I would like to leave you now by playing one song. It’s called…it’s called the “Song of the Birds” – Pablo Casals’ favorite folk song from his beloved Catalonia. A love song to nature and humanity, a song about freedom, about the freedom of birds when they take flight, soaring across borders.
And I would like to dedicate this piece to you, Class of 20xx, with, once again, my heartiest congratulations.Graduates at universities and colleges around the United States are wrapping up the academic year, preparing to face a new era of life. As part of that tradition, celebrities, politicians, athletes, CEOs and artists are offering a range of life advice in commencement addresses.
Here is the commencement speech by Oprah Winfrey at Colorado College in 20xx.
In it, she tells college graduates in Colorado small steps lead to big accomplishments.
Winfrey quoted black activist Angela Davis, who said: "You have to act as if it were possible to radically change the world. And you have to do it all the time."
Winfrey says change doesn't happen with big breakthroughs so much as day-to-day decisions.
The television personality and philanthropist once gave away a car to everybody in the audience on her show. Winfrey didn't give the college graduates cars but copies of her book, "The Path Made Clear."
She told them to expect failure in life but know that everything will be OK.
As you heard earlier, just over on that side of Killian Court, showing off their spectacular red jackets are more than 170 members of the class of 1969. Apollo 11, as you heard, landed on the moon a few weeks after their MIT graduation. A number of them went on to work in fields that were greatly…greatly accelerated by progress from Apollo 11. One of them is Irene Greif, the first woman to earn a PhD in computer science from MIT.
But I believe our 1969 graduates might all agree on the most important wisdom we gained from Apollo: It was the sudden intense understanding of our shared humanity and of the preciousness and fragility of our blue planet.
50 years later, those lessons feel more urgent than ever, and I believe that, as members of the great global family of MIT, we must do everything in our power to help make a better world. So it is in that spirit that I deliver my charge to you.
I’m going to use a word that feels very comfortable at MIT, although it has taken on a troubling new meaning elsewhere. But I know that our graduates will know what I mean.
After you depart for your new destinations, I want to ask you to hack the world until you make the world a little more like MIT – more daring and more passionate, more rigorous, inventive and ambitious, more humble, more respectful, more generous, more kind.
And because the people of MIT also like to fix things that are broken, as you strive to hack the world, please try to heal the world, too.
You will always stand out in your scarlet coats and white gloves, but to me, whether I see you at Westminster Abbey, the Chelsea Flower Show, Twickenham Stadium, or the pub, I notice that you are always smiling.
Don’t ever underestimate the joy that you bring to everyone you meet. You represent something really quite special, you are special, and society will always recognise that. That is an important part of your legacy.
Here, I see a community that continues to value the importance of teamwork which military service in particular can teach you.
It’s a community that focuses on supporting each other with kindness, respect and compassion, as well as reaching out to serve the wider community.
I have just visited the infirmary and seen the excellent facilities and care being provided to those pensioners who are unable to be on parade here today. No doubt they’re watching from the windows cheering you all on.
I think we should all be incredibly proud and grateful knowing that 46 of you here fought in the Second World War; many of you in other conflicts including Korea, Malaya, Borneo and that the ‘youngsters’ among you wear Northern Ireland, South Atlantic and First Gulf War Medals with pride.
Here’s my corollary: “Your mentors may leave you prepared, but they can’t leave you ready.”
When Steve got sick, I had hardwired my thinking to the belief that he would get better. I not only thought he would hold on, I was convinced, down to my core, that he’d still be guiding Apple long after I, myself, was gone.
Then, one day, he called me over to his house and told me that it wasn’t going to be that way.
Even then, I was convinced he would stay on as chairman. That he’d step back from the day to day but always be there as a sounding board.
But there was no reason to believe that. I never should have thought it. The facts were all there.
And when he was gone, truly gone, I learned the real, visceral difference between preparation and readiness.
It was the loneliest I’ve ever felt in my life. By an order of magnitude. It was one of those moments where you can be surrounded by people, yet you don’t really see, hear or feel them. But I could sense their expectations.
