The University Commencement Ceremony Speaker

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University of Tennessee Commencement
Rita Geier
December 17, 2006

Good afternoon and thank you so much for your generous introduction and especially for the invitation to deliver this commencement address. Dr. Petersen, Chancellor Crabtree, the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees, other officials, faculty and students, I am truly honored by your invitation. It is not as big a surprise as many may think because it is the culmination of a relationship with the University of Tennessee that perhaps was born in contention many decades ago but has grown into one of mutual respect, shared vision and accomplishment. Thank you UT for the BIG Big Orange welcome I have received. I want to extend a special greeting of heartfelt congratulations and best wishes to the graduates, their families and friends who have gathered to celebrate and share this moment. Your accomplishments are worthy of all the pomp and circumstance of this celebration, all the praise and hallelujahs, and the shared recollections of what it took to get you here. Indulge me please for a moment. I don’t think they do this any more, but it used to be that freshmen would be told to look at the person to their right and the person to their left because one of them would not be there at graduation. Well, I want to turn that little maneuver on its head. Will all the graduates please stand. Now turn to the person on your right and turn to the person on your left, give them a hug and tell them “congratulations on your achievement, you made it and I wish you all the best.” Doesn’t that feel good? And if you didn’t know that person you just hugged, you may have a new best friend.

The instant I hung up the phone after enthusiastically accepting the university’s invitation to be the commencement speaker today, I was seized with terror. My only comfort came from the request that my remarks be brief. And yet I would be dishonest if I said that I am not thrilled to have the opportunity to address you, some of the best and the brightest , as you conclude this period of learning and personal growth and enter your future world, full of potential and challenge and reward.

Graduations are private as well as public events, they should be moments of reflection and affirmation as well as congratulation, a time of true commencement, that is, new beginnings, as well as for celebrating your accomplishments. As a modern day rite of passage, they mark the closing of one door and the opening of many others, most unknown to you at this time. They force you to look backward and forward at the same time. And, most important, they give you the opportunity to take a 360 degree look at yourself and the direction of your life at a time when your options are perhaps the broadest and your hopes the brightest. Therefore, I’d like to use this brief time not to share with you my views about the condition of the world as do many commencement speakers (though I can’t absolutely guarantee that), but to reflect upon my life’s journey in the forty years since I stood where you stand now and some of the lessons learned that have been the most important to me and I believe can sustain you no matter what the condition of the world.

First, let me give you the perspective from which I speak and remind you just how much the world has changed in that time. Prior to 1961, the year that I graduated from segregated Melrose High School in Memphis, Tennessee, I could not have enrolled in the University of Tennessee to take a seat beside you who are graduating today. It was in 1961 that Theotis Robinson, who is the UT Vice-President for Equity and Diversity, was among the first three African-American students admitted to UT. It is perhaps the best evidence of the change that has occurred in higher education in Tennessee that he and I share the dais today with the leadership of this great institution to congratulate you.

You, this graduating class of record diversity, are the beneficiaries of those years of change. What I set out to do in 1968 as the plaintiff in the lawsuit to end the dual system of higher education in Tennessee was but a catalyst for a much broader and deeper change that has taken hold in Tennessee and must continue. As I said to those assembled at the official end of the Geier case in September, litigation like this does not take place in a vacuum. It has been impacted by societal change and growth. It has not been one dimensional change and court orders are only part of the story. In the long path of this litigation, political empowerment has occurred, attitudes towards race and diversity have changed, social and economic progress have created new opportunities and imperatives, and finally we have had the dawn of enlightened self-interest, the realization that Tennessee cannot reach its full potential as a place of economic opportunity and quality living with any group of people left behind. Today we have Chambers of Commerce looking for managers and leaders who can lead and manage the diverse workforces of tomorrow, we have local companies conducting global business looking for people who can make them competitive in a cross cultural world and we have school boards looking for teachers with multicultural skills and respect for difference. You, the UT class of 2006, are better equipped to meet those needs than any who have gone before you, for you are the beneficiaries of the opening of doors and minds that began decades ago in this long march toward an inclusive and diverse educational community. It is up to you to carry that change forward into the communities where you will work and live and make them better places by welcoming diversity just as the University of Tennessee has been enriched.

