Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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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 -

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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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WORDS Robert Maynard Congratulations on your great achievements My empathy is with vou on this day because it was on a Sunday just like tfiis one, one year ago, when my three children and I were here at Stanford to witness a celebration. the graduation of my beloved bride Nancy from this fine Law School. That was the occasion of great joy for us for it marked the conclusion, as this day does to you, of a most important phase of life. In our case, Nancy's been joking on occasion about her Stanford Law School education, that the one thing she knows for sure that it's done is improve the quality of our arguments at dinner And I would add that it has done more than that. Stanford has, indeed, enriched and added a new dimension to our lives. So I am here as much as your commencement speaker as a member of the family. I warned President Kennedy that I came to speak here today as a mid-century person, born in the late 1930s but come of age in that grey, blighted decade of the 1950s when most of our communication was in black-and-white photographs or the disembodied voicosof the radioor the early flickeringsof black-and-white television. It was a time of transition to be followed by the decade of the 1960s, with its period of great explosions. But as I think about myself coming of age in the late 1950s, it occurs to me that my generation will live the majority of its life in the 20th centurv, and most of you who graduate in the Class of 1988 will live the majority of vour lives in the 21st century. bo you could say that our meeting here today is a meeting at the crossroads of the two centuries. Seen in that light, it is only fair to ask what was it our generation incurred as its legacy and what are the most likely features of the legacy we pass on to you to carry on into the 21st century. I have obviously several biases in this regard. I do not, for example, believe that my generation's contributions in fusion and fission necessarily made the world a better place. The sword of Damocles of the nuclear nightmare continues to hang over mankind, despite glasnoU and Reagan's Moscow spring. And so it is fair to say that one burden that we pass from one generation to the next is that we have yet to find a way to extinguish the nuclear nightmare. Nonetheless, I would like to confine myself to ... three other areas of our life, which concern the structure of our society, which, I think, raise great possibilities for what we two generations might say to each other about where we nave been and where we yet have to go. Let me say, before I name those three subjects, that whatever we think in a society, I am persuaded that the role of learning is pivotal to the solution of our problems. You have only begun yourcareerof learning into these issues. 1 encourage you to think of this merely as the beginning ot the next phase of your life of learning. Stanford is a very special place in that it prepares you well for what you must face in the future But I urge you to join that urgent erv in our society for a renaissance of learning, for a belief that solutions to our problems lie in a deeper understanding of the nature of our world and the challenges we face. So with that thought in mind, I wish to state briefly what we inherited in three areas and what 1 think we pass on as challenges remaining for you. And those three concerns are in the areas of race, gender equality, and age. Let me say a brief word about where we found each of those 30 years ago in my youth and where I think they are today and where they arc likely to be tomorrow- for you to solve the struggles that remain. The 1940s and 1950s were .. decades of terror for people of color all over the United States. It mav be difficult for those of you who were born in a later decade of the 1960s and even those who may be here from the 1970s to know that there was a time in the 1940s and 1950s when citizens routinely lost their lives in lynchings, particularly in the Deep South and southeastern part of the United States, where the denial of fundamental human rights was a way of life. And across the Great Southwest, Hispanic Americans were similarly abused. And in the Mountain West, so were Indians. Hereon the West Coast in the 1940s Japanese Americans, for no good reason, were deprived of their property and their liberty without due process of law. All this occurred in a time frame that is very difficult for those of you who came afterward to even recognize for the horror that it contained. And yet through the movement of persons such as Martin Luther King and through the dedication of civil rights and human rights workers across this land, the law changed. The Constitution recognized the need to compromise and. indeed, recognized that only through equal justice under the law could we keep faith with the good fortune the framers had already provided us and guarantee a future for this architecture of the country. The core of the issue was whether we could be a community or whether we would be really a nation governed by sectors We chose through law; we chose the Constitution as our guide, and .is a result... America has been made stronger as a society through the recognition of the rights of all of its citizens, regardless of race. But to see the times change as they have in 30 years is to be reminded of the blessings for the everlasting of a society such as ours, and a reminder to you that to preserve that liberty means to preserve the educated and learned society that can appreciate the blessings of freedom that have been passed on to us. In the 19th century there was a famous civil rights case called