Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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Veronica Ybarra San Antonio, Tout Psychology Frederic K. J. Yeganeh Potomac, Maryland Electrical Engineering Terry S. Yen Bayude. New York Mechanical Engineering Michael J. Yoffie San Rafael, California International Rel It Spanish Sonia H. Yoo Brthrwla. Maryland Lit Human Biology Yuri Yoshizawa Syosset. New York International Relations Chris Young Wharton. Tesa Economic Craig A. Young Englewood, Colorado Electrical Engineering Katharine Younge Fort Collin . Colorado Sociology Diane S. L. Yuen Honolulu. Hawaii Economic Stephen M. Zanolli St. Loan . Missouri Industrial Engineering Catalina Zaragoza Coleta. California Sociology Dianna Zupp Fresno. California Biological Science BEER 385

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EFRON! Sally F. Wright Princeton. Mow Jersey English S. Marylynne Wrye S lake Tahoe. California English Vivian S. W« Cherry Mill. New Jersey American Studies Christine Yu Yang Rancho Palos Verde . California Electrical Engineering Mary H. Yanney Omaha. Nebraska Englith Sonia L. Wright Ashland. Massachusetts Human Biology Clara M. Wu Lawrence. Kansas International Kelations Keith E. Yamashita Santa Ana. California Economics and Sociology Michael Yang Buffalo, New York Computer Science Curtis A. Yates Detroit. Michigan Electrical Engineering 384

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COMMENCEMENT Donald Kennedy SAIK Now I am allowed a few minutes for a farewell to my friends in the Class of 1988, and to those who are receiving advanced degrees. Ancient custom requires that at this point in the proceedings, we address together the timeless question: Is there life after Stanford? It is an opportunity I welcome. It provides a blessed relief from my year-long preoccupation with the equally timeless question: Is there too much life during Stanford? And it permits me to reflect with you on the relationship between the experience you have just had and the life beyond it. I make that distinction with some caution, because we have tried to make that relationship as seamless as we can. We do so by creating residential communities in which responsibility is shared and in which the life of the mind is encouraged to enter (at least occasionally). We do it by forming an environment that, in terms of human diversity, is unusuallv rich. We do it by tiring to apply the extraordinary intellectual resources oi this glace to the abounding problems of the world outside. ur purpose is to make the experience of Stanford part of a larger reality — in some ivays. But in other ways we are, quite deliberately, an enclave where people from whom much is expected may try new things out one at a time instead of all at once. For people who are experiencing an array of new social and intellectual challenges, there is a real need for a supportive and mostly cheerful environment. And, of course, there is the special character of academic villages: though more diverse in some ways than communities in the world outside, they are much more homogeneous in three important re'spects: age, intellectual potential, and purpose. In our special enclave, we encounter many of what I will call the close-range problems of all communities. We have occasional disagreements about how we govern ourselves, the rules by which we ask one another to live, the basic respect ancf dignity we ought to offer one another as human beings. Intolerance, selfishness, racism — these we have to face, just as the rest of the world does. But we face them in a contained and unique system over which we are able to exert significant control. And we set very high standards for ourselves, so high that our failures sometimes distress us more deeply than perhaps they should. For example, incidents toward the end of this spring auarter triggered a rash of self-doubt; and that in turn rew attention from the media — which, on this kind of issue in particular, are at least as effective at making news as they are at reporting it. There icere undeniably bad consequences: members of some minority groups experienced pain and to say that their pain is justified by the education that was its consequence is asking too much of them. But neither is it fair to charge us with lack of response, because this community showed a welcome capacity for self-healing. I doubt that at any time or place in the history of multicultural life in this country had there existed a much more powerful social conviction in favor of understanding and fairness than exists right here. That we often fail our own expectations says as much about our expectations as it does about the quality of our efforts to fulfill them. 1 also believe tnat we have recorded some significant triumphs in the preservation of rational discourse about crucially important matters, ones that have sorely tested our capacity to disagree without alienation. In the debate over Western Culture this faculty and student body kept the real issues in view, even when outsiders were mischaracterizing them for their own purposes. In the compromise that was ultimately reached, everyone had something to be unhappy about; (that's one definition of compromise!) But we realized that we had created something workable, and something better than we had before. There was a closing of the ranks — and eventually, I am glad to say. a gradual dawning, in much of the world beyond Campus Drive, of respect for our processes and understanding of what we had accomplished. We nave, then, a community that offers plenty of challenge, that performs well most of the time, and’that — I assure you — you will miss in many ways. But its limited ana special character shields one from some