Baccalaureate Address to the Class of 2008

Lawrence S. Bacow
Tufts University
May 17, 2008

Parents, family, friends, faculty, staff, but most of all, to the class of 2008, welcome!

Commencement is one of those special times in life when we find ourselves simultaneously reflecting upon the past while also looking forward with hope, anticipation, and a bit of anxiety to the future.

The past four years, for most of us, have gone by far too quickly.  It seems like yesterday when I welcomed all of you on the Quad at matriculation.  While some of you harbored a bit of insecurity about what the next four years would bring, most of you could not wait to be on your own.  You had been looking forward to college for years, and your time was finally here.  By contrast, many of your parents were quite anxious.  They worried about whether you were mature enough to be on your own, whether you would make the right choices, and how they would fare without you.  Many of them cried at the end of that ceremony.

Well, now the tables are reversed.  Your parents are sitting back there comfortable, relaxed and proud of all you have accomplished.  They have seen you grow and mature over the past four years and they now have great confidence in you.  They are smiling not only because they are so proud of you, but also because they have paid their last tuition bill!  And if they have any anxiety, it is because they have gotten used to living without you, and are probably not looking forward to the prospect that you might move back in with them.

By contrast, you are the ones who may now be anxious.  You have become very comfortable at Tufts and must now leave the womb and fend for yourself.  You are entering a shaky economy and an uncertain job market.  You are sad to be leaving behind so many friends and so many wonderful memories.  And if there are any tears that will be shed here today, I suspect they won't be from the parents sitting in the back.

At times like this I like to recall a story told by Mark Twain.  It is about a college graduate on his commencement day.  "What did you learn over the past four years?" he is asked.  "Not much," he replied, "but my parents seem to have learned a lot while I was gone."

Each of you has special memories from these past four years.  Adele and I do too. 

• We will always remember how warmly you welcomed our guest students from Tulane following Hurricane Katrina. 
• We smiled each time we saw you participate in Kids Day on the Hill, Read by the River, or The Giving Camp. 
• We will never forget our operatic debut on the stage with some of you in Dido and Aeneas.  I don't think I am going to give up my day job.
• I loved running with many of you, including those who joined me in the Boston Marathon.  (And I hope you will forgive me if I never ran with you out on the Quad in December.) 
• It was great to see so many of you in London for the European launch of the capital campaign.
• We will never forget the late night celebrations that occurred outside our house after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007.  By the way, there are many reasons the class of 2008 is special, but I have to note that you are the first class in 90 years to see the Red Sox win two World Series during your time at Tufts.
• Senior Dinners, Spring Fling with the Dropkick Murphys, dinner with the Marathon ladies at 31 Whitman - I could go on. 

Thank you for letting us share these past four years with you.

I know some of you are sad that you will be saying goodbye tomorrow to the best friends you have ever made - people whom you have laughed and cried with, loved and fought with.  People with whom you have traveled the world and shared some of your innermost thoughts.

But don't worry. You really are not saying goodbye.  You will continue to see each other and share life's passages together.  You will attend each other's weddings and become Godparents to each other's children.  You will vacation together, start businesses together, and help each other through the ebbs, flows and meanderings that make up a life.  If anything, the bonds you have formed during these four years at Tufts will only grow stronger.  And if you don't believe me, tomorrow you get to peek into your future.  Just observe the reunion classes and you will see old friends who have never lost touch; old friends who will always share a common bond that is Tufts.  So will you.

As you start to look to the future, it is important to reflect on what you have learned these past four years.  The great physicist and Nobel laureate, I. I. Rabi, was once asked what accounted for his professional and scientific success. 

He said that when most kids came home from school, their mothers asked, "What did you learn today?"  His never did.  Instead, she would inquire, "Izzy, did you ask a good question today?"

I hope, more than anything else, that what you have learned at Tufts is to ask good questions.  But what constitutes a good question?

For a scholar, a good question is often stimulated by careful observation.  Good questions open up one's thinking about a problem in unconventional ways and often suggest new ways of looking at and understanding the world. 

Let me give you an example.

