Leo M. Lambert, who concluded his service as Elon's eighth president earlier this year, delivered the Commencement address to the Class of 2018 on May 19, 2018. This post includes the full text and video of Lambert's address.
The following is the full video and text of the Commencement address delivered by President Emeritus Leo M. Lambert on Saturday, May 19, 2018
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President Book, President Minton and members of the Class of 2018, thank you for the great honor of the invitation to address you today.
Greetings to my dear colleagues on the faculty and staff, wonderful shapers of minds and hearts, and to members of the Board of Trustees, who cherish and steward Elon and its mission and values with intelligence and passion.
I love Commencement Day. Graduates, you are surrounded by people on this campus today who love you deeply. That collective love is palpable.
Elon is a place that prizes experiential learning, but almost none of you have yet had the experience of bringing a child from infancy to this day. I know from experience that your parents are overflowing with love, pride and hope for your future. Parents, I thank you sincerely for the partnership that Elon has shared with you in preparing a new generation for leadership and service.
And grandparents, a special welcome to you out there in streaming video land. I have been a member of “our club” for seven years now. I once described to my friend Chrissy Stein that when I first wake up and think of my grandkids, my heart overfills with love. Chrissy replied, “Leo, Jewish people have a word for that! It’s called kvelling.” (I had been kvelling for all those years and didn’t even know.)
Well, thousands of us on campus today — siblings, friends, loved one — are kvelling for the Class of 2018 — bursting with pride. Congratulations! And Mazel Tov!
The task of a commencement speaker is essentially to address a two-word, big question: What matters?
Sometimes you discover what really matters in life in lightning bolt moments, like when you fall deeply in love or become a parent.
Or, through a process of discernment, you find inspiration about your calling, discover what you are passionately curious about, or become engrossed in truly meaningful work.
But sometimes in life, what matters most is re-revealed to us during the most difficult times, times of disappointment or sadness or even tragedy.
But within those dark hours, suddenly may appear a moment of light, or grace, or truth, which illuminates and helps us find our path again.
I had such a moment this past winter. On a very cold Jan. 6, I attended a service celebrating the life of your classmate, Harrison Durant, a beautiful son, brother and friend to many.
At the very end of the incredibly moving and life-affirming service, all the congregants of the packed church rose and sang a beautiful piece of music that I would describe as a blend of hymn and folk song. It was written by Peter Mayer, and it is titled Blue Boat Home. And within the lyrics of the song was the light of which I was just speaking, and the kernel of a commencement address. Let me recite just a few lines:
“Though below me, I feel no motion
Standing on these mountains and plains
Far away from the rolling ocean
Still my dryland heart can say
I’ve been sailing all my life now
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home
“Sun, my sail, and moon my rudder
As I ply the starry sea
Leaning over the edge in wonder
Casting questions into the deep
Drifting here with my ship’s companions
All we kindred pilgrim souls
Making our way by the light of the heavens
In our beautiful blue boat home”
This journey on earth — our blue boat home — is precious and fleeting.
And I think what matters most, kindred pilgrim souls, is how we treat our ship’s companions — our shipmates. We all are shipmates. Every human being on the planet is our shipmate.
It’s tragic that we spend precious time separating ourselves from our fellow passengers, especially naming who we want to throw off the boat, instead of making our first instinct the offer of love and understanding.
What matters most is the compassion we can show to each other every day. Think about all those good people who have to summon their bravery just to go out to the grocery store — a Muslim woman in a hijab, or a transgendered person, or a person who suffers from debilitating anxiety. What if your generation leads in ensuring the condemnation and misunderstanding those shipmates experience all too often would be replaced by support and respect? What a profoundly different world we would inhabit.
And do not forget that the children on our blue boat are our most important passengers. Those children attending school in a dilapidated building without adequate instructional resources and with an underpaid hero of a teacher are your little shipmates — and a disproportionate share are children of color. Children matter the most of all, and the best return on investment you will ever see in life is money spent on education, especially in early childhood.
So stand up for your shipmates, Class of 2018. Listen to the words of President Book when she confers your degrees. She will confer upon you rights and privileges, but also responsibility. Responsibility means helping others gain access to rights and privileges, especially education and dignity.
I ask you to bear in mind on this special day that encouragement for the human journey on our blue boat home is as important as food, water, and air.
A few weeks ago Professor Peter Felten and I visited LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York, where they have a student body from 160 nations speaking 120 languages. What unites this student body, according to their wonderful president, Gail Mellow, is that most are trying to rise from poverty.
The support offered by the faculty and staff there, according to the students we interviewed, is amazing. Students told us they hear words like:
“I believe in you.
You’re a shining star.
There is something special within you.”
These words are transformative, especially if you are going to class after working an eight-hour shift and later have to go make dinner for the kids.
So I hope you will place high on your list of life goals to be an encourager — literally to give others courage. Because as one young woman at LaGuardia told us, there is no limit to what you can achieve when you “take out the fear in your heart.”
Many of you are going to begin new jobs soon, and it’s also important to think about how to treat your shipmates at work. Last fall, Nicholas Cianciara, Class of 2016, took Laurie and me on an amazing tour of his workplace—SpaceX. I was so impressed by Nicholas’s deep understanding of the organization’s culture, its audacious missions and by the teamwork and innovative spirit prized there. Nicholas told me almost as an aside, “We have a ‘no jerks’ policy here.”
That pretty much sums it up. Listen to the ideas of others, collaborate, give credit, be engaged, and show up with passion and creativity.
The key to being a good shipmate on our blue boat home is to never forget that you are a Phoenix, a symbol of resurrection, rebirth and rising. Ultimately, your very happiness in life will be determined not by how far or how fast you rose, but by how you helped others to rise. How many times in your life will your encouragement enable the resurrection of the spirit of a fellow human being? How many lives of other people will rise because of what you did or what you said? These are some of the important questions I hope you will forever cast into the deep.
Soon, you will be alumni of Elon University. When you participated in New Student Orientation, you heard Elon was at the center of the word “belong,” and we know how important a sense of belonging is to the college experience. On your commencement day, I want to remind you that you cannot spell “lifelong” without Elon. You join today a growing generation of young Elon alumni whose leadership will determine this University’s destiny, mark my words. Love Elon all your life long.
And, when you join the grandparent club, I hope you will tell your grandchildren that on your first day of college, an old man told you, “Time is short, and given the abundant banquet ahead, don’t make a bologna sandwich.” And on your last day of college, that same old man told you, “Time is short and love your shipmates, because they matter most.”
So my prayer for you this morning, Class of 2018, is that your lives will be filled with purpose and joy, and that you will share your light — your Numen and Lumen — so that others might shine as well.
Congratulations and Godspeed. You will always be my shipmates.
Go Phoenix! And Long live Elon!