You may consider this next part of my remarks to be Rita Geier’s version of “This I Believe,” the NPR segment that has inspired me and I am sure many of you to articulate your core beliefs. I’d like to share some of those with you today in the belief that they can be as meaningful for you today as they have been for me. You either have or will find your own guiding principles, but I ask you to consider these on this occasion.

• Approach life with an attitude of humility and thanksgiving. You are indeed the fortunate ones who have come this far. Some of you came from Appalachian towns and inner cities where the odds were against you standing here today. You have been privileged to be educated and to earn its benefits, not just to make more money and to live more lavishly, but you have had the chance to acquire knowledge from many disciplines of the individual, of society and the world in which we live and to gain the understanding and technological skills to apply that knowledge and make the future better and brighter for yourself and others. Never forget that you did not get here by your deeds alone, or that there are others who yearned for this opportunity, but were not so fortunate. Each of you had someone, probably many, who have supported and sacrificed for you, who have been with you all the way or just when you needed someone the most… who never let you give up, give in or lose your way… and to those dear ones you should be eternally grateful and be sure today that they know you know what they have done for you.
• You are not owed anything. You owe. You have all heard that of those to whom much is given, much is expected. I believe that. My son and I mentor 8th graders in the Higher Achievement Program in Washington, D.C. where the mentors are mostly young professionals who universally say they want to “give something back.” But those who practice ethical altruism get back far more than they give. The opportunities are everywhere, in every community, virtually on every street corner. I encourage you to consider “pro bono publico” -- serving the public good -- as a career and discover as I have some of the most challenging and rewarding work that your profession has to offer. Marion Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, a person I greatly admire, put it this way: “Service is the rent each of us pays for living.” But Dr. Albert Schweitzer said it best to young people like yourself when he said: “I can’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
• Never be blind to injustice or accept it. You must not become hardened to injustice because there is so much of it in the world. One can not watch the news or read the papers without being overwhelmed with the hardships that so many suffer at home and abroad. We must not accept as inevitable the suffering of others, whether from war, homelessness, lack of medical treatment, hunger, child abuse and more. Do not deceive yourself that you are powerless. You can indeed be an army of one. Every reader can fight illiteracy. One parent can galvanize a PTA and then a school board; one parishioner can help a church find its voice against injustice. Sadly, the opportunity to fight injustice is everywhere. Mahatma Gandhi and his successors taught us that noncooperation with evil is just as much a duty as cooperation with good. What I did as a 23 year old instructor at Tennessee State 38 years ago was not special or heroic, it was opportunistic…I was in the right place at the right time to do what needed to be done, and I did it. There was no lofty moralizing or in making that decision… it was simply the choice to do the right thing or to acquiesce in a status quo that was unjust. There are daily opportunities in your lives, small and large, to make ethical decisions and it takes will, not heroism, to do what you know is right. I challenge you to assume the leadership role that your education has prepared you for to fight injustice where you find it, whether in the boardroom, the classroom, or the locker room.
• The next thing I would urge you do is to Live in the Moment. This is not a call for self-gratification or existential nihilism. Rather it’s a call for fully exploring and enjoying the experiences of life as they present themselves …in real time. Not to see the world through rose-colored glasses, but to experience it as a kaleidoscope of shapes, colors and textures igniting your spirit and sparking your imagination. I have learned that so much in life is missed if we hurry past it….like the character said in the great film “Postcards from the Edge,” “Having a great time, wish I were here.” It is a gift we can freely bestow upon ourselves, it is as Thomas Merton said, the ability to see “the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor that is all around us.” Only if we are open to the possibility of learning from our own thoughts and feelings can we find wisdom and inspiration in our everyday experiences. The “Aha” moments never announce themselves, we must be ready to perceive them.
• Never forget the Importance of Relationships. We all have the need for others in our lives, to know and be known, to trust and be trusted. To be united with other human beings is primordial, it’s spiritual, it’s kept the human race going, it’s “all good.” You must let nothing interfere with your building and nourishing strong and lasting relationships with your family and with friends. They will sustain you when all else fails. Toni Morrison’s character Sixto describes such a relationship in plain language in Beloved: “It’s good you know whenever you get a woman who is a friend of your mind…She gather me up, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.” We all need special people in our lives who can help us stay centered and hold it all together, who accept us without question and love us unconditionally. Never ever delude yourself that you can go it alone. Sharing your life gives it exponential quality. So don’t ever get too busy, too tired, too self-absorbed or whatever to forego or neglect this essential for living a full and satisfying life. I believe it is true that nobody on their deathbed ever said: “Oh, I wish I had spent more time at the office.”
• Do the work you love. We spend too much of our lifetime in work for it not to be an extension of our souls. So chose carefully and keep searching for the work that you can do with passion. “Work is love made visible,” wrote Kahlil Gibran, and “if you bake bread with indifference, you will bake a bitter loaf that will feed only half your hunger.” There is no pride or satisfaction to be had in such labor. President Roosevelt (Teddy that is) summed it up perfectly in words with which I have often exhorted my staff. He said: “One of the greatest prizes that life has to offer is the opportunity to work really hard for something that really matters.” Don’t settle for less for if you do it will poison the spirit that allows you to enjoy all the other facets of your life.
• Finally, Live in Community. There is a Zen concept of “interbeing” that compels us to be engaged in our communities and the world. It recognizes that community is not just a spatial concept, but that we should be involved in communities of faith, shared vision, and common interests…becoming stronger in our faith, vision or interests because we have the encouragement and support of others. We know that it’s a small world after all and that neither nations nor individuals can exist in isolation; that the world has finite resources and they must be shared and preserved for all of us; that wars between tribes can destabilize whole regions and threaten world peace. Through the wonders of technology, we have instant images in horrific detail, and as one commentator graphically put it, a drop of blood spilled in Darfur or Iraq can splash upon the hem of our best dress. It will take an intelligent, compassionate and engaged world community to move nations to take responsible action to make a better world for all peoples who share this planet. There are really no sidelines, our interbeing means that we are either part of the solution or part of the problem.