For years, scientists knew that nerves were stimulated by small electrical impulses traveling through the body.  Any high school student who has applied an electrical current to a dissected frog's leg understands this phenomenon.  But in 1902, two British scientists, William Bayliss and Ernest Starling, asked a great question: Might there be another, chemical means by which the body controls various functions?  By carefully observing how the pancreas responds to the digestive system, they discovered an entirely new means of signaling and control - hormones and the endocrine system.  Because these scientists asked a great question, we now understand how the body controls metabolism, reproduction, human growth, and the activation of our immune system.

Great questions help to lay bare the assumptions that underpin an argument.  If you never question assumptions, if you never ask whether the assumptions or theory are supported by the evidence, you will never make good decisions. And if you never ask what constitutes success or happiness, you are unlikely to know when you have found it.

Not all of you will be scientists or scholars, but asking great questions is also a way of informing so many important personal decisions in life.

Lots of you are trying to figure out what to do with your life.  You will be confronted by many career choices, not just now, but repeatedly over time.  Interestingly, if you are successful you will have to make even more choices because people are going to keep tempting you with enticing opportunities.  For example, I was very happy as a college professor until I was asked whether I might be interested in being a university president.  In these situations, I have always found it useful to ask myself three questions.

First, is the job worth doing?  There are lots of ways to earn a living.  More important is to live a meaningful life.  You need to be able to get up in the morning, look yourself in the eye, and feel good about what you are doing as well as the organization on whose behalf you are working.

Second, are you going to grow and learn in the job?  A job should always challenge you.  Few jobs are worth doing if you are bored, regardless of the pay.

And third, are you going to enjoy the people who will be your colleagues?  Life is too short to work with people whom you do not like - or, worse yet, don't respect. 

Sometimes, the simplest questions are the most profound.  When I was finishing graduate school, I had an opportunity to work for a great law firm.  It was very tempting - terrific colleagues, an interesting practice, and a good salary.  But somehow being a corporate lawyer did not seem like me.  When I looked into myself and asked, "Who am I?" the answer kept coming back, "I am a teacher," so I became an academic.  I never regretted it.

"Who am I?" is one of the most powerful questions you will ever ask yourself.  Some people never ask it and as a result, never find their true calling.  Others don't  answer it correctly until their second or third career.  But if you are lucky enough to love what you do, you will never have to work a day in your life.

One of the hardest things to do when you are just starting out is to ask for help.  You are not expected to know everything.  In truth, I have never felt fully qualified on day one for any job that I have ever had, including this one.  As long as you are willing to admit what you don't know, ask for help, and learn from your mistakes, you will never lack for great teachers.  As the Talmud says, "The wise person learns from all people."

You will have lots of opportunities in your lifetime to pursue jobs that come with fancy titles and prestige, maybe even power and influence.  It is often seductive just to reach for the next rung on the ladder.  While there is nothing wrong with ambition, ambition for ambition's sake can be corrosive. Try to understand what gives you satisfaction in life.  You are likely to discover that it does not come from material possessions alone or external measures of success.  In fact, unless you have truly extravagant tastes, it does not take all that much before you learn that the really scarce commodity in your life is time and not money.  Make sure you spend your time on things that really make you happy. 

Be rich in the things that really matter - the love and respect of your friends, family, and colleagues.  If you want others to trust you, be trustworthy.  If you want others to treat you fairly, be fair to them.  If you want others to respect you, show them respect.  Always try to model the behavior you would hope to see in others. 

I hope during your time at Tufts you have developed more than your intellect.  I hope you have also developed moral character.  The world desperately needs people who are willing to think beyond the narrow confines of their own self-interest.  I have yet to meet anyone who thinks the world is perfect.  The only way it will ever get better is if good people like you work to repair it. 

Class of 2008, your time has come.  Tomorrow you will commence the rest of your lives.  I am very optimistic about your future.  You leave here equipped with many gifts:  a great education, the love and support of your families, incredible friends, and a network of fellow Jumbos that stands ready to help you wherever you go.

Let me close with a short poem entitled "Instructions for Living a Life."  It is by one of our honorary degree recipients, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Mary Oliver, whom you will meet tomorrow. 

"Instructions for Living a Life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it."

Great advice.  I speak for the entire faculty and staff when I say that it has been our privilege to teach you and share these past four years with you.  We will follow your lives and careers with great interest, for there is now a small part of us in each of you.  Please keep in touch, and please know that there will always be a place for you on this Hill.  Good luck to you all and Godspeed.