Commencement Season

In my 40 years on University campuses, I have participated in many commencement exercises and sat through too many commencement addresses!  The best ones are brief, inspiring, and leave you something to think about.  On Friday I heard such a speech.  I was honored to be part of the exercises at Long Island University. The beautiful C.W. Post campus, former estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, was the setting on a perfect Spring day.   President David J. Steinberg congratulated the graduates and their families, urged them to go forth and do good, and posed seven questions for them to contemplate.  I hope that they will do so on a regular basis throughout their lives.  As I hope that day’s audience does-as I will.

Dr. Steinberg’s questions:

• Can you truly appreciate and engage in our culture and era, even while genuinely respecting peoples from other places or from older times?
• Can you discern the truth when you hear it and know when you are listening to rot?
• Can you find a career path that makes you fulfilled personally and allows you to make a contribution to society?
• Can you appreciate beauty and seek to fill your life with it?
• Can you really know yourself, including your strengths and frailties that others, both friend and foe, probably see?
• Have you found the capacity to love others with the same intensity that you love yourself?
• Have you truly grappled with and made some order out of critical existential questions, including your own ethical and personal standards, which will give direction to your life and allow you to face your own mortality?

Questions to ponder.