2009 Baccalaureate Ceremony Speech

I am proud to offer formal and official congratulations to you, our graduates the class of 2009.  Bravo!

I also congratulate and honor you, the parents, spouses, partners, family members and friends, whose belief in these graduates, whose steadfast ability to imagine this day and their successes, sustained the students we celebrate today.

We salute you. 

And let us pause a minute and recognize the faculty who have accompanied you on your journey of the past four years.
And you, dear graduates -- Class of 2009 -- as you leave the Steinhardt School, and --some of you of at least --leave New York, end a chapter in the story that you have been creating called your life.
Your parents and many of your loved ones here today probably remember your first steps, your first day of elementary school, first lost tooth, first date, first day of college, first time you voted in a Presidential election, first rejection letter, first job offer....and the first time you wrote a status report on Facebook or on Twitter
Your life has been measured in firsts.
But today's first is different.

When you step outside this magnificent hall this afternoon, and leave the ceremony at Yankees Stadium on Wednesday, you will be graduated for the first time from New York University.
You, in a new, independent and graduated way, will be responsible from now on, for making your own firsts. You have spent the last four years working to develop your individual talents and abilities for a career or profession, or graduate or professional school. 

But today I ask you to think about not the jobs that you will do when you go out into the world, but the lives you will touch, the difference you will make in the lives of others.

Your accomplishments today are due to your individual gifts and efforts, but you are also part of a great human eco-system, this human community this increasingly global society. 

Buddhist teaching tells us that nothing happens in a vacuum; no single event occurs independently of other events. When we look for the cause of one thing, we quickly find a web of interwoven factors.

For Catholics, it is the communion of saints that joins all believers. For Jews, a connection is forged through the ancient teachings, the rituals of faith, and a connection to all those who have come before.  For Muslims, what unifies is a belief in one Allah and the ritual of prayer.

So across religions, we acknowledge the webs of connections that supported you and allowed you to achieve what you have. 

The philosopher Tich Nat Hah reminds us that many living things need each other to survive. He writes,

”If you have ever seen a Colorado aspen tree, you may have noticed that it does not grow alone. Aspens are found in clusters, or groves. The reason is that the aspen sends up new shoots from the roots. In a small grove, all of the trees may actually be connected by their roots!

People, too, are connected by a system of roots. We are born to family and learn early to make friends.  

And like the aspens need to hold one another up. When pounded by the sometimes vicious storms of life.  We need others to support and sustain us.

My training as a psychologist and as a  person who learns from every encounter with faculty, administrators, parents and students, tells me that people are healthier, happier, when they have attachments to others. 

The infant needs to be held securely in loving arms for healthy development.  The elderly thrive around children and thrive with loving touch.  Sick people heal faster surrounded by their loved ones. 

Graduates, look around you.  Look at the people in this great hall who have stayed up with you during the all-nighters; who attended your recitals and your exhibitions, who held your hand when you were hurt, who stayed with you and pulled you back together when you had made a complete fool of yourself, and then made you laugh. 

I think we are happiest when our happiness is mirrored in the laughter of a loved one.

And of course our connectedness is two ways.  Connectedness means that we support others even as they support us. 

Many have observed that if you measure your life by how much you love others, rather than how much you are loved, you will find happiness and deep love, and lasting relationships that will sustain you and make you happy.

So today, as you leave us at NYU, I ask you to use your talents and gifts to forge relationships with our complex and needy world.

Use your knowledge of languages, culture, and history to understand and embrace our global world.
Use your skills as speech therapists and teachers to heal the wounded and open access to the world for our children and youth. 

Use your talents as artist and musicians to find new languages that will help us understand and celebrate our profound diversities.  

Use your insights as psychologists and students of media and communication to bridge the differences that lead to misunderstandings, and conflicts—both human and global. 

“We are more human than otherwise,” the great psychologist, Harry Stack Sullivan reminds us. 

Take the gifts you have been given and have developed through your web of friends and the community of NYU –

Take these gifts of human relationships and create a larger, better human community. 

And please return often to your alma mater.

Let us be part of the relationship that sustains you over the course of your life.