Mod.+Grad.+Speaker

May 26, 2007 12:15 AM
Copyright The Chronicle of Higher Education Audio Interview with Author: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10513687

I tend to cry at weddings and graduations, though rarely at funerals. There is something so final about funerals that emptiness itself seems the only place to occupy. Weddings and graduations, on the other hand, mark beginnings, and usually hopeful ones; they move me powerfully. I like to see young people (and older ones, too) take a step forward, putting behind them a certain discrete period in their lives, moving with the world all before them.

Graduation is not a ceremony that, as a faculty member, I ever want to miss. I look forward on this day to marking an array of changes. There is saying goodbye to older faculty members who are taking the bold step into retirement; they will possibly return at future graduations, but only in the role of an emeritus professor — an ambiguous honor, at best, as many of them seem a bit lost on the campus, knowing few of the younger faculty members and probably none of the students about to graduate. I like seeing those who have made tenure congratulated at graduation and welcomed into the community on a permanent basis. Yet there is often a double edge, as I think of those who have not gotten tenure (a situation I was once in myself, so I have a visceral sense of the pain involved). A faculty has a way of reshaping itself, always shifting, always adding and subtracting. And then there are the students: waves of them, breaking on the shores of adult life. They love this day, as do their parents behind them.

I know the deal only too well, with three sons of my own, two currently in college. Graduation is, for every family, a time to celebrate the conclusion of a massive joint effort that has taken many years. One recalls the nights of horrendous homework assignments, the research projects, the school plays and games, the examinations taken well or badly, the financial anxieties. For many in the audience, this day marks the turning of a huge aircraft carrier, and such maneuvers do not happen easily.

At the center of the ceremony, for most, is the speech. This is one of the few occasions in life when speeches really matter. Everyone sits up, hopeful. I am always quite certain that my life will be changed. In that, I’m a fairly typical American, in the mold of Ben Franklin: always eager to improve myself, to take instruction, to shift my way of looking at the world in a manner that will benefit me and those around me. I really want the graduation speaker to do a bang-up job — to inspire and challenge me in unexpected ways — and when he or she doesn’t, the disappointment hollows me out.

I’ve attended more than 30 graduations as a member of a faculty, and so I’ve heard quite a range of speeches (and given several myself). In too many cases, I can’t recall who gave the speeches, which cannot be a good thing. A forgettable speech is by definition a poor one. One can recite the bare outline, as it rarely varies: How nice to see you on this important and beautiful day. Here is a little joke my uncle told me when I graduated. The future lies ahead of you. You should take note of how accomplished I am, which may inspire you to become accomplished yourself. Go forward, not backward. Congratulations to you all. You look so happy and handsome. Do I really have to stay to lunch? Is the plane on the runway? Where is my next stop?

Sometimes a famous name is enough to carry the day. This year, at Middlebury College, we have Bill Clinton lined up, and everyone is thrilled. We know exactly what the speech will sound and look like, right down to the puffed-out lip and the wincing aside. That he will say anything especially moving is unlikely, and it doesn’t really matter. (I saw him give a graduation speech at the University of Oxford when he was still in office, and it was a splendid occasion, with the presidential helicopter landing beforehand in Christ Church meadows. The sheer spectacle of a president, even when he’s become a former president, carries the day.) Were Bill Clinton to cancel suddenly, there would be no joy in Middlebury.

For the most part, however, politicians are the worst graduation speakers. I have a vivid image of the former senator Bill Bradley in my head. I like Bradley, mind you. I’d vote for him in a minute. But he was terrible. He had those strange semi-invisible prompters before him, and he read his boring speech as though he were speaking a foreign language, sounding out the words by phonetics, and doing a bad job of it. Rudy Giuliani, whom I would never vote for, at least made an effort to connect to the crowd and showed some life. But it’s a bad idea to invite politicians to graduations for the simple reason that they are partisan by definition. Politics of an obviously partisan character should be put aside on this sacred day. It’s a time to think deeper, about issues that really matter. It’s a time to think structurally, wondering what is right or wrong about the system. It’s a time to ask what our duties to our neighbors really are, and how the young people about to graduate should begin to think about their purpose in life. Is it all about the money? Does fame matter? Do spiritual values obtain? What are those values anyway?

My favorite speaker was Mr. Rogers, the pioneer in television for children. He came to the campus only a year or two before he died and was as modest and kind as you would expect. I can’t think how many mornings as a young parent I had sat before the television and watched that skinny, awkward fellow singing so movingly in his awful voice. I loved to watch him put on his sweater, button it up slowly, and welcome us to his neighborhood. I felt included, as did my children. His values were obviously based on a genuine sense of community. He didn’t have to say much. Everyone knew him and what he represented. He only had to speak softly, as he did. His presence called us back to what Abe Lincoln famously termed the “better angels of our nature.” I really did break into tears when he came to the podium and invited the audience to sing the neighborhood song, and everyone in the audience sang. Community itself became real, concrete, and deeply loved.

A famous professor from Harvard University gave the speech that most disappointed me. I liked writing that phrase: a famous professor. He was famous to me, at least, and many members of the faculty had read his books and essays. I won’t say his name, in part because he is dead, and in part because he was so terrible as a graduation speaker — perhaps as a consequence of his final illness. He was making notes for the speech on the back of an envelope on his lap before he stood up, at which point it became utterly apparent that he had forgotten to prepare a speech of any kind. He rambled, hemmed and hawed, misquoted a few famous lines. There was a huge relief everywhere when, after a mercifully short spell of perhaps 10 minutes, he sat down in bewilderment, to tepid applause. I saw him standing by himself after the graduation, as if wondering where he was. In a moment of fellow feeling, I approached him, my hand out to shake his. “I have liked your books so much,” I said, and meant it. He gave me a wan smile, bowed, and withdrew into the shadows.

For the most part, I think it’s good when scholars — or “public intellectuals” — give the graduation speech. Scholarship and the acquisition of knowledge are the point of academic villages. We should celebrate those who have lived their lives accordingly, putting aside the pursuit of great wealth or power. A graduation speaker is, implicitly, a model for the students to emulate, admire, acknowledge as good. If the speaker has done nothing but accumulate wealth at the expense of the community or become a “personality” in the media, that is not enough. I always find it discouraging when well-known people who mirror the worst values in society are given honorary degrees. There should be honor in honorary degrees. And the person chosen to speak to graduates should understand that he or she has 15 or 20 minutes to talk frankly about life as he or she sees it, asking important questions. What are lessons in the art of life? What does the effort to acquire an education mean? What obligations and responsibilities come with that amazing privilege — one that so many in the audience will take for granted, but which most people in the world will never experience?

Ah, Bill Clinton has his work cut out for him.

Jay Parini is a novelist, poet, and professor of English at Middlebury College. His most recent book is The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems (George Braziller, 2005).