It was many moons ago that I was sitting out there anxious to cross this stage and take on the world.
To you, the graduates, your families and friends: This is your day, your moment.
We’re not just here to honor and salute you, but to make sure you know that not just today, but even after you have exited the stage — assuming your final tuition checks are cashed and deposited — we are, and will always be, a resource to as you move into that great beyond.
It’s been said that youth is wasted on the young. This well-known quote is often attributed to Nobel prize winner and playwright George Bernard Shaw.
It suggests that young people, like yourselves, possess vitality, time and the freedom that comes with your tender age, but lack the experience and wisdom to fully appreciate or even utilize those youthful attributes.
Yet I would respond that you are both necessary and sufficient. Shaw’s quote doesn’t describe a failure of the young. In fact, it describes a generation that performed its life before the wrong audience.
That cadre of youth lived as though someone was watching, judging, keeping score — when the only audience that ever really mattered was, in fact, themselves.
To such critics, I say, “You owe them nothing for it doesn’t have to be that way.”
I look out across this space and as one who has gone through a degree program here, I can attest that you are clear examples that disprove this rule. You all entered our great institution of higher learning with so much uncertainty placed on your shoulders. And look at you now!
You not only survived such tremendous change and uncertainty, but you all thrived amid the challenges. This day is a testament to that. You are leaving here better than when you arrived.
Not only because you walk away with valuable University of Michigan-Dearborn degrees in hand, but after years spent exploring, questioning and pushing your minds to greater heights, you have transformed into something far greater.
As my own experience as a young metro Detroit student growing up in the area and then matriculating here before a career in foreign affairs and now journalism… again, I know what you’re accomplishing here matters.
Each of you has undergone your academic and intellectual metamorphosis only to come out on this side with purpose, clarity, grit and determination. Each one of you possess desire, passion, drive and ambition to create something of meaning for yourselves, your families, and your communities. And now here you are embarking on your journey — a journey that will no doubt leave your place and space much better than the way you found it.
The years that you spent toiling in a lab, burrowed in the library or engaged in research have given you the tools to move beyond Dearborn, beyond the greater University of Michigan community. You will do that as the next great inventor, teacher, entrepreneur or whichever passion you choose to pursue.
But let me offer one additional tool that you all have: Your youth allows each of you to parlay with great abandon, courage and zeal that only the young can possess — your voice!
Now when I talk about voice, I don’t just mean your mouth. Of course there’s a reason we’ve been given two eyes, two ears, and two hands, but only one mouth. Yes, words and the voice that emits them can be powerful. We’ve seen throughout history how one’s voice can shape movements.
Steve Jobs extolled the fact that, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Ellen Johnson Sirleaf pushed us to think and imagine the unimaginable saying, “If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.”
Jobs, a great innovator, and Johnson-Sirleaf, a head of state, each incorporated tremendous intellect and boldness into their journey taking them to tremendous heights. But they also left an indelible mark that included a voice that shaped hearts and minds and moved mountains.
Each and everyone of you that will walk across this stage has a voice and it is up to you to figure out how to incorporate it into your grand plan as you make your way up the ladder of success.
Will it be in the code you write that shapes software? A new curriculum that shapes the way people learn? Or will it break through the log-jam that is currently stifling and suffocating our politics?
However you decide — never forget that you do have a voice and it is yours. It is a gift.
It can be poetic, lyrical, robotic even. But it is still uniquely yours.
And so back to the quote that I started with today and this central tenant that youth is wasted on the young. Do not let your youth be an impediment to going after your dreams or stifling your ambitions. For it is the young that have the daring to challenge the status quo. It is the young that are often idealistic and willing to push through the barriers turning dreams into reality.
So today you’re all entering a world very different from that which was presented to you the day you first walked on campus. It is a world at war; a nation gripped by polarization and rage; a very system buckling under the weight of tremendous change. And now it needs you more than ever.
Yes, it will be punishing, unforgiving even.
Each day can be very different from the day before. It is going to give you the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
Like a current, former or even imagined love interest, this world is going to sprinkle you with moments of great tenderness — and, then, there are times it will sting mightily.
But through it all… never stop seeking, never stop searching, never stop until you find your voice. Your voice could be the vehicle that jumpstarts a movement. Your voice, your own individualistic, quirky, passionate and, yes, determinative voice could be the insight and direction that we all need. You just have to take great care to tap into it.
So take the day, take the week. Celebrate your moment. You’ve earned it!
But then take what UM-Dearborn has given you. Gird yourselves with the training and knowledge that only can be gained from our wonderful institution. And go be bold, go be daring, go change and shape the world.
And do it with the voice you’ve honed and molded to tackle all that which will certainly be thrown your way. You can do it. I know you can. You got this.
Go Blue!
Ham's speech has been lightly edited for style.