Throughout our history, Dartmouth faculty and graduates have had an outsized impact on the world of the arts. Frost, Geisel, and Orozco in early times; Pilobolus, Romero, Kaling, Rhimes, and Arad in more recent years, just to name a few. And as Gail and I have attended your student concerts and plays, visited your studio art installations, and enjoyed the works of aspiring authors and poets on campus, we actually see the future of Dartmouth’s impact on the art world.
At the end of World War II, the famed School for American Craftsmen was born right here on the Dartmouth campus. And in 1962, Dartmouth pioneered a new model for performing arts centers across all of higher education with the opening of the Hop. Not long after, the Dartmouth theater department served as the earliest pathway for women on this campus, some of whom are seated amongst you today as proudly adopted members of the Class of 1969.
And today, the Hop, the Black Family Visual Arts Center, and our newly reimagined Hood Museum of Art together serve as the epicenter of artistic creation and expression on our campus and an incredible source of fulfillment for all of us.
the group gathered there felt something strengthen in them. A conviction that they deserved something better than the shadows, and better than oblivion.
And if it wasn’t going to be given, then they were going to have to build it themselves.
I was 8 years old and a thousand miles away when Stonewall happened. There were no news alerts, no way for photos to go viral, no mechanism for a kid on the Gulf Coast to hear these unlikely heroes tell their stories.
Greenwich Village may as well have been a different planet, though I can tell you that the slurs and hatreds were the same.
What I would not know, for a long time, was what I owed to a group of people I never knew in a place I’d never been.
Yet I will never stop being grateful for what they had the courage to build.
Graduates, being a builder is about believing that you cannot possibly be the greatest cause on this Earth, because you aren’t built to last. It’s about making peace with the fact that you won’t be there for the end of the story.
That brings me to my last bit of advice.
Fourteen years ago, Steve stood on this stage and told your predecessors: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
I have met faculty across our schools who are expanding religious literacy; who are exploring the role of the arts in promoting justice; who are confronting the opioid epidemic from every angle; who are working to make state and local government more effective. Their work is nothing short of inspiring.
And I’ve come to know our students – absolutely amazing students. To the parents who are here, thank you, thank you for sending these remarkable young people to us. They are nothing short of inspiring. Interacting with them is one of the great privileges of living and working on a college campus. Adele and I have had dinner with them in the Houses. We’ve watched them perform on the stage and on the playing fields. I’ve met with them during office hours and talked to them as I’ve gone running with them. If you spend time with our students, you cannot help but feel optimistic about our future.
This past week, I had lunch with thirty graduating seniors. It was wonderful to hear how they think they have changed and matured during their four years here. I actually asked them how is your current self different from your 18-year-old self that arrived here on campus, and the stories were marvelous. And I’ve witnessed this process of transformation myself.
I helped to advise three of our incoming first-year undergraduates this year, and they helped me experience and understand Harvard through their eyes. To Andrew, Claire, and Karen, thank you for sharing your first year for [with] me and for teaching me so well.
So today, I’m happy to announce that, with our foundation, I’m committing $500 million to the launch of a new national climate initiative, and I hope that you will all become part of it. We are calling it Beyond Carbon. The last one was Beyond Coal, this is Beyond Carbon because we have greater goals.
Our goal is to move the U.S. towards a 100% cleaner energy economy as expeditiously as possible, and begin that process right now. We intend to succeed not by sacrificing things we need, but by investing in things we want: the more good jobs, cleaner air and water, cheaper power, more transportation options, and less congested roads that we can get.
Around the world, we’ve still got challenges to solve that threaten everybody in the 21st century – old scourges like disease and conflict, but also new challenges, from terrorism and climate change.
So, make no mistake, Class of 20xx – you’ve got plenty of work to do. But as complicated and sometimes intractable as these challenges may seem, the truth is that your generation is better positioned than any before you to meet those challenges, to flip the script.
