Newest Graduates Urged to be ‘Global Citizens’

It was hard to tell who was more excited over the dignitaries in attendance for Yale’s 307th Commencement ceremony on May 26 — the parents or the more than 3,350 graduates.

By 9:30 a.m. on that sunny Monday morning, the word was out that former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney was among the eight distinguished individuals being awarded honorary degrees at the Commencement ceremony. Before all the soon-to-be graduates had even completed lining up for their procession to the Old Campus, parents and other guests had strategically placed themselves along the campus walkways and city streets where McCartney and the other honorands were expected to travel. Excitedly, they shared stories about their first recollections of McCartney and the other Beatles and readied their cameras for the moment that the rock icon might appear.

 When McCartney, along with the honorary degree recipients, emerged from Woodbridge Hall in a procession led by Yale President Richard C. Levin, the onlookers clapped, cheered, snapped photographs and yelled “Paul, Paul!” as the legendary pop star marched by, clad in a black graduation gown.

The 65-year-old McCartney - who was about the age of the graduating Yale College seniors when he first became accustomed to adoring fans in the early 1960s - casually smiled and waved to those who so eagerly awaited a glimpse of him as he passed by. Also in the procession were his fellow honorands: poet John Ashbery; historian and Harvard University’s first female president Drew Gilpin Faust; former U.S. Cabinet member Carla Anderson Hills; theologian and humanitarian Mercy Amba Oduyoye; Nobel Prize-winning environmentalist Rajendra Pachauri; architect Cesar Pelli; and astrophysicist Lord Martin Rees.

Equally conspicuous at the Commencement ceremony was former British prime minister Tony Blair, who had delivered the Senior Class Day address the day before, and who was on hand to celebrate the graduation of his son, Euan, who earned a master’s degree in international relations from the University.

The presence of the British notables led members of the media who covered the Class Day and Commencement ceremonies to lightheartedly describe the Memorial Day weekend festivities as the “British Invasion” - a term used in the 1960s in reference to the wave of rock-and-roll musicians, including the Beatles, who performed and became popular in the United States.

Be global citizens

In the Baccalaureate Address delivered by Levin and the Class Day Address by Blair, the graduating Yale students were urged to be “global citizens.”

Levin drew distinctions between the members of the Class of 2008 and that of his own generation who graduated 40 years ago in 1968. He also noted how much the world itself had changed in that interval.

“The Yale College Class of 1968 had only 19 students from outside the United States; they represented 13 countries,” said the Yale president. “Your class has 106 students from outside the United States, representing 41 countries. As best we can tell, fewer than 100 students in the Class of 1968 benefited from a Yale-sponsored experience overseas or an independent junior year abroad program. In your class, nearly 700 have had such an experience. You have also had access to a curriculum far richer in its coverage of the languages, culture, society, politics and economics of other nations.”

He emphasized that in today’s “highly interdependent world,” cross-cultural understanding is essential, and noted that the graduates’ Yale education has fully equipped them to tackle world problems.

He also stressed the graduates’ important role in helping to create a more sustainable planet and noted that leading scientists from around the world agree that evidence of global warming is now “unequivocal.”

“As you leave this place,” he urged the graduates, “I hope you will carry with you, as part of your commitment to global citizenship, a recognition that the burden of ensuring the well-being of future generations falls on you. … And I urge you, as global citizens, to promote the prosperity and improved health of your own generation in a manner that is sustainable, in the sense that future generations will have at least as much opportunity to enjoy the fruits of the environment and the fruits of their own potential as we ourselves enjoy.” (The full text of Levin’s address appears here.)

Look to the East

Blair - who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and now works to promote the peace process as the Middle East envoy representing the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia - began his Class Day address discussing the troubled region.

“Today, though the land that encompasses Israel and Palestine is small, the conflict symbolizes the wider prospects of the entire vast region of the Middle East and beyond. There, the forces of modernization and moderation battle with those of reaction and extremism. The shadow of Iran looms large.

“What is at stake is immense,” he continued. “Will those who believe in peaceful co-existence triumph, matching the growing economic power and wealth with a politics and culture at ease with the 21st century? Or will the victors be those that seek to use that economic power to create a politics and culture more relevant to the feudal Middle Ages?”

The answer to those questions, he told the graduating seniors, will impact their security and way of life.

He urged the soon-to-be graduates to turn their attention to the East - both the Middle East and the Far East.

“For the first time in many centuries, power is moving East,” said Blair. “China and India each have populations roughly double those of America and Europe combined. In the next two decades, these two countries together will undergo industrialization four times the size of the USA’s and at five times the speed.”

Blair emphasized that in this changing environment, it is imperative that the nations of the West “clear a path for partnership,” rather than engage in a struggle for power.

