|
Commencement Home |
Accommodations |
Speaker |
Commencement FAQs
Commencement Parking and Map |
Commencement 2008 Photos & Speeches
Commencement Schedule |
Department Events
|
2007 Commencement Address: Former U.S. Senator Bob
Graham
|
|
Thank you, President Oxtoby. It is a great honor to become
part of the Pomona College family -- even if I have done so
without the benefits of class attendance and examinations.
Now, what I need is instruction in chirping like a Sagehen.
I know there was some controversy surrounding my selection
to give the commencement address to the graduating class of
2007. Today, for the first time, I can reveal the secrets of
how I was chosen to be here today.
It’s pretty simple. The first and second choices, Abraham
Lincoln and Albert Einstein, were unavailable. Bill Clinton
was third, but he had reached his self imposed maximum of 37
graduation speeches. Moving down the list, No. 25, which
happens to be her age, Britney Spears. Unfortunately, she
was committed to her every other Sunday child care
responsibilities. No. 46, Sanjaya, was reluctant as he was
still in contention for American Idol.
 I
was No. 47. It might make you feel better to know that had I
not accepted, No. 48 was Vice President Dick Cheney.
Congratulations to each of the graduates for having
completed your undergraduate experience at one of America’s
most distinguished colleges. Each of you has worked hard to
be here this afternoon. You are not alone. Behind you were
families, friends, supporters who assisted in your
achievement.
I would ask the graduates of 2007 rise and show their love
appreciation to your mothers on this mother’s day, your
father, -- don’t forget June 17 -- , siblings, spouses,
especially the grandparents, and friends who have walked
this path with you.
On the gate not far from here is the statement of the
fundamental values of Pomona. The fourth President of this
college, James Blaisdell, inscribed in granite in 1914:
“They only are loyal to this college who, departing, bear
their added riches in trust for mankind.”
Pomona has prepared you for many challenges. You are going
to do very well. Warren Buffett -- No. 12 on the
commencement selection list – describes the most important
event in life as the womb lottery. You were winners. You
were born into nurturing families who provided and supported
you in attaining a Pomona College education. You were born
into an era when your aptitudes are in high demand.
Mr. Buffett correctly observed that had he been born five
thousand years earlier – with his slow foot speed and
awkward manner – he would have been eaten as some wild
beast’s lunch. Fortunately for him, he was born at a time
when his talents for quantitative analysis and economics
allowed him to eat other people’s lunch.
You have arrived at a time when a command of cosmopolitan
global interrelationships and a mastery of technology that
continues to evolve at warp speed are the aptitudes for
success. Your parents can relax. You will do well.
But will you fulfill the command of President Blaisdell to
bear your aided riches in trust for mankind?
President Thomas Jefferson said a fundamental purpose of
education was to inform the citizens of their rights and
responsibilities and equip them with the competencies to
fulfill those rights and responsibilities to their nation
and their neighbors.
Our democracy is not a spectator sport - self government
will only contribute to our national goals of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness if we are participating on the
field. Robert Maynard Hutchins, another great American and
distinguished President of the University of Chicago,
observed “The death of democracy is not likely to be an
assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from
apathy, indifference and undernourishment.”
You have many riches of talent and values to give, and much
to receive in personal joy and satisfaction from
participating in the life of your times. Although denied a
Pomona degree until today, I, too, have been blessed with a
loving wife, four generous daughters, eleven boisterous
grandchildren, and enough income to keep my car filled with
gas.
But there are few things more gratifying than to walk in a
park that you helped preserve, to meet college students
whose education you helped to make possible, and to play
with children who are healthy because of a children’s health
care plan you helped start. Those joys don’t show in your
bank account, but are a deposit to your soul that can never
be withdrawn.
Many of you have shared your riches before you departed from
Pomona.
Miriam Aguirre, an English Major, has been deeply involved
in programs with low income students from schools near this
campus; she plans a career as a school teacher.
