chancellor@ku.edu
Graduates of 1999, this is a solemn and formal ceremony, commencement at the University of Kansas. How should I begin: wear sunscreen? No, probably not.
Perhaps I should once again introduce the KU faculty. If not for them, you might not be here; then again, if not for them, you might have been here sooner.
However you got here, graduation at the University of Kansas, as you now know, occurs when someone walks down the Hill from Mount Oread. It is the most meaningful tradition in this university, and one of the most meaningful traditions in any university in America. The walk is the ceremony.
The walk assumes such meaning because walking down the Hill serves as a metaphor for the entire KU experience. For some of you, walking down that hill was a relatively easy task. These four years have been a steady march, a series of goals met, one foot ahead of the other. For others there have been stumbles and stutter steps, many obstacles, some financial, some personal, some academic. Some of you even took detours, detours into marriage, into parenthood, into full-time employment to earn enough to re-enroll. One thing that we all know, nobody walked down that hill alone. Friends and family walked with you, some of them here in body, some of them here in spirit.
But now you are at the bottom of the Hill, happy and proud, sweaty, just a little bit rowdy. In a few minutes we will formally confer the degree you earned. Because it was four years ago that I, too, came to KU, I feel especially close to this graduating class of 1999 that I joined as a freshman chancellor in 1995. We started out together and you taught me a lot.
So, please permit met to recognize some of the students I've met in the last four years.
This year, as in the past, I invited students to help me with this speech. To Mike Harrity and Tony Vinh, seniors in journalism, I want to say thanks for the help. Sorry I had to censor the joke about Marilyn Manson.
To Kevin Yoder, the president of the student body, thank you for taking me to the Wheel last week so that I could taste the chicken-fried steak and discover why so many graduating seniors need bypass surgery.
To Harley Ratliff, former student of mine and former baby-sitter for our family, thanks for helping to set the class dress code. Harley is the only graduate who has worn the same baseball cap for the entire few years of his college experience.
And finally to Amy Brewer - Amy where are you? Your mother has authorized me to say, here in front of 20,000 people at the last KU commencement of the 20th century, that there really is a new car as a graduation present. Check out the garage after the ceremony.
You know, as I stand here today, I look at all of you in the same way I have looked at graduating classes in years past. I think to myself . . . those mortarboards sure are funny looking hats. How did you ever let us trick you into buying them, let alone wearing them? What in the world do you plan to do with them, now that you own them?
Seriously, just like that walk down the Hill, those mortarboards stand for a tradition. They date back to the Middle Ages, when the guild of Masons sent representatives to march in university ceremonies. Today, they stand for the historical integrity of the university. They stand for the academic enterprise; they stand for the meaning behind a college education. They stand for the fact that four years after you've been here - or five years, or six years, or seven years after you came here - you are more intelligent, more thoughtful, a better prepared citizen of this democracy. We hope, a person more committed to helping others.
But the real question about that funny looking hat is what does it mean to you? Many of you, perhaps a majority of you, are going to be done with formal schooling. You may not wear that mortarboard again. The real uncertainty becomes what hat will you wear tomorrow and what will that new hat mean? What will the next four years demand of you that the last four years didn't? What's going to happen to you now?
The traditional role of a commencement speaker is to offer reassurance for the graduate as you shuck your mortarboard and take on this new, postgraduate uncertainty, that great hope mixed with anxiety that lays ahead.
So here it comes, Chancellor Bob's Advice to the Hopeful and Undecided.
Think about Chris Rock's statement, "You hear people say, life is short. Life is not short, life is long, very long." That's worth remembering. If you don't have a job yet, don't worry. You will. You have your whole life to work. Find a job that makes a difference in this world.
If you haven't gotten your tickets to the new Star Wars yet, don't worry about that either. It will still be in theaters two months from now, in a year it will be on video, and in two years it will be in the dollar theaters.
The moral: Opportunities come to those who wait. The trick is to know when to buy your ticket.
I know a little bit about the Class of 1999's uncertainties, and its incredible opportunities, because I have two sons, Matt and Langston, who are also members of the class of 1999. Matt graduated from the University of Kentucky last week and Langston graduated from the University of Oklahoma on the same day.
Boy, do they feel they have opportunities amidst a sea of uncertainty.
Langston tells me one day he is going to work in Europe. The next he is going to teach in Texas; there are rumors of signing bonuses in the public schools of Texas. What it has come down to is a summer-school course in Norman, Okla.
Matt was a euphonium and trombone major at the University of Kentucky. He may go to graduate school. But he has a girlfriend he doesn't want to leave. Maybe he'll just play in his band, if they get enough gigs.
It is Matt, uncertain about his future, who told me what an optimist is. Do you know what an optimist is? An optimist is a euphonium player with a pager.
I have told them, maybe it's best not to worry. If you must worry about the shortness of time, worry about Y3K, not Y2K. By then it won't matter.
A popular song I've heard (well actually, that Tony and Mike have heard) says, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Think about it. You began school 15 to 20 years ago with a Big Chief tablet and 64 crayons. In junior high your trapper keeper poked you in the eye when they stuffed you in your locker. In high school you carried Clearasil in your backpack and prayed every night for your own car. In college you learned KU traditions: what it meant to be a Jayhawk, the words for the alma mater and how to stand in registration lines.
You also learned a few other things, we hope. Like the respect for learning and academic integrity symbolized by that funny hat called a mortarboard.
Today it all came to a climax with that walk down the Hill. Funny looking hat today. Tomorrow, who knows what will be on your head, or on your shoulders? Tomorrow is a new beginning. Don't be scared. Remember the joy of today and why it has been such a happy day. I suspect that you are happy today because you are walking with those who care about you. And you care about walking with them, too.
So, dream up a future with that kind of warmth. That'll be another hat worth wearing, another walk worth taking.
Congratulations Jayhawks of 1999!
