A s an academic department head and as a university vice president, during commencement season I’ve greeted parents, congratulated graduating students, and conferred degrees. The latter is somewhat similar to the denouement of a marriage ceremony; one intones the academic liturgy, “On the recommendation of the faculty and by the authority vested in me by the Board of Regents, I confer on each of you the degree bachelor of arts/science.” It is a solemn and important bit of pageantry, which is why so many commencement ceremonies include Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1" as the processional and recessional.
A commencement ceremony is neither the time nor the place to risk heat stroke and dehydration with an extended pageant in a basketball arena-cum-auditorium or sun-drenched football stadium. Both students and faculty members are wearing academic regalia whose cultural antecedents date from medieval times and colder climes, when European colleges were often poorly heated and chilblains were common.
I speak from sad experience, having once helped confer degrees while wearing a business suit under the aforementioned regalia, all while illuminated by bright stage lights. For those of us at large, public universities, this can mean shaking hundreds of hands, even when smaller collegiate ceremonies are held to allow individual recognitions.
Remember: It’s not your day. So be funny, and be brief. Or at least brief. And dress lightly under all of that academic regalia.
After the ceremony, a wiser colleague inspected my enervated, sweat-drenched state, wryly noted that I was clearly an administrative newbie, and then pointed to his own minimalist attire. I was immediately reminded of Twain’s aphorism: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” Notwithstanding this sage advice, while preserving modesty and formality, less is definitely sartorially more.
Amid all this pageantry and despite the well-intentioned wishes and earnest entreaties of the alumni association and the development foundation, the commencement ceremony is not the best time to bowl for dollars in support of the dear old alma mater. The immediate sense of penury and looming student-debt repayment is too near. Actuarially, there will be 60 years for such pleas, during which time one hopes that student debt will become a faded memory. (As a happy alumnus and donor to multiple universities, I have always been impressed and amused that the alumni magazines arrive so quickly in my mailbox after a move. Our fund raisers track alumni with a fiduciary zeal that would shame the Internal Revenue Service.)
C ommencement is also not the time to eschew brevity. Some 40 years ago, I was fortunate to deliver the valedictorian’s address at my small, rural Arkansas high school. Alas, I made every oratorical mistake any young, overly earnest speaker could make. I wanted to say something important, something that would be remembered, something that mattered. I waxed interminably about the uncertain sociopolitical consequences for the U.S. global position after the fall of South Vietnam, our 20-year commitment there, the enormous sacrifice of blood and treasure. In a trite homily, I urged my fellow graduates to aim high and embrace our class motto, a line from Tennyson: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” I shared an Aesop fable about quality over quantity, and I entreated them to pursue their dreams with unrelenting passion.
Those in the audience sat patiently but were undoubtedly relieved when I stepped away from the podium. Students and families alike were waiting for names to be announced, diplomas to be awarded, photographs to be taken. It was past time for the main event, and I was the opening act whose set lasted too long. More to the point, it was Friday evening, and many people had to work the next day.
Since then, when I have been asked, I have delivered brief, always brief, commencement remarks. A commencement speech is not the time for meandering stories with uncertain platitudes, nor for polemics on societal issues. The commencement ritual is a valedictory for students and a celebration for families, not a bully pulpit. Rather, it is a time to fill students with joy and families and friends with satisfaction and pride.
All commencement speakers should remember the cardinal rules of speaking to a captive and restive audience: Be funny and be brief, and if lacking in wit, by all means be brief. Save its length, the world did little note nor long remember much about Edward Everett’s two-hour oration at Gettysburg. But Lincoln’s few remarks still echo across the years.
The annual, viral circulation of the “Wear Sunscreen” commencement essay, by the Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, proves the rule that wisdom is best leavened with levity. Trust her on the sunscreen. Trust me on the academic attire on a sunny day.
Daniel Reed is vice president for research and economic development and chair of computational science and bioinformatics at the University of Iowa.