Maggie Fick, an International Relations Major, has studied
abroad in Cameroon, and through a Fulbright fellowship – one
of twenty received by Pomona graduates of 2007 – will spend
next year in Niger working on farming development projects
for women.
Sarah Kuriakose, a Neuroscience Major, as student government
president started an “alternative spring break” program of
student volunteer activities. Sarah has volunteered
extensively in programs for autistic children and adults and
will do graduate work in clinical psychology.
Carey McDonald, an international relations major, as
president of the Pomona Student Union, brought speakers to
the campus to discuss and debate the great issues of our
time.
You will also show your loyalty to Pomona College by
applying the riches you have acquired here to continued
personal growth and development. Let me share a few lessons
I have learned:
Be nice to everyone. It is the right thing to do, will make
you feel better and often will result in an unexpectedly
good outcome. Let me reminisce about one of those good
outcomes.
In the fall of my sophomore year at the University of
Florida, I was walking down the stairs of the administration
building. Walking up the stairs was a tall, beautiful
brunette who I remembered from a double date in high school.
I greeted her and asked, “Adele, what are you doing here?”
She replied that she was having trouble with her freshman
physical science course and was anxious to get a tutor.
Now, what is a Southern gentleman supposed to do? I told her
– with modesty – that I had made an A in the course and
would be happy to be her tutor. I did and she has been a
loving tutor and best friend for forty seven years plus one.
You have finished a challenging and exciting period of your
life. This period of exploration has been a chance to test
the virtually endless possibilities of life. I see life as a
pyramid. At birth you are at the wide bottom and have a
lifetime of opportunities before you. As life progresses,
you make choices among alternatives. The walls of your
personal pyramid begin to close until reaching the apex and
the end.
A goal in life should be to keep your pyramid as wide as
possible, as long as possible. Test life: if you worked at a
job you liked and thought you were good at it, resist the
temptation to do the same thing again – challenge yourself
with something new.
Travel and get to know the world and its diverse cultures.
Rest assured that I am not going to give any romantic
advice. Two years after meeting on the stairs, Adele and I
were married when we were 20 and 22, so our adventure
together started early. But I will tell you that our
experience is that a life-long partnership with another
human being offers the greatest opportunities for growth and
happiness. I sincerely hope that each of you find a partner
who can help you realize your greatest potential.
As you keep the walls of the pyramid wide, look for chances
to expand your tool box of personal experiences. There are
lots of ways to learn: lectures, books, television, the
Internet. But in my opinion, none of these has the
intellectual and emotional impact of learning by doing.
When I was in the Florida State Senate, I observed huge
inadequacies in the teaching of civics in Florida high
schools. After conveying those concerns to a group of high
school civic teachers, one of them challenged me to walk in
their shoes – to take my complaints to the classroom. As she
put it, “you politicians are always telling other people how
to do their jobs better when you don’t know what you are
talking about. The only way to find out is to get into the
classroom.” I thought she was talking about a couple of
hours on a Tuesday afternoon, so I said yes.
She called a week later to tell me she had worked it out. I
would teach 12th grade civics for eighteen weeks at an
almost inner city high school in Miami. Those eighteen weeks
turned out to be a truly transformational experience. I did
learn more about students, teachers, administrators and
parents than I had through hearings of the Senate education
committee.
But the most important thing I learned was the difference
between learning by lecture and learning by doing. It became
an obsession. During my final thirty years in public
service, I took over 400 jobs held by everyday Floridians.
Those work days have been among the most rewarding, joyful
and learning times of my life. Let me give you a few
examples:
As a nursing home orderly working in an environment that
reeked of urine, I asked my supervisor how he was able to
get up and come back to this job every day. He said “I
figure that if God let these folks live so long, He must
really love them. I can love them too.”
At a landfill north of St. Petersburg, I squatted for lunch
next to the bulldozers that four women and I had been
driving to pack down the garbage. One of the young women
told me of the pain she had felt that morning with the
choice of taking a sick child to the health clinic or
earning the $75 she needed to pay the rent. That is a
practical course in ethics.
