Graduates of the class of 2018, familymembers and friends, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today, a day filledwith joy for the present and hope for the future. There is a wonderful Yaletradition that I would like to honor right now. May I ask all of the familiesand friends today to rise and recognize the outstanding and graduating membersof the class of 2018.
Well, that was enthusiastic may I now askthe class of 2018 to consider from a moment all those who have supported yourarrival at this milestone and please rise and recognize them…
Thank you. These are the months and yearswhen people tend to make a lot of plans, some are practical those scheduledflights and rent apartments to consider well where you will work or study aftergraduation. Others are more aspirational you imagine your future life and whatyou wish to accomplish in the years ahead. I want to begin by sharing a passagePolly Murray wrote in 1945 about her aspirations at the time she was a younglawyer and civil rights activist. Here’sthe quotation. I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracingmethods, Murray wrote, when my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me Ishall draw a larger circle to include them. Where they speak out the privilegesof a puny group I shall shout for the rights of all mankind.
So I ask you how large will you draw yourcircle will you draw a circle that is large, inclusive and vibrant or will itbe small puny and privileged, the work of including is difficult but therewards are great. Let me suggest ways you might follow the examples of PollyMurray and many other Yale graduates when you leave campus, first make sureyour circles are truly large. In today’s world where you can have several hundredsof followers on Twitter and a thousand friends on Facebook it may seem easy tohave a large circle but if you’re bombarded with the same stories the samememes and the same opinions from all your so-called friends then your world maybe in fact be quite narrow; a conversation with six friends in real lifeactually may lead to a greater variety of ideas and perspectives. In my yearsin Yale I’ve been privileged to know some of the most brilliant minds in theworld. I’v learned that the greatest scholars draw the largest circles theyread widely and are interested in ideas well beyond the scope of their ownresearch and their own believes.
Robert Dahl who was a sterling professor ofpolitical science taught at Yale for 40 years. One of the most respectedpolitical scientists of his generation professor Dahl was an authority ondemocracy and on democratic institutions and he was a beloved teacher and mentor,after his death in 2014 at the age of 98, tributes from his former studentspoured in. One of his graduate students Geoffrey Isaac recalled how he vehementlydisagreed with some of Dahl arguments even though he loved taking his class. Forhis dissertation Isaac proposed wiring a critique of Dahl’s theories. Much tohis surprise the most enthusiastic and supportive member of the faculty in thedepartment of political science was Dahl himself. He agreed to supervise the dissertation.Isaac wrote Bob Dahl spent countless hours in his office talking with me aboutmy principal theoretical antagonists, Him, we would discuss this guy Dahl inthe third person. We considered the limits of his arguments we’d speculateabout how he might respond to my arguments. Professor Dahl embraced his criticslistened to them and conversed with them a model of open and engagedscholarship and teaching the best we can aspire to it Yale.
The lesson extends beyond our campus ourgreatest challenges as a society climate change, poverty insecurity violencedemand innovative and creative solutions. yet. Political polarization is makingit more difficult than ever to solve these problems. We must be able to talkwith our opponents even though we disagree with them we might start byemulating Professor Dahl and so many other wise generous thinkers who havedrawn large circles and so added to sum of human understanding.
My second piece of advice and here I’mtaking some liberties with the metaphor is drawing as many circles as you can.one circle will be your work, make sure you enjoy it but make sure you haveother circles as well. We know one of the keys to happiness is developing a passioneven an expertise outside of work, sharing that passion with others gives us greatjoy and it connects us to circles of friends and associates who might be verydifferent from the ones we would meet otherwise. As many of you are aware I amquite passionate about music from Appalachian Mountain region. My love oftraditional country and bluegrass music has allowed me to visit places such asSouthwest Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. It has allowed me to chair the boardof the International Bluegrass music museum, to play bass for 30 years now withthe professors of bluegrass it enables me to share stories and songs withperfect strangers at summer time bluegrass music festivals most significantlythough it has led to circles of friendships beyong the towns in which I grew upbeyond the universities I attended and beyond my profession of psychology. I’mof course proud to be a psychologist and my discipline in fact does provideempirical evidence to support my personal experience. Patricia Linville is asocial psychologist who studies how people think of themselves and how theseself-perceptions influence well-being. She is now at Duke but she was myteacher here at Yale when she completed several studies of what she terms self-complexitygreater self-complexity according to Linville means a person has many aspects ofthemselves in other words, they draw many circles for example a woman whothinks of herself as a student a marathon runner of a theatre goer a reader ofthe New York magazine and let’s say a bass player in the bluegrass band would demonstrategreat self-complexity than someone who thinks of himself only as a lawyer. ProfessorLinville in her research found that the great that greater self-complexity actsas a buffer against negative experiences.