Now, how you do that, how you meet these challenges, how you bring about change will ultimately be up to you. My generation, like all generations, is too confined by our own experience, too invested in our own biases, too stuck in our ways to provide much of the new thinking that will be required. But us old-heads have learned a few things that might be useful in your journey. So with the rest of my time, I’d like to offer some suggestions for how young leaders like you can fulfill your destiny and shape our collective future – bend it in the direction of justice and equality and freedom.
I do a lot of graduations, lecturing, talking, and exchanging with the girls, we talk about passion and purpose and realizing your dream. But I realized I was confusing them and their expectations were out of wack. One of my daughter girls two years ago graduated with an internship, bought a used a car, all with no help from me. She’d only been working about six months and called me and said "Mama O, they want to give me a promotion, and I don’t want to take it because I don’t think it fulfills my purpose.” And I said “Your purpose right now is to keep that job! To do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do." (I borrowed that line from the great debaters.)
For years, I had a job, and after years of doing what I didn’t want to do, I ended up finding my life’s calling. My job ended when I was 28 years old. I got my first job in radio at 16, got on tv at 19, and every day I said "I don’t know if this is what I’m really supposed to be doing." But my father was like: ‘You better keep that job!" At 28, it wasn’t working out on the news because I was too emotional. I would cry while interviewing someone who had lost their home. I was told that I was going to be talking on the evening news and put on a talk show, and that was a demotion for me at the time. But that actually worked out for me.
For years at graduations I’ve said there’s no such thing as failure. But there is. I’ve also said failure is life pointing you in a different direction, and it indeed does. But in the moment when you fail, it really feels bad. It’s embarrassing…and it’s bad, and it’s going to happen to you if you keep living. But I guarantee you it also will pass, and you will be fine. Why? Because everything is always working out for you.
So graduates, this is the moment. Please cheer and wave! No, wait, wait. I’m pretty sure you have taken physics and electricity – so you must know something about amplification. So let’s try this again. And remember, I still have your diplomas. So one more time, let’s cheer and wave.
Thank you. It’s truly great to have all of you here on Killian Court, on this wonderful day, for this tremendously important occasion.
But before we send our new graduates out into the world, first, I must beg your indulgence on behalf of my wife. Christine Reif is a wonderful person. In fact, she’s sitting right there. But she has one weakness: She’s crazy about astronauts and about outer space.
As you just heard by the commencement speaker, July 20 of this year marks 50 years since the first human walked on the moon. For those of you graduating, I know this is ancient history – your parents’ history, maybe your grandparents’ history. So perhaps not all of you have been focused on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.
But because Mrs. Reif also loves the Institute, she has asked that, in addition to giving you a charge, I also prepare you for a mission.
I tell you all this because it’s important to note progress. Because to deny how far we’ve come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers; to not only the incredibly accomplished individuals who have already been mentioned, but your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible. I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spur you into action – because there’s still so much more work to do, so many more miles to travel. And America needs you to gladly, happily take up that work. You all have some work to do. So enjoy the party, because you’re going to be busy. (Laughter.)
Yes, our economy has recovered from crisis stronger than almost any other in the world. But there are folks of all races who are still hurting – who still can’t find work that pays enough to keep the lights on, who still can’t save for retirement. We’ve still got a big racial gap in economic opportunity. The overall unemployment rate is 5 percent, but the black unemployment rate is almost nine. We’ve still got an achievement gap when black boys and girls graduate high school and college at lower rates than white boys and white girls. Harriet Tubman may be going on the twenty, but we’ve still got a gender gap when a black woman working full-time still earns just 66 percent of what a white man gets paid. (Applause.)
We’ve got a justice gap when too many black boys and girls pass through a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails. This is one area where things have gotten worse. When I was in college, about half a million people in America were behind bars. Today, there are about 2.2 million. Black men are about six times likelier to be in prison right now than white men.
