University of Akron Commencement Ceremonies
Interim President John C. Green’s Address to Graduates
May 10-12, 2019
E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall
Chairman Gingo and fellow trustees, distinguished colleagues, family, friends and guests, and most importantly, graduates of the Class of 2019.
Congratulations to you!
Thank you for the opportunity to share just a few thoughts with you today.
A long time ago, in fact quite a long time ago, I was in much the same circumstances as you are today.
I sat in cap and gown, fidgeting in my chair, and waiting for someone on the stage to stop talking so I could get my degree.
As a freshman I had planned to follow my father’s footsteps and become an engineer. But then a course on economics captured my imagination and I changed my major.
The economics course that I liked best was on public finance – which is how we pay (or don’t pay) for government programs.
I thought if I could figure out the government, I could become a great economist. So I started looking into government, my career took another turn, and I ended up with a doctorate in Political Science.
I probably will never be a great economist because, after more than 40 years of studying government, I still haven’t figured it out.
Just like me, your path may have taken--and may still take--unexpected twists and turns. But wherever life leads you, you can and will thrive if you have confidence, hope, and faith.
Every generation is dealt a set of cards it must play to the best of its ability. The hand dealt to yours is one of rapid and dynamic change.
It is likely that during your lifetimes every major institution will be transformed. We see this transformation already in the mass media, medicine, and education--but we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Rapid change is disconcerting. But you can confidently meet its challenges because you are prepared to do so. You see, you are about to become college graduates.
Some cynics elbow their way into the news cycle by claiming that a college education isn’t worth its cost. That’s good for a headline, but it is not accurate.
In practical terms, there is a substantial wage gap between graduates like yourselves and your peers who do not have degrees. That gap is not shrinking, it’s getting wider, and will almost certainly continue to do so.
I have met many employers in the private and public sectors. I can assure you that your status as Akron graduates is highly valued. They say Akron graduates know how to get things done because their academic knowledge is tested by real-world experiences.
Of all the many things you have learned in college, the most important is how to learn new things—some of which no one knows about yet.
A wise fool once said change isn’t necessarily good or bad, it is just different. Different can be frightening.
This is where you can hope to make a difference, finding in each challenge an opportunity, and making good on each opportunity you find.
You can help determine if the new mass media is a source of good news rather than fake news.
You can help make the new medicine a fountain of well-being rather than a well of misery.
You can help make the new education a bright light rather than a dim bulb.
You can hope for things that have never been previously hoped for.
So you’ve got reasons to be confident and reasons to be hopeful.
You need just one more thing to thrive and that is the creative combination of confidence and hope. We call it faith.
We often think about faith in terms of religious conviction and appropriately so. But faith permeates almost every aspect of our lives.
When we have confidence and hope in our talents, we say we have faith in our ability.
When we have confidence and hope in our friends, we say we have faith in them.
But faith is greater than the sum of its parts. It is confidence in things unseen, assurance of things hoped for.
Faith is belief in the future and a commitment to things larger than ourselves.
Graduates, I urge you to leave this hall today filled with faith: faith in yourselves, faith in our communities, faith that the best things are yet to come.
And know that we have faith in you.
Godspeed, Class of 2019.