realities: not those of proximate communities, but those of the outside world with which our fates are entangled. It is easy to forget that our environmental destiny may be determined by deforestation 3,000 miles away, that poverty in a distant city diminishes us as it would in our own family, that we have as big a stake in arms control negotiations as those who are undertaking them. The Stanford enclave is an energetic and upbeat exception to the way things are working in most parts of the world, and you are about to find out just how much of an exception we are. So for the next few minutes I want to talk to you about what vou can do when you confront a discouraging world, the one you will enter is, of course, not all bad. But in some critical areas — population growth, poverty, environmental quality, international security — there is reason for deep concern, indeed, at moments we all sense the uncomfortable possibility of Yeats' apocalyptic vision in The Second Coming: Turning and turning in the widening gyrel The falcon cannot hear the falconer;! Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,! The blood-dimmed tide' is loosed, and everywhere:! The ceremony of innocence is drowned. The ceremony of innocence drowning is a troubling metaphor for your emergence from this splendid place. Yet you are well equipped to stay afloat, despite your drowning innocence; and I want to give you five sug- gestions that may be helpful. First, please do go to work on the world's problems. They loom much larger when one cannot envision oneself as part of the solution. That is part of the philosophy behind the public service effort here, one that is even more applicable in the world beyond An important corollary is that you will feel a lot better about the world's ills if you don't think you're adding to them. It is not for nothing that Hippocrates led off his string of aphorisms with. First do no harm. Evaluate what you do in terms of all its consequences, so that you have confidence in the worth of vour commitments. It is that context in which I view the idea of the Commencement Pledge It asks that we consider outcomes — not that we declare allegiance in advance to some normative standard it supplies. It should be as acceptable to the political conservative as to the liberal, because it does something we all need to do more of — that is, focus on the consequences of what we do, try to estimate them, and then try to decide whether they are acceptable to us. Second, don't become totally immersed. Leave time and room to change your focus; no one can spend full time in a vale of tears. The most conscientious have a tendency to feel guilty whenever they turn away from a serious problem for a bit of rest. Not only is that enervating and self-defeating; too much of it can make you boring, and a lot too much of it can make you a zealot. Third, regularly gain support from those you respect and admire — and just as regularly give it back. Nothing overcomes discouragement, or renews energy, like Kraise. Indeed, considering the efficacv of praise in uman motivation, it is just a marvel that there isn't more of it in the world. Fourth, prepare for the future bv believing in it. Franklin Roosevelt's theorem — 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — is confirmed over and over again by modern economists who understand that inflation. for example, is largely the outcome of aggregaled personal fears about what may happen. If you Relieve, with some cynics, that there are so many pessimists in the world because of all the optimists who owe them money. you really don't understand at all. Hang in there; the optimists are going to do better, and they will repay you with interest, late next week. Last, believe that you can make a difference, because you can. Sustaining that belief is sometimes hard, especially when the world seems to be at the very bottom of Yeats' abyss — the point he reaches in the next two lines of The Second Coming: The best lack all conviction. And the uvrsl are full of passionate intensity. It is significant that Yeats finds the most discouraging element, the bottom of his vision, in the immobilization of good people. He is right. And remember that because of what you have been given by your families and by your society, (including, I hope this University), you are the best. The restoration of conviction, when the best have lost it, often depends on choosing a corner of the problem and beginning to work on it, patiently and alone. Alan Paton, the South African author wno spoke out steadfastly against apartheid when he was a lone voice in the wilderness, wrote a valedictory essay just before his death this past year that contained several quotations he had found important during his own life. The last one was taken from a stone tablet outside a country church in England: In the year 1652, when throughout England all things sacred were either profaned or neglected, this church was built by Sir Robert Shirley, whose special praise it is to have done the best things in the worst times and to have hoped them in the most calamitous’ That, my friends, is a tribute worth having. And as I bid you farewell today, it is with the wish that your best times, as well as your best hopes, lie ahead of you. There is one final thing to do, and that is to send you off with a happy reminderof what this place has meant. For that purpose I employ again some words said at another commencement by Adlai Stevenson more than 35 years ago; but surely as meaningful, and as full of the right sentiment now: ’Your days are short here: this is the last of your springs. And now note the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don't forget when you leave why you came.' 386 -