By Dan May
Rotary Club of Orange
Dan May
Graduation season is here. This spring about 8 million US high school and college students will celebrate this milestone in ceremonies with family and friends in attendance.
A standard part of most ceremonies, especially at colleges and universities, is an invited keynote speech by a dignitary. As a lifelong university educator, I have listened to more than 100 commencement speeches. The majority seek to inspire graduates as they move into the next phase of their lives. Most were enjoyable, but only a few remain memorable for me.
The first I often recall was by an alum who had gone on to become a very young principal in an underserved Cleveland middle school. He had attended that school as an adolescent, and by his account had spent as much time in the principal’s office for disciplinary reasons as he had in classrooms. His description of that principal’s office décor was one of foreboding – drab walls with military-gray metal chairs lined up in front of a vast desk sitting on a raised platform behind which presided a ruddy taskmaster.
His story was that his first act as the new principal was to redecorate that office to make it warm and welcoming for a pre-teen. I do not recall his name or that of his school, but I do know that I went back to my own office and rearranged the furniture to limit intimidation.
The second was by a university trustee who was the CEO of the local hospital. He had started his career as a pharmacist there. When he started the hospital’s pharmacy was crammed into a small space next to a much larger lounge area that supported the hospital volunteers. Incensed by the disparity, he marched up the chief hospital administrator and boldly stated that the pharmacy was the future of health care, that it should have far more space and that the administrator should relocate the volunteer’s lounge to make it happen. The administrator said no. The young pharmacist sulked, decided he could run the hospital much better, and set out on a plan of professional development to lead the hospital. In fairly short order, and after gaining an MBA and JD, he was the CEO and enlarged the pharmacy at the expense of the lounge.
In a few months, though, he realized he had made a colossal mistake in snubbing the volunteers. By his belated admission, their contributions to patient welfare were at least as great as prescription meds. So he moved the pharmacy down to the basement and expanded the volunteer and patient reception area to a front entrance setting.
The third speech I recall was that by a faculty colleague – Louis Stulman, a professor of religion at the University of Findlay in Ohio. He is fluent in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, and works with original source materials in the Middle East to analyze the Old Testament books of the prophets. His 2005 address is the only one I have ever asked the speaker to provide me with a copy of. The speech was titled “Living in the House of Fear or the House of Love” and I reread it when the latest divisive news event plays out across the media.
Stulman’s address drew on the writing of Henri Nouwen, a scholarly Dutch priest who combined psychology, spirituality and community in multiple books in the late 20th century. Stulman noted the pervasive and palpable consequences of fear and anxiety, both individually and collectively, and how fear has been (and still is) exploited throughout history. His message to graduates was that the antidote to fear is not courage, but love. He provided Old Testament examples from the books of Jeremiah and Hosea, the prophet of Hesed (which is the Hebrew word for love).
Love is more complex than fear and harder to describe in all its manifestations. Love rarely is addressed in schools, and understanding and expanding it is typically relegated to families and churches. However, empathy is a related emotion, and many organizations and nonsectarian service clubs like Rotary or Lions or Kiwanis attempt to promote shared understanding beyond familial boundaries. In many ways, that is probably their main value. Collective behavior makes empathy more readily achievable as well.
Preparing this column, I searched online for common commencement speech themes. In 2022, TED.com analyzed about 100 well-reviewed speeches and noted that nearly all contained four tips – dream big, work hard, make mistakes and be kind. Wherever you are in your life’s journey, do not forget the last tip. The speakers I still recall never did.
Dan May is the president of the Rotary Club of Orange.