Good afternoon. My name is Bob Kerrey, President of The New School, our University. I am delighted to welcome you, on behalf of the Board of Trustees, to the 72nd Commencement Exercises of The New School. The wonderful processional music was performed by our Music Wind and Brass Ensemble from Mannes College The New School for Music. Thank you!
On this joyous milestone, we all feel the excitement of the 2008 graduating class. We know you have worked hard to earn these degrees and that you have been helped by parents, siblings, children, and friends who have provided material and spiritual support along the way. This Theater is filled to capacity with those who have sustained you. I ask the graduates to rise, turn around, and give a warm round of applause to thank your friends and relatives.
Well you made it, you’re here. Your exams are passed, your papers written, your tuition paid. Yesterday you were a student. Today you are a graduate. You are changed. You are more than you were on the day you started this journey and you will go on to be more than you are today as you receive the confirmation of a degree that says yes, job well done. If you are lucky and if you are daring, you will change and change again.
There was a reason you came here to The New School to pursue your education. There was something here that you felt would help you to go on to be the person you wanted to be. I sincerely hope you got that, and I hope you got it here at The New School, here in New York City, and here inside yourselves as you changed during your time spent with us.
I also hope you experienced things you didn’t expect, maybe didn’t think you needed, some maybe you didn’t even want. I hope we stretched your mind in ways that will make it impossible to be just the person you were when you first walked into our school because that is the true mark of a good education.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said “Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” If your mind has been stretched by a new idea then we at The New School have done our job.
You will find that what you chose to study here will lead you somewhere. Some of those places will have what you want and some – maybe not so. But in your life’s changes, do not forget what brought you here in the first place.
As you go on to new adventures and new challenges, take The New School with you. Take the core values of social justice, fairness, critical thinking, concern for the the public good, and civic action with you. Know that as a result of your education, you now have the ability to look at things in a way that integrates the practical, the artistic, and the intellectual because we as humans possess all three.
This year we are giving degrees to all of you who have worked hard here at The New School. We are also giving honorary degrees to individuals who have worked hard outside The New School. Today we are honoring people who embody the meaning of change. To be or cause to be different, there is not a status quo type among them.
Zygmunt Bauman, a scholar who lived through the condition of exile, and went on to explore new ways of thinking about sociology and society in a changing world.
Majora Carter, environmental activist, who brought about the changes she wanted in her neighborhood rather than sit back and complain about the need for them.
Elizabeth LeCompte, artistic director, with the insight to explore change through art and continuously thrill and surprise theater audiences.
Henry Mintzberg, educator, whose work insists leaders be responsible members of their organizations, working side by side to build an idea and then standing accountable for its changing outcome.
Wanda Nowicka, champion of human rights, who fought using international instruments to bring change to national policies, moving women forward when her country was trying to pull them back.
And Vito Acconci, today’s commencement speaker, an artist who looked at the way things were designed and said they could be better, they could be different, they could be changed and, as a result, opened doors for countless artists, writers, and designers to take huge leaps in their art.
All of these people may have started out with certain ideas and certain notions to how their lives would play out. I’m sure there isn’t one who had the experience of getting exactly what they thought they would get. Sometimes we choose the changes in our lives and other times we must accept the changes in our lives. For certain, the one thing we can count on in life is that things will change. And just when they are becoming unbearable they will change again. And just when we get comfortable they will change again and again.
Believe from this day forward that you have not only the ability but the obligation, through your art, through your music, through your design, through your ideas, to bring about change inside yourselves, your families, your communities, and your world, in order to address issues and problems larger than yourself. I wish you the best in your changes.
Congratulations on a job well done.