I will close with a parable that I think sums up my message. It’s from The Journey of Ibn Fattouma by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mafouz. It’s about a young man who leaves his village when he comes of age and realizes that there is poverty, ignorance, greed and that society has strayed from the ideals that he was taught to believe. He embarks on a journey to the perfect land high on a mountaintop where he might learn the way to truth and justice and come back to heal his village. It is a journey of undetermined length and uncertain direction because while everyone has heard of this wonderful place, no one has actually been there. The young man becomes a traveler, a seeker for many decades. He joins caravans and moves with them from one distant village to the next, and in each village he spends some time, sometimes many years to learn how each society works and to speak to its sages. Each village visited by Ibn was different, society structured differently, laws and rules changed at each location, roles of individuals and their place and importance in society differed…and as Ibn became a part of each village, he had to adapt and master the change. At each village he gained some new understanding and insight into the way societies work and don’t work. He learns the value of simplicity and plain living, he learns the spiritual destructiveness of totalitarianism, the false seduction of utopias and benevolent despotism, the cruelty and hypocrisy of religious fanaticism, and through it all he learns to appreciate the magnificence of the human spirit, the yearning for beauty in one’s surroundings, fulfillment in one’s work, the creative potential in every person, and the longing for peace and justice. At the end of many decades he reaches a point where he can actually see in the cloudy distance the towers and spires of what looks to be a magnificent kingdom, the perfect Land he has sought. He sees, however, that it is not close and looks to be reachable only after crossing a seemingly unending desert and scaling a mountain of undetermined distance and height. So he stops in one last village to prepare for this final journey and learns that all its residents are fellow travelers like him who have traveled all their lives to reach the perfect land and have achieved no more than having it in their vision. It was then that he realized that the perfect Land may be an unattainable goal and that he had devoted his life to seeking that goal. But he did not despair or feel that his was a wasted life. He had spent a lifetime learning from each village he had visited, from each experience and person he had known and from that learning he had gained knowledge and skill and understanding. The greatest learning was the knowledge that it was the journey from which he had gained new insights, new understandings, and new wisdom about life…the very thing he had sought in that perfect Land.

You, the University of Tennessee graduates of 2006, are embarking on a similar journey and it is what you learn on the way to achieving your goals, following your own guiding principles, that will enable you to live well and fully. I wish you God speed and blessings upon your endeavors.