It\u2019s no secret that the Intramuralist is proud of Purdue University\u2026 incredibly grateful, too. There\u2019s much wisdom to be gleaned there. We provide a little bit more in today\u2019s post, an excerpt from Purdue President Mitch Daniels\u2019 remarks during the university\u2019s spring commencement ceremonies last weekend\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGreetings, friends, and welcome. I should say \u2018welcome back.\u2019 We are back in Elliott Hall, where Purdue spring commencements belong, for the first time in three years. And as I\u2019ll tell you in a few minutes, to me that matters beyond just the pleasure of returning to this beautiful, traditional venue.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Starting with my first delivery of these remarks a decade ago, I have ended them with the same signoff: \u2018Hail Purdue, and each of you.\u2019 It was just meant to be a little signature, a rhetorical device chosen as much for its cadence as for any deep meaning. But reflecting on this year\u2019s ceremony got me thinking that maybe there\u2019s more to it than what I\u2019ve intended all these years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many talks on these occasions address themselves to \u2018all you graduates\u2019 or \u2018the Class of 20-x\u2019. I guess I\u2019ve approached it that way some years. Today, I\u2019m thinking more like those movie tough guys who ask, \u2018You talkin\u2019 to me? You talkin\u2019 to me?\u2019 Today, I\u2019ll be talking to you, each of you, individually, or at least I\u2019ll be trying to.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A friend told me of a commencement he attended where the speaker, to inject a little levity, advised the graduates, \u2018In life, it\u2019s not who you know that counts. It\u2019s whom.\u2019 (I assume at least the English majors in the crowd get it.) A funny line, but bad advice. It is who that counts. Not who you know, but who you are.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The further I go, the less I\u2019m sure how to answer the question, \u2018Who are you?\u2019 Where to start? I\u2019m a Purdue employee, a happy husband, a father of four, a businessman, a former elected official, a Presbyterian elder, a history buff, and a mediocre golfer. Ancestry.com informs me that genetically I\u2019m more Syrian and Lebanese than anything else, but I\u2019ve got high percentages of Scotch, Welsh and a dash of Italian mixed in.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019m a dog lover. I grew up in a family of them. We got all ours from the Humane Society, every one some sort of mixture. And every one was great: loyal, loving, a full member of the family. During those years, I adopted my mother\u2019s opinion that mutts are the best. We\u2019d all better hope Mom was right. Because we\u2019re all mutts here today. Hybrids, amalgams, crossbreeds, mongrels. Mutts. If you doubt that, go check with Ancestry.com.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are no one-dimensional \u2018you\u2019s.\u2019 Every one of you, when you pause to think about it, can already name a list of qualities that make up \u2018you.\u2019 That list will keep growing as you leave here and launch into the fascinating and varied lives you are destined to lead. You\u2019ll keep learning, and growing, and adding new elements to your individuality. The more facets a diamond has, I\u2019m told, the more brilliant it is; the same will be true for an ever more interesting and differentiated \u2018you.\u2019 The one certainty is that there will be no exact copies, no one just like you and, therefore, no one box anyone can stick you in.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But there will be people who want to take away your \u2018you.\u2019 There always have been. The pharaohs, monarchs, and warlords of old, to whom other people were mere tools, to be used and discarded. In recent times, the proponents of all the \u2018isms\u2019 that viewed people as helpless ciphers in some predetermined historical trend, or valueless instruments of an all-powerful state. In the worst cases, some people were grouped together and treated as sub-human, not deserving to exist at all.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n These days, your individuality is challenged by some who seek to slap a label on you, to lump you into one category or another, and to assert that whatever you are, your choices have little to do with it. What matters is not what you think or do, they claim, but what group they have assigned you to. You\u2019re a prisoner of your genes, or of circumstance, or of some societal forces against which you are defenseless.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Such views may be cloaked in caring, sympathetic terms, but they are deeply disrespectful of those they affect to be supporting. They are a denial of your personal dignity, and ability, and will power. Someone attempting to herd you into a group is someone with an agenda, and your personal wellbeing is not its main purpose.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Your experience, and success, at this institution should convince you not to listen to such disrespect. In a few moments, when you walk up here, it will be your individual achievement we are honoring, and only you know how much individual effort it took to get here.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He eventually gave Colts fans like me a thousand great memories, but never one I admired more than Peyton Manning\u2019s first action as a professional athlete. At the news conference announcing his multimillion-dollar contract, the 22-year-old Manning was asked, \u2018What are you going to do with all that money?\u2019 He answered, \u2018Earn it.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The degree you are about to receive is not being conferred on a group. We aren\u2019t awarding it to any club, team, or fraternity you happen to belong to. It\u2019s not because of your hair style, eye color, or because your parents went to Purdue. Nothing entitled you to it. It is yours, and yours alone, because the work that justifies it was yours. You earned it. You\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the outset, I said there was a larger reason I was so happy to be back in Elliott Hall. That\u2019s because, in here, over six separate ceremonies, Purdue still honors every graduate one by one. Most schools our size long ago went to batch processing, where degrees are conferred on groups, sometimes the entire class at once.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, we take a different view. No matter how big Purdue gets, we value each Boilermaker as an individual. That diploma we\u2019re about to hand you is yours and yours alone. Sure, you had help, and support, and I hope some valuable mentoring, but fundamentally you will be crossing this stage because of what you have accomplished. You.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So walk proudly. You are about to add another facet to the diamond that is you: \u2018Graduate of Purdue University.\u2019 It will be far from your last distinction, but I hope it will always be one that you value as highly as your university values you today. Hail Purdue, and each of \u2026 you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Respectfully\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n AR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s no secret that the Intramuralist is proud of Purdue University\u2026 incredibly grateful, too. There\u2019s much wisdom to be gleaned there. We provide a little bit more in today\u2019s post, an excerpt from Purdue President Mitch Daniels\u2019 remarks during the university\u2019s spring commencement ceremonies last weekend\u2026 \u201cGreetings, friends, and welcome. I should say \u2018welcome back.\u2019 … <\/p>\n