Drcd Scott, in which the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger Taney by name, articulated the notion that in view of the law of the United States, in the authority of the court, the black had no rights the white man was bound to obey or recognize. That notion, while articulated with respect to peoples of color, was to some extent an unspoken notion with respect to women in our society before men ... And so it was that in that same decade in the 1960s that saw the explosion in concern for the rights of persons of color there also began a great movement to change the way we perceived of women in our society. It was common in my mid-century upbringing for people to say. and be serious, that a woman's place is in the nomc. It neveroccurred to them to think of a woman's place in the House, or the Senate, or the White House. But, oh, the times they are a-changing. and that is a story in itself of signals significant for our time. Just as it is true that the resolution of problems of race in our society have |ust begun, so it is true that the full partici- Eation of women in our society has only- jsut begun to e recognized for the rich potential it will be in making us a better society-. But new problems are clear that will have to be solved. I am particularly struck as I see the new shape of the familv, by the desperate need for understanding how we wifi provide appropriate child care and early childhood development training in an entirely different arena from the one in which I was raised, when more than 70 percent of all the households in my growing up in the '50s were made up of a daddy who went out to work and a mommy who stayed home bv the hearth. The children expected to find mommy borne when they got home from school every day. As I said, the times have changed, but the preservation of family under these new circumstances will require us to engage in some careful policy planning as well as some rethinking of our own private agendas as we get to understand how to become a more inclusive society. That is a challenge that has only begun in my generation, and you surely will carry that one with you straight across the frontier of time into the 21st cent’ury. And when you get there, the issue of age will become ever more important as a social and political and economic challenge to our society. Consider this: Between 1900 and 1988, the life expectancy gains of American citizens have been on the order of a quarter century — almost 30 years. There has not been a similar gain in life expectancy between, say, 3,000 B.C. and the 20th centurv — 5,000 years. What this augurs is a longer life for ail of us presumably, but there are those who would argue that as we get older, our utility may diminish, and there is a question os to what society's obligations will be to our older citizens. Now I have to tell you the issue of age in our society is remarkable in the degree to which one's perspective on it changes over time. Those in their 20s an less likely to recognize the urgency of these questions as persons my age or older. In other words, the old saying applies: where you sit depends an awful lot on where you stand or vice versa. All the same, there are those who would argue that age and means should have much to do with the distribution of health care — that the rise of the new technologies that make extension of life possible raise questions as to whether you in your generation will face a new set of policy decisions called who shall live and who shall die. Now I have to tcllyou that not everyone agrees that the great problem of the next century will be the rationing of health care. There is a fair argument that the biggest costs in health care today are not in heroic surgeries but in long-term care, that as we get closer to understanding the problems associated with such illnesses as Alzheimer's, we will do a great deal to reduce the great costs of medical care for the aging population. But nonetheless, the point I wish to impress upon you is how we make these choices will depend to a ?;reat degree on how well we are informed, now care-ully we study the issues, how carefully we debate those questions, how much respect we have for the processes of knowledge as opposed to the prose of demagogues. When you see a society in which the video screen has become the great teacher and the university and the high school are struggling to find ways to attract the attention of students, you must worry about the erosion of that fundamental tenet that reading and learning are the precursors to any effective reasoning and that in a free society, a self-governing society, where the citizen is sovereign, an ill-informed and ignorant citizen may verv well be a danger to all of us. So os you leave this institution having been blessed with as fine an education as our society — or 1 suspect, the Western world — can provide, you go away not just with a special blessing but with a special obligation. I believe those obligations are to hold high the torch of the creed of learning as being vital to the survival and enhancement of our society, and that rational values that are based upon the notion that the stronger we are as a community the stronger we are as a nation; that with those understandings and with the understanding that ever - human being, regardless of color or gender, who is denied an opportunity in our society is a resource gone to waste, and we cannot afford to waste resources. Mr. President, graduates of 1988, members of the faculty and administration, and guests, I thank you for giving me the privilege of sharing in this extraordinary-occasion. I hope that as you leave here, as you count afl your blessings, that you will agree to share with the world the largest one'of all, the gift of the liberty that is only possible through learning, and I hope you'll pass it on to future generations. Robert Maynard is the editor of the Oakland Tribune SAIK 387