For example if you define yourself almostentirely in terms of your job getting passed over for a promotion might bedevastating for your sense of self-work Linville calls this putting all youreggs in one cognitive gasket.
People such as our marathon running bassplayer on the other hand bounce back more quickly after a setback. Linvilleeven found that college students with greater self complexity where less likelyto get sick or experience depression or stress. Third and finally let mesuggest one important way we can expand our circle, by reaching out and engagingwith others here, I would look like to turn again to Polly Murray and one of hermore surprising relationships. Murray’s papers contact thousands of letters areflection of a full life, animated by many interests, commitments and mayrelationships. A life of many circles during her time at Yale law school,Murray received a letter from Willian… amember of the Yale college class of 1936, now that name will sound familiar toeveryone here.
The … Rare Book and manuscript library isname from Williams’s father and two uncles and many other programs and placesat Yale have benefited from the family’s remarkable philanthropy … passed awayjust last month he was nearly 104 year old, in fact Tuesday is his birthday, in1963, when he wrote Murray he was chairman of the Sperry and Hutchinson companya venerable American company founded by his grandfather your parents and grandparentsmay remember SNG green Stamps Mary Hutchinson. Meineke was a leader incorporate American a wealthy and powerful man he had met Murry at an event atYale and not long after that he wrote her a letter he enclosed a clipping fromTime Magazine about race relations in the United States and he asked Murraywhat she thought Murray responded a few weeks later he sent her another articleand asked her opinion again this time about school integration. She wrote backat one point, Murry wrote N… of four pagessingle spaced typed letter on what she called the imponderables on the issuesof race. Their correspondence continued for weeks, with interesting and frankletters on both sides, by Nick and Murry both exemplars of the Yale traditionwere able to sustain a conversation despite differences in gender differencesin family background difference in race difference in class, and much more. wedon’t know whether or not they entirely agreed with one another but we can imaginethey learned a lot from the exchange. All because two individuals decided toreach beyond their normal circles. But his decision to write did not take placein vacuum in the 1950s he attended a discussion at Yale Law school on the topicof American race relations not long after he decided to look into theHutchinson’s hiring practices. He learned that the employment agency vetting applicationsfor his company was screening out African Americans removing them from the poolbefore their applications ever reached Sperry in Hutchison by ..he ended thepractice he also supported scholarships for underprivileged high schoolstudents and established a fellowship for student of colour at Yale law schoolit was in the course of this work that he met Murray and initiated theircorrespondence hoping to bridge the gulf that separated his experience fromhers. His life was made up for different circles he led efforts to improve New Yorkcentral park. He supported environmental causes he was dedicated to the game ofgolf and he remained an ardent champion of Yale and its students among otherinterests and what about Polly Murry who has a young person promised to draw a largecircle in her life. One month after writing her last letter to Bi..l, sheparticipated in the historic march on Washington which she helped organizewell, while finishing her doctor of Jurisprudence degree here at Yale shedrafted an influential legal memo hoping to ensure that sex was included in thecivil rights act of 1964. Murry’s other circles included wiring poetry and teachingat the age of 67, she became the first African American ordained as anEpiscopal priest continuing her lifelong commitment of reconciliation and understandingenlarging her circles is far from easy. It requires courage but alsoimagination and curiosity about fellow human beings. It rejects fear andsuspicion it demands that we listen to each other. It measures the limits ofour humanity both Pauli Murry and Nick drew such large circles and so manycircles that their lives intersected I urge you to do the same, draw manycircles make them large in all kinds of ways you will find life rich richerfuller and more meaningful and you will bring to the world the empathy andunderstanding we so desperately need. Members of the class of 2018 it is timeto leave the garden and go into the woods, please rise…
and as you go on to a world that is allbefore you hand-in-hand with wandering steps and slow bring to that world allthat your Yale education has given you. The ability to engage critically evenwhile listening respectfully to respond creatively to challenges and obstaclesto embrace your responsibility while finding happiness and to draw ever widercircle a circle of belonging the circle of understanding in this world. We’redelighted we are delighted to salute your compliments and we are proud of yourachievements remember though to give thanks for all that has brought you tothis day, and go forth this place with grateful hearts, paying back the giftsyou he received here by using your minds your voices and your hands to strengthenyour new communities and the world.
Congratulations class of 2018.
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