What do liberal arts college graduates want to hear?

I attended graduation ceremonies at Oberlin College this year, explaining to friends that I wanted to “see if they were going to restore Bill Cosby’s honorary doctorate (awarded 2010; rescinded 2015).”

The president of the graduating class had minored in “gender, sexuality, and feminist studies” (see this video at about 41:00). I congratulated a college official nearby on getting a 20-year-old to pay $300,000 to learn about sexuality.

The main speaker was the great soprano Jessye Norman (at about 1:13:30 in the video). The transcript of Norman’s speech includes a quote from Albert Einstein: “when I examine myself and my method of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.” (i.e., J.K. Rowling is in line to become the 21st century’s greatest physicist; I noted to my friend that the people most likely to quote physicists on subjects other than physics are those who haven’t met many physicists…) Norman did not have any kind of personal tale of social injustice, having come from a two-parent household and having obtained scholarships and jobs commensurate with her hard work and natural talent. Nonetheless, her talk touched on social justice. Examples:

You will not be daunted by the terrible amounts of despair and struggle in our world.

Someone said that public service … this offering of our ‘better selves’… is the dues we pay for the privilege of life.

Allow me to ask … as you do … should homelessness even exist in the richest nation on this earth? Should anyone be hungry in this world of plenty?

The Metropolitan Opera House would need still more time for its wisdom of inclusion to make an appearance. It was not until 1955 that an African American appeared on that stage in a leading role.

With that short history lesson for some of you, events of the past which show us how far we have come, I trust you are inspired to set about making your own history, your own special mark in this world … a world that is just waiting for and needing your passion and your humanity, as we have yet so much further to go.

At lunch with three young future professional musicians who had heard the address I asked them “Given that Norman is not an economist, would you have rather heard her talk about her rarefied world of music and what she had learned, rather than wondering how economic growth could be consistent with hunger?” [Sidenote: Malthus may have a better explanation for this than Einstein.]

It turned out that Norman had struck all of the right notes (so to speak) with her speech. The young folks loved it, loved hearing that social justice was the most important issue, and loved hearing that they had an important role to play in achieving social justice.

What about Norman’s description of the world as a place that needs urgent fixing? Given that she was born in 1945, right at the end of World War II, did it make sense for her to quote “On the surface of the world right now there is war and violence and things seem dark.” Weren’t things a lot darker in 1945, with tens of millions of people recently killed? The young folks around the lunch table said that the world was in far worse shape than in 1945. “The problems back then were obvious,” one said, “whereas now they are hidden.”