Undergraduate Ceremony Remarks by Interim President Arthur Levine
Transcript
Good morning, everybody. That's great. Congratulations to the Class of 2025! Come on, let's hear it for them. Now, I've only been at Brandeis for a little over six months, but I’m assured this is the best class in the history of the entire university. Lisa seems to have written something here — with the possible exception of the Class of ’75, which is here for their 50th.
Okay, graduates, join me in applauding the people who made this day possible: family, friends, professors, and staff. I'd also like to recognize Louisa Brandeis Popkin, the great-granddaughter of Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who's joined us today. What an honor to have the family.
I agree with Lisa — commencements are bittersweet occasions. For graduates and their families, they are times of joy and celebrations of joint accomplishments. They are also times of contemplation. Hard decisions must be made about the future. They are also times of doubt, when friends go off in different directions, and for some, an unknown future waits.
But for presidents like me, commencements are times in which generally too much is said about too little for too long. I plan to be merciful today. Two, three hours and I'm out of here. I'm only going to speak for a few minutes, but I promise you, it'll seem much longer.
Today I want to talk to the graduates. I want to talk about your hopes, your fears, and your promise. I want to talk about what happens tomorrow morning. You, we, all of us, are living through a period of profound, accelerating, unceasing, and unprecedented change as this country and many others move from national analog industrial economies to global digital knowledge economies. We're experiencing a kaleidoscopic array of changes.
Your generation is living simultaneously in two worlds — one that's fading away, the world in which most of your parents and professors grew up, and another that's being born—the world in which you're going to live your lives. And our hopes and dreams are with you. We need you to repair the world, to build the new world, and to make it better than the world is today.
This morning, we've come together not only to applaud your achievements but to celebrate that you now have the skills, the knowledge, and the values to accomplish this. I can't speak for many other people, but I can tell you this: I am really glad to see the future in your hands. So today, I want to wish you three blessings. The first is hope. I'm not talking about blind or Pollyannaish hope, but the hope necessary to live every day of your life and to hold tight to your dreams.
I do a lot of interviewing on campuses for the research that I do. One day I met a young woman and asked her, "What are you majoring in?" She said, “Business.” I said, “Do you like it?” She replied, “No, I hate it.” I asked, “What would you rather major in?” And she said, “Dance.” I asked, “Why don’t you major in dance, then?” And she looked at me the way you'd look at a young, dumb brother and said, “Money is nice. Poor is not nice.” Then she walked away.
We learned two things from that story: first, she was not attending Brandeis, or she would have had 37 majors and 15 minors. Second, and much more importantly, she didn’t have to give up her dream. She could have managed a dance company, taught dance, been an arts critic, or sold dance equipment. Your dreams are too precious to give away for a bag of beans.
The second blessing is responsibility. You are the most fortunate people in the world. And with good fortune comes responsibility. You owe something to others. Let me tell you another story. I was on a plane sitting next to a college student. I asked her about her plans. She said she wanted to be a U.S. senator, CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and work on nuclear arms control.
So I asked, “What do you need to accomplish all of this?” And she said, “A killer instinct.” Not the answer I was expecting. I asked her to define it. She said, “You know, the ability to step on people, walk over people, get what I want.” I said, “Ah, now I understand. What about altruism?” I defined it for her, and she said it wasn’t part of her game plan.
So I said, “What about nuclear arms control?” She said, “You don’t get it, do you? If there’s a nuclear war, I don’t get to be CEO of a multinational corporation, do I?” She may achieve all her wishes, but I can’t think of a student higher education has failed more greatly. I wish you all the ability to look in the mirror every day for the rest of your life and be proud of what you see.
My third wish for you is a sense of efficacy — a belief that you can make a difference. One more story. I was visiting a college where all the top students were brought together for a seminar series to prepare them for prestigious fellowships. They invited me to talk about leadership. A few minutes in, I noticed people counting light bulbs and checking their watches. I thought things weren’t going well, and they agreed.
We traded theories about what was wrong. Then a young man stood up and said, “Leadership is—let’s use the word garbage today. We couldn’t make a difference if we wanted to.” I saw this as a teachable moment. I really wanted to humiliate that guy.
So I asked, “How many of you agree?” Three hands went up. But here’s the fact: every one of you is going to make a difference. Not everyone becomes president of their country—and that’s good for you and for us. But each of you will touch dozens of lives in far more fundamental ways: family, friends, neighbors, coworkers—for ill or for good.
You’re going to make a difference to every one of those lives. If you’re wondering whether to embrace social service, the helping professions, or the arts — follow your heart. Follow your passions. A lifetime is a long time to do something you don’t want to do.
Tomorrow will require people committed to keeping the American dream alive and extending it to all of our children. You can make a difference. If you decide to become a doctor or enter a health-related field, don’t do it for the prestige. Tomorrow will require health professionals who want to help heal a pained nation and a troubled world. You can make a difference.
If you go into business, don’t do it for the money. Tomorrow will require leaders and followers who care deeply about our shared agenda. You can make a difference. I don’t care if you want to be the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker—you can make a difference. Making that difference is your birthright. No one can take it away from you. Don’t give it away.
Tomorrow morning will require hope, responsibility, and a sense of efficacy. I beg of you, please be the people who will make that commitment, because no one else can.
Thank you, and congratulations.