chancellor@ku.edu
Congratulations to the Class of 2002! You have confronted the curriculum, ripped through the requirements and now you have walked the walk!
The genius of KU’s Commencement comes in its symbolic meaning. Walking down the hill today serves as a metaphor for your KU experience, and it becomes a symbol for what awaits you as you leave Mt. Oread.
You have descended from the university—the ivory tower—into the world. In this case a literal ivory tower—a tall, majestic white steeple called a campanile—the Italian name representing the privileged learning of the old world. This walk down the hill deposits you onto a playing field, a level surface symbolizing the “New World” spirit of America—a place for fair, democratic competition.
What confronts you as you leave KU is competition and challenge. First, competition for a job, second, the challenge of putting your learning to work as you strive for success in your chosen profession. Your competitive instincts will be tested just as surely as the KU football team will be tested on this turf three months from now.
And, by the way, we expect all of you to come back to that first home game, September 14th. We want you to brag about that new job, tell how you scored points with your KU degree, and inspire the Jayhawks to do the same.
There are 4,000 stories here today, 4,000 stories of personal triumph, part-time jobs, late nights, lukewarm coffee, frantic Internet searches, and families that picked you up when you were down.
It has been my privilege to know many of you first hand. If I talk about some of you personally, it is because you represent your classmates. Mike Harrity graduates today with his second KU degree. Mike is a friend of our family. He is a great person. He hangs around our house a lot. He seems to show up most frequently near the end of receptions, politely inquiring whether any food is left over.
J.R. Mendoza has interviewed me for a number of stories in the U.D.K. Last week I heard J.R. give part of his story, how he prayed for his father’s recovery so he could be here for J.R.’s graduation. And both J.R. and his father are here today.
Sarah Dehart is here today. Sarah was in my freshman honors seminar. She has been full of energy for the past four years. Now she thinks she’ll just be bored for a while—perhaps starting today at this ceremony.
Sean Devray is here today, too. Sean stopped me in LaParilla’s Thursday night. I had just ordered the Chimichanga with refried beans. He had just finished his last test. Sean has his whole life, for the next ten years, laid out in front of him—Washington internship, Navy, Law School, JAG Corps. Sean’s story is about planning ahead.
Jennifer Bacani is right down here with the platform party. I asked her what should be in theis speech. Her advice: whatever you say include The Wheel. It is the real center of campus. Or, at least, it is for Jennifer.
Johnnie Foster graduates today. He, too, has been trying to help me write this speech. He sent me a copy of Conan O’Brien’s Class Day speech given at Harvard on June 7, 2000.
O’Brien knows how to begin a speech, and he can say things chancellor’s can’t. Among his first words were, “Students of the Harvard Class of 2000. Fifteen years ago, I sat where you sit now, and I thought exactly what you are now thinking. What’s going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin?”
There are certain common themes in the 4,000 stories. Many of you learned a great deal from faculty who wanted you to care as much about their subject as they did. Sometimes you wanted to scream out, “I am here only because it is a required course. I will never voluntarily read T.S. Eliot again.”
Over the past four years, many of you have shared living arrangements with others that you may never experience again. Whether you lived in a fraternity or sorority, schol hall or residence hall, certain lifestyles will change. For example, you may never again sleep in a room with multiple snoring bodies.
Over the last four years, some of you learned to eat foods at Mrs. E’s that you would never fix for yourself. Some of you drank drinks –but always 5 or less—that you will never want to drink again.
Some of you survived for the entire 4 years on pepperoni pizza. I know this for a fact. I have seen the empty boxes in the trash.
Some of you lived alone, in an apartment filled with dirty socks and sweaty t-shirts, which only got cleaned and aerated if your girlfriend was coming over.
Some of you convinced your mother that the only way you could continue to love her, would be if she did your laundry once a month. Others, more self-reliant, learned how to use a Laundromat, which explains why you have worn multi-colored underwear for the past 4 years.
My point to all of this is that you learned as much outside the classroom as you learned within. For example, you learned something about crime and punishment, and though you may elude the system for a while, enjoying the thrill of your fugitive status, sooner or later those parking tickets will come home to roost.
Yes, you can walk down the hill. No, you cannot receive your diploma until you pay for your crimes.
So all in all, it is a glorious day, filled with love and affections and good spirits. You have every right to feel proud of your accomplishments. Accept those graduation gifts in the spirit with which they are given—a symbolic recognition of the journey, which you have taken together with those you love.
Because no one walks down that hill alone. The walk is central to everyone’s story. Those who love you also walked today, transported by you and your accomplishment to this defining moment in your life.
In a few moments you will complete today‘s walk, leaving this stadium and your university and all it represents. As you do so, I would offer three parting thoughts.
First, ask yourself how your education will be used beyond your job and career. Your learning will enable you to make money and acquire status. But your personal, monetary gain should never be greater than the social return you create for others.
If your goal is to make a million dollars, I hope you do (and the KU Endowment Association does, too), but create a million dollars worth of good for others while you do it. In your church, in your clubs, in your neighborhoods, in your communities, use your skills, and your hard-earned knowledge, to make a better life for others as well as a good life for yourself.
Second, let your education endow you with global ambitions. Make no small plans. Every day 6,000 Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 die of AIDS. Every day, 2,000 African babies are born with HIV, having received the virus from their mothers as they lay in the womb.
Finally, think about the two most memorable events of your senior year—the 9/11 terrorist attack and the Jayhawks going to the Final Four. Good things can follow bad things, and usually do. No matter how disastrous the event, life goes on, time heals, and we find things to cheer about. So give a shout for yourselves, Class of 2002, you deserve it.
Walk that Jayhawk walk and live that Jayhawk life.
