GRADUATION SPEECH AT MERCER UNIVERSITY
FOR THE COLLEGE OF CONTINUING AND PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
May, 10, 2008
By
Y. LYNN HOLMES
I want to say a special word of congratulations to all of you who are graduating here this evening. Most of you have worked full-time and many of you have had families to look after, but you completed your college degree just the same. You must be super people to have worked so hard, frequently under difficult circumstances, and to have accomplished what you have done. This is a most important moment in the life of each of you, and you and your families should be very proud of what you have accomplished.
Because I am an educator as well as a Mercer alumnus, I am honored to be here as your graduation speaker this evening. I like graduations and I have had plenty of experience attending graduations. You might say that I am somewhat of a professional graduation attender. I graduated a few times myself; I attended the graduation ceremonies of each of my 3 daughters as they graduated from high school and college; and in my 36 years as a college professor and administrator I usually attended one of more graduations every year. Few people have attended more graduations than I have, except maybe President Underwood and Provost Fleming, who I understand have attended 10 graduations this week alone.
Graduations are wonderful events and an important reason is that they are one of the few times when everyone goes home happy. The graduates and their families are very happy, their professors are happy and the university administrators are happy. I am certain that all of you are likewise happy about this graduation this evening.
The only thing that is problematic about a graduation is the graduation speaker. Have you ever noticed that virtually no one ever remembers the name of the graduation speaker and seldom remembers anything that the graduation speaker said.
It is somewhat like listening to a sermon in Church; the next Sunday virtually no one remembers what the minister said the Sunday before. I am an ordained minister but I have always worked as a full-time educator, although I have frequently filled in for ministers in churches through the years. I shall never forget when I filled in at one church for 2 Sundays in a row, that I mentioned to the congregation that keeping the attention of the people in a church was always a challenge for the speaker and that I realized that the next Sunday few people would remember what I had said. I was surprised and happy when one of the deacons of the church came up to me the next Sunday and said “I remember something that you said last Sunday. I remember that you said I would not remember.” The great challenge that I have this evening is to say something that will cause you to remember more than “you will not remember.”
Even though I am very happy about the graduations that I attend, I always leave each one of them with some degree of concern. My concern is whether the graduates think that they now have all of the knowledge that they need for the rest of their lives. I well remember that when I graduated from Dublin High School in Dublin, Georgia, that I thought I knew far more than when I graduated eleven years later with a Ph.D. Degree from Brandeis University in Massachusetts. When I graduated from Dublin High School I did not realize how ignorant I was, but when I received my Ph.D. Degree I well understood how little I knew and how much more there was to learn.
The most important thing I can say to you this evening is to commend you for everything that you have learned in your university experience these past few years and to challenge you to learn even more in the future. We never know enough and if we ever get to a point where we think we know all we need to know, we are very foolish.
The key reason why it is so important for you to keep learning is because we live in the Age of Knowledge in which everything is changing so quickly. Our technology, jobs, businesses, world and yes even knowledge itself are changing so rapidly that what we learn today is out-of-date in a year or two and sometimes more quickly than that. For those who want to keep jobs and be successful, learning, more than ever before, must be a life long activity.
I have seen so many changes in this world in the 67 years I have been here but the changes that are taking place now are at a much more rapid pace. I have not seen anything in comparison with the changes that you will see, and many of them may be changes that are not so good for you or this country. For example, many international scholars are now saying that the 20th century was the American Century, but the 21st century will probably be the Asian Century. It is quite possible that you will see the U.S. lose its position as the world’s only superpower and its position as the world’s largest economy during this century. It is quite probable that these positions will be taken by China between 2020 and 2030 because of their continued economic growth and their military developments. Already the U.S. has lost its number one position in such things as healthcare, education and social services.
I travel to and do work in many counties in the world, particularly China, Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. In fact I will be leaving for China next Wednesday and will be working as a consultant and guest lecturer there for 2 months. You learn very quickly that the U.S. has real problems in the world diplomatically, economically and militarily, when you travel outside the U.S. frequently. This was impressed on me very strongly a few weeks ago when I was in a Moscow airport waiting for a plane to fly me to the former Soviet State of Uzbekistan. I could not get a shop to take my dollars so that I could buy a bottle of water. They only wanted Euros and had no interest in dollars at all. When you consider the fact that China now holds $1.4 trillion U.S. dollars because we buy so many products from China and sell them far fewer products, and that Saudi Arabia also holds $1.4 trillion U.S. dollars because we buy so much oil and gas from them and sell them so little, you quickly begin to realize that these countries have great power over the U.S. economy and the future of the U.S. With the decline in the value of the dollar, the increase in the price of gasoline, the decline in U.S. prestige abroad, the rising price of food and the U.S. trade deficit with China and other countries in the world, it is very clear that many changes will be taking place in the U.S. and in other countries during the next few decades.
So many of these changes will have a direct impact on the U.S. and on you personally. This is why it is so important that you have the educational training and the knowledge that you need to be able to make the adjustments that are required to be able to live in and work successfully in this rapidly changing world. While you have used your mind wisely during these past few years as you have gotten your degree, this will not be adequate to deal with all of the problems and changes that you will encounter as our world and our country go through so many changes. This is why we do not have the luxury to stop learning and educating ourselves.
I am reminded of a slogan that is used by one of the educational fundraising organizations which says “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” I think that this slogan has such an important message for us at this time. Do not stop learning now because there is so much more that you can and need to learn, particularly as you try to live and work in this fast changing world. You must not stop learning, because if you do you will suffer the consequences, particularly financially, from making such a mistake.
Once again I want to congratulate you graduates for this most important accomplishment that we are recognizing here this evening. I also hope that you will not forget the slogan: “a mind is a terrible thing to waste”. Keep your mind sharp, learn new things every day, stay well-informed about the changes that are taking place in your country and your world. Never, no never, stop learning.