Or a pre dawn garbage pickup in Tampa. Every job can be done
with pride…every job deserves respect.
When faced with a difficult problem, put aside the
microscope and view it through a telescope. The full
intricacies of the challenge and the options to respond are
almost always better seen from afar than up close.
Your liberal arts education at Pomona has prepared you to
reach for the telescope.
What a difference it could have made if the President and
his advisors during the preparation for the war in Iraq had
focused less on the irrelevant aluminum tubes and the non
existent yellow cake from Africa and more on understanding
the culture and history of Iraq and the neighborhood in
which it resides.
Finally, let passion be your guide. Don’t let dollars get in
the way of what your heart tells you is your true calling.
Bill Gates – No. 17 on the commencement speakers list - is
one of the richest men in the world. He is a breakthrough
scientist in computer software and the founder of a company
which provided the operating systems and software for many
of your laptops and PCs. He has been richly rewarded and
recognized. I suspect, however, that a hundred years from
now, Mr. Gates will be better known and appreciated for what
he has done with his philanthropy to make the world a
healthier and safer place. Bill Gates is following his
passion.
Pomona College is committed to “need blind admission” and
“need based financial aid.” Because of those commitments,
you are graduating today with substantially less student
debt than your peers at other colleges and universities.
This financial freedom gives to you the personal choice to
follow your passion in the cause of service to mankind.
There is a great cause to which all of us as citizens can
direct our efforts: shaping the position of the United
States in the world based on our values and aspirations.
In 2007, the United States is the second most powerful
nation in the history of the world. We extend our cultural,
political, economic and military strength over most of the
globe.
The only country more powerful, was the United States of
America in 1946. We had all of our current power plus being
the sole possessor of the atomic bomb. Much of the rest of
the world was in the shambles of World War II. We could have
been the ultimate Roman Empire.
But we decided to take a different path. Through the
Marshall Plan, the United States voluntarily provided the
assistance and support which helped the rest of the world –
our allies and our enemies – rise from the ashes of war. Our
nation shared its power through international institutions
like the United Nations. We led an effort to use strong
diplomacy backed by military resolve to contain and
ultimately topple the wall of communism. In those days, our
nation was demonstrating the best of its values.
Today, I fear, we have forgotten the lessons of 60 years
ago. We are approaching the world with a blustering
arrogance, ripping apart many of the institutions, treaties
and policies that served us and the world so well. We are
bogged down in a war of distraction and manipulation in Iraq
and seem incapable of exiting.
As we prepare to select new national leadership in 2008, we
the people must demand that we have choices which are true
to our principles - leaders who stand with us and for us and
our values.
Pomona College is a secular institution, but has its roots
in the Congregational Church. I am a Congregationalist and
would offer from a prayer spoken in my church what I believe
should be America’s creed as we discharge our trust to
mankind: “We hope in God’s promises, and we wait for a world
where justice reigns and all God’s people live in peace and
prosperity.”
It is an honor to join you as together, we extend our added
riches in fulfillment of our trust to mankind.
About Daniel Robert Graham:
 Graham was elected to the United States Senate in
1986 and served until his retirement in early 2005. During
that time he was chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee for the 103rd Congress, and was part of the Select
Committee on Intelligence for the 107th Congress. He also
made a bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination
in 2004. His book, Intelligence Matters: The CIA, The
FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America’s War on
Terror, was released in 2004. Graham was first elected
to public office in 1966 to the Florida State House of
Representatives, and was a member of the Florida State
Senate from 1970-1978. He was state governor of Florida from
1979-1986. Graham attended the public schools of Dade
County, Florida, and graduated from the University of
Florida, Gainesville in 1959. He graduated from Harvard Law
School in 1962 and was admitted to the Florida bar in 1962.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Quick Links |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Explore Pomona's Web |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Find It |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Search |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