“The issues that you will wrestle with - the threat of climate change, food scarcity and population growth, worldwide terror based on religion, the interdependence of the world economy - my student generation would barely recognize,” the former prime minister continued. “But the difference today is that they are all essentially global in nature.”

Noting that Yale has become “a melting pot of culture, language and civilization,” Blair told the graduates that they are the new “global” generation.

“So be global citizens,” he urged.

To take on the global challenges of their generation, Blair advised the seniors to keep learning, “stay awake,” use both instinct and reason, feel as well as analyze, understand but challenge conventional wisdom, and to be prepared to fail as well as succeed.

Furthermore, he exhorted, “Be good people on your way up because you never know if you will meet them again on your way down.” He emphasized the importance of friendships, which, he said, “will sustain and enrich the human spirit.”

He encouraged the graduates to have a purpose in life and to make that purpose something bigger than themselves.

Noting that three million people die in Africa each year from preventable disease or from conflict, Blair called upon the seniors to change what is within their grasp to change.

“Be a doer not a commentator,” he said. “Seek responsibility rather than shirk it. People often ask me about leadership. I say: Leadership is about wanting the responsibility to be on our shoulders, not ignoring its weight but knowing someone has to carry it and reaching out for that person to be you. Leaders are heat-seekers not heat-deflectors.”

The former prime minister recently partnered with Yale to launch the Tony Blair Foundation, which will explore how religious values can be channeled to create peace rather than stir conflict. As part of the foundation’s efforts, Blair will lead a series of seminars on “Faith and Globalization” that are designed by Yale’s Schools of Divinity and Management. The first seminar will begin in the fall.

During his Class Day address, some members of the Class of 2008 silently demonstrated against the war in Iraq, which Blair supported, by holding up red signs that read “No War” on one side and “Peace Now” on the other.

The highest honors

At the Class Day ceremony, six teachers were honored for their outstanding commitment to their profession and 17 students were recognized with prestigious awards for their accomplishments in academics, athletics, commitment to public service and personal qualities. (See related story.)

One student, Altaf Saadi, received two of the top awards - the David Everett Chantler Award for courage, strength of character and high moral purpose, and the Nakanishi Prize for exemplary leadership in enhancing race and/or ethnic relations at Yale College.

At Commencement on the following day, the graduates and their guests cheered and clapped heartily as Levin read the citations for the six honorary degree recipients (see story). The Yale Band played “Hey Jude” as McCartney approached the podium to receive his honorary Doctor of Music degree.

“There is no one compares with you,” said Levin, quoting a line from the Beatles song “In My Life.” “Your songs awakened a generation, giving fresh sound to rock, roll, rhythm and blues.”

The other honorary degree recipients were equally celebrated for their contributions to society, receiving loud applause as they, too, accepted their awards from Levin.

Bright futures

Both Senior Class Day exercises and the graduation ceremony took place on warm days on the sun-dappled Old Campus, where many of the guests sat in the shade of tall elm trees. A slight breeze rustled the leaves on the towering trees.

The Class Day ceremony also featured reflections by two graduating students about their Yale experiences; a humorous video recounting the senior “class history”; a recitation of the Ivy Ode (an original poem written by senior Haitham Jendoubi and translated into Latin by Jay Buchanan); the planting of the ivy and dedication of the 2008 class stone in remembrance of the graduating class; and other traditions.

The nearly 1,300 Yale College seniors were jubilant the following day when they joined with the nearly 600 graduates of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and approximately 2,580 graduates of Yale’s professional schools for the Commencement ceremony. The students from the various schools cheered and hooted as Levin officially proclaimed them Yale graduates.

Yale’s new chaplain Sharon Kugler offered an opening prayer in which she asked that the graduates remember they share a common humanity. “We all look at the same sun and same moon,” said Kugler. She also prayed that the graduates use knowledge in a “righteous” way and protect “the dignity of all creation.”

Following the celebratory conferral of student and honorary degrees, the raucous applause and cheers quieted as the students, their guests, University administrators and faculty, and the honorands joined in singing a hymn written in the early 1880s called “O God, beneath they guiding hand.” A hush fell on the Old Campus as Harold W. Attridge, dean of the Divinity School, blessed the graduates.

As the new graduates processed off the Old Campus to music performed by the Yale University Concert Band and a ringing of the Yale Memorial Carillon by members of the Yale Guild of Carillonneurs, family members and friends waved proudly and captured yet more photographs of their loved ones in their caps and gowns. As the new graduates scurried to more intimate celebrations in the residential colleges, the Graduate School and the professional schools, they shared their joy with friends and classmates, offering hugs and thumbs-up signs in abundance.

- By Susan Gonzalez