May 10, 2008

Good morning. I am here for your President, your board and you. Congratulations. You are about to become graduates of this distinguished institution.

I have given many and listened to more commencement addresses. Most commencement speakers struggle to arrive at a unique thought or piece of advice we can impart to the men and women who are about to receive their degrees and for whom time seems of the essence. Most of us - after considerable effort – fail to say anything worth remembering.

Of all the things I have learned from these experiences is this: No one has ever said to me or any other commencement speaker, “Gee, I wish you had talked a little longer.”

I have heard a number of things spoken at events like this that I consider of value. Two stand out. The first came from Jon Stewart speaking at The College of William and Mary in 2001. His advice is especially relevant to those of you who have experienced life and college at the same time.

“College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results, or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it. People will no longer be grading you. Judgment will come from your own internal sense of decency. Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. Let the chips fall where they may.”

The second came from Warren Buffett who spoke at a conference of high school students gathered to study the connection between savings and wealth. Mr. Buffett was asked this direct and lovely question:

“Mr. Buffett, sir, aren’t most wealthy people jerks?”

To which Warren answered brilliantly:

“No, that is not my experience. My experience is that wealth just allows you to be a little more of what you already were.”

So, if you start out as a jerk and become wealthy you can be a really big jerk and make everyone’s life as miserable as possible.

However, if you are not a jerk in the beginning and become wealthy, you can do good with your wealth like Ambassador Walker and the other trustees and donors of Webster University.

Each of you has three important characteristics – intelligence, energy, and character.  The first two you do not control but fortunately you have plenty of both.  The third, your character, is controlled by the rules you set for yourselves.  So, write good rules and have the courage to live by them. If you do, you will find that you have an abundance of the things that matters most: People who love and care for you.

So, that’s all the advice I choose to give you this morning.

Well maybe one more thing. Over the course of your life you will be asked this question many, many times: Where did you go to college?

My advice is to say with pride:  I went to Webster University.  And, if by chance your interlocutor gives you a bemused look that betrays either ignorance or indifference, follow up with this:

What the graduates of Webster University are doing, just like the graduates of The New School I might add, is in some ways more important than those of Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Washington University or others will larger endowments and single digit selectivity rates. You could make a case that those graduates would have ended up in approximately the same place if they had been given degrees their first day and told to spend the next four years learning on their own.

Make no mistake:  the educational elites are very important to the future of the world. I just don’t worry about them or their graduates. Somehow they’ll figure out how to muddle through life.

The overarching challenge of the 21st century – discovering and implementing ways to make globalization work for more individuals and working adults who have for 45 years been earning graduate degrees by taking evening and weekend classes are the key to growing the size and stability of our middle class.

International students who have for 30 years been earning degrees at the network of Webster’s global campuses are the key to expanding the circle of opportunity and closing the gap between the haves and have-nots.

The men and women of our military who for three decades have earned degrees at Webster University facilities near their bases have made our voluntary forces a little more fair and equitable than it otherwise would have been.

The students who have been part of the Repertory Theatre of Saint Louis and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis have added to the humanity of audiences who have watched your plays and listened to your music.  May they do so in the future? God knows we need all the help we can get to make us more humane.

Webster University is doing something exceptional. You are doing something important that is not being done by many others. Your programs and traditions embody three of the most essential educational traits: education is a life-long process, education is not age-specific, education is not limited to a particular time of life.

Webster University exemplifies the principle that education is universal and that it must be accessible to people of all economic classes and ethnic and racial groups. Webster has taught you the hard and valuable lessons of what it means to live in today’s global society. And it has prepared you to participate meaningfully in the range of challenges presented by the forces of globalism that are shaping and reshaping – and in some cases destroying – the communities of the earth.

In sum, Webster University wonderfully combines teaching the values of being a good citizen for one’s country with the awareness of being a good citizen of the world. Indeed, in today’s world, one reinforces the other.

So, be proud of your Alma Mater. Support her when alumni relations hit you up for a contribution. Remember the faculty and staff who gave you hope and helped you make mostly good decisions while you were here.  Be grateful for the generosity of donors whose gifts added scholarships and academic quality to Webster University. Never stop thanking your family and others whose sacrifice made it all possible.

If possible – and I suspect this will be easy - forget everything I have just said and enjoy the day. Best wishes to you one and all.