It is not death most people are afraid of.It is getting to the end of life, only to realize that you never truly lived.There was a study done, a hospital study on 100 elderly people facing death close to their last breath. They were asked to reflect about their life’s biggest regret. Nearly all of them said they regretted not the things they did but the things they didn't do.The risks they never took the dreams they didn’t pursue.I ask you would your last words be; if only I had – hey, you wake up.Why do you exist? Life is not meant to simply work, wait for the weekend and pay rent. No, no I don’t know much. But I know this: every person on this earth has a gift.And I apologized to the black community but I can no longer pretend Martin Luther King. That man never had a dream, that dream had him. See people don't choose dreams, dreams choose them. So the question I’m getting to is, do you have the courage to grab the dream that picked you? That befit you and grips you; or will you let it get away and slip through?
In my inaugural address, I remarked that just 60 years earlier, my father might not have been served in a D.C. restaurant – at least not certain of them. There were no black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Very few black judges. Shoot, as Larry Wilmore pointed out last week, a lot of folks didn’t even think blacks had the tools to be a quarterback. Today, former Bull Michael Jordan isn’t just the greatest basketball player of all time – he owns the team. (Laughter.) When I was graduating, the main black hero on TV was Mr. T. (Laughter.) Rap and hip hop were counterculture, underground. Now, Shonda Rhimes owns Thursday night, and Beyoncé runs the world. (Laughter.) We’re no longer only entertainers, we’re producers, studio executives. No longer small business owners – we’re CEOs, we’re mayors, representatives, Presidents of the United States. (Applause.)
Noe, I am not saying gaps do not persist. Obviously, they do. Racism persists. Inequality persists. Don’t worry – I’m going to get to that. But I wanted to start, Class of 20xx, by opening your eyes to the moment that you are in. If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be – what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you’d be born into – you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now. (Applause.)
Graduates of the great Dartmouth Class of 20xx, congratulations! Revel in this moment. It is a milestone.
And to the friends and family members gathered to share in this happy occasion, we celebrate you, too, for the love and support you’ve provided to the graduates during their Dartmouth journey!
In this 250th year of our beloved College, nostalgia fills our hearts for our cherished Dartmouth traditions: first-year trips, the homecoming bonfire, Winter Carnival. But today, with the incomparable Yo-Yo Ma in the house, I want to talk about another storied Dartmouth tradition: the arts.
The arts have been alive at Dartmouth from the earliest days of the College. Our very first Commencement exercises in 1771 featured an “anthem” composed and set to music and performed by the graduating class. Don’t worry, ’19s – composing an original song is no longer a requirement for earning your degree.
The very next year, 1772, featured the first play put on by Dartmouth students, organized by none other than John Ledyard.
Here we are again. My favorite moment of the year. It’s a genuine day of dreams: in the student section, dreams of new careers, marriage, children, new adventures. In the parents’ seating, dreams of what to do with that disposable income they’re no longer sending to West Lafayette. All in all, a day like no other.
My own dreams about today sometimes are more like nightmares. What to say that’s fitting – that’s meaningful but still concise enough to get us on to the main event quickly? Hardest of all, what to say that’s the least bit original?
While dreaming, or daydreaming, about today, I found myself thinking about Purdue Pete. Again, this year, Pete was ranked among the most identified college mascots in the country, and the favorite in our Big Ten Conference.
A few years before your class arrived on campus, someone tried to redo Pete and turn him into some new symbol of our school. I wasn’t here, either, but as told to me, the idea started an immediate backlash, a near-riot, and died within days. I got to thinking about “why?”
Maybe part of it was his uniqueness. At my last count, there were 64 Eagles, 46 Tigers, and 33 Wildcats among college mascots. But there’s only one set of Boilermakers.
But I think our attachment to Pete stems mainly from the way he personifies our self-image of strength. When our up-and-coming football program chose its slogan for this year, it was “Only the Strong.” One of the year’s YouTube sensations featured a five-foot-nine Purdue player squatting 600 pounds.
But there’s even more to strength than muscle, smarts and character. For the last few years, the air has been filled with studies, surveys, and books reporting a growing “fragility” among American young people, a decreasing capability to handle even modest stress or setbacks without seeking some sort of adult assistance. The number of college students requesting counseling or therapy has doubled in just four or five years.