than to have such a committed group of men and women as you setting forth into the world, working to make it a better place for everyone.
With all that's happening in the world today, being dedicated to making things better is not easy. So I conclude with a little piece of advice: Take your values and your mission seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously. One of my favorite quotations comes from G. K. Chesterton, who once said: "The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves lightly."
Congratulations to everyone in this room for the roles you played in making this wonderful day a reality, but congratulations especially to each of you graduating today. You have my admiration and my gratitude for all you have done here during your student years. We are proud of you, and we are proud that you will carry the traditions of this great university with you wherever you go.
|
