Question three:
As you heard a moment ago, the second person to walk on the moon was Buzz Aldrin. Buzz was the first astronaut to have a doctoral degree, and he earned it from the school that has produced more astronauts than any nonmilitary institution. In fact, of the 12 humans who have walked on the moon, four graduated from that same institution, which is known by just three letters.
MIT.
You are great. I knew you could do it. “The beaver has landed!” Mrs. Reif, I believe they are ready.
As you…as you prepare for liftoff, I’d like to use the Apollo story to reflect on a few larger lessons we hope you learned at MIT because the spirit of that magnificent human project speaks to this community’s deepest values and its highest aspirations.
The first lesson is the power of interdisciplinary teams. We live in a culture that loves to single out heroes. We love to crown superstars.
As graduates of MIT, however, I expect you’re already skeptical of stories of scientific triumph that have only one hero. You know by now that if you want to do something big, like detect gravitational waves in outer space or decode the human genome, or tackle climate change, or finish an 8.01 pset before sunrise, you cannot do it without a team.
As Margaret Hamilton herself would be quick to explain, by 1968, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory had 600 people working on the moon-landing software. At its peak, the MIT hardware team was 400. And from Virginia to Texas, NASA engaged thousands more. In short, she was one star in a tremendous constellation of talent. And together – together – those stars created something impossible for any one of them to create alone.
Our society is like a big complicated family in the midst of a terrible argument. I believe that one way…one way to make it better is to find ways to listen to each other, to understand our differences, and to work constantly to remind each other of our common humanity. I know you will find your own ways to help with this healing, too.
This morning, we share with the world nearly 3,000 new graduates who are ready for this urgent and timeless problem set.
You came to MIT with exceptional qualities of your own. And now, after years of focused and intense dedication, you leave us, equipped with a distinctive set of skills and steeped in this community’s deepest values – a commitment to excellence, integrity, meritocracy, boldness, humility, an open spirit of collaboration, a strong desire to make a positive impact, and a sense of responsibility to make the world a better place.
So now, go out there. Join the world. Find your calling. Solve the unsolvable. Invent the future. Take the high road. Shoot for the moon. And you will continue to make your family, including your MIT family, proud.
As you heard earlier, just over on that side of Killian Court, showing off their spectacular red jackets are more than 170 members of the class of 1969. Apollo 11, as you heard, landed on the moon a few weeks after their MIT graduation. A number of them went on to work in fields that were greatly…greatly accelerated by progress from Apollo 11. One of them is Irene Greif, the first woman to earn a PhD in computer science from MIT.
But I believe our 1969 graduates might all agree on the most important wisdom we gained from Apollo: It was the sudden intense understanding of our shared humanity and of the preciousness and fragility of our blue planet.
50 years later, those lessons feel more urgent than ever, and I believe that, as members of the great global family of MIT, we must do everything in our power to help make a better world. So it is in that spirit that I deliver my charge to you.
I’m going to use a word that feels very comfortable at MIT, although it has taken on a troubling new meaning elsewhere. But I know that our graduates will know what I mean.
After you depart for your new destinations, I want to ask you to hack the world until you make the world a little more like MIT – more daring and more passionate, more rigorous, inventive and ambitious, more humble, more respectful, more generous, more kind.
And because the people of MIT also like to fix things that are broken, as you strive to hack the world, please try to heal the world, too.
In the next few weeks, you will encounter all sorts of moon-landing hoopla. So she wants to make sure that every one of you as well equipped with precisely engineered conversation deflectors. That way, when people start talking on and on about NASA and Houston and the great vision of President Kennedy, you can steer the conversation right back to MIT.
If you listen carefully to our commencement speaker lecture, you’ll know how to answer what’s coming next because I’m going to give you one final little prep quiz. I’ll read the question, and you fill in the blank. And please, make it loud. And to the parents and grandparents, texting them the answer is not allowed.
Question one:
In 1961, NASA realized that the moon landing required the invention of a computer-guidance system that was miniaturized, foolproof, and far more powerful than any the world had ever seen. So NASA did not call Harvard. NASA called –
MIT.
I know you would be good at this.
Question two:
The first person to walk on the moon was a man, but at MIT, among the very first programmers hired for the Apollo project was not a man but a –
Woman.
Yes, a woman. You got it. Her name is Margaret Hamilton. She played a key role in developing the software that made the moon landing possible. And by the way, Margaret Hamilton was also one of the first to argue that computer programming deserved as much respect as computer hardware. So she insisted on describing her work with a brand-new term, software engineering.
OK, just one more.
From your time at MIT, I trust all of you have experienced that feeling of learning from each other, respecting each other, and depending on each other. And I hope…I hope that this instinct for sharing the work and sharing the credit is something you never forget.
The moon-landing story reflects many other values – to seek out bold ideas, to not be afraid of impossible assignments, and always to stay humble, especially when it comes to the laws of nature. The Apollo story also proves how much human beings can accomplish when we invest in research and we put our trust in science.
But the final lesson I want to emphasize is not technical, and it could not be more important for our time.
Here’s my corollary: “Your mentors may leave you prepared, but they can’t leave you ready.”
When Steve got sick, I had hardwired my thinking to the belief that he would get better. I not only thought he would hold on, I was convinced, down to my core, that he’d still be guiding Apple long after I, myself, was gone.
Then, one day, he called me over to his house and told me that it wasn’t going to be that way.
Even then, I was convinced he would stay on as chairman. That he’d step back from the day to day but always be there as a sounding board.
But there was no reason to believe that. I never should have thought it. The facts were all there.
And when he was gone, truly gone, I learned the real, visceral difference between preparation and readiness.
It was the loneliest I’ve ever felt in my life. By an order of magnitude. It was one of those moments where you can be surrounded by people, yet you don’t really see, hear or feel them. But I could sense their expectations.
But there’s even more to strength than muscle, smarts and character. For the last few years, the air has been filled with studies, surveys, and books reporting a growing “fragility” among American young people, a decreasing capability to handle even modest stress or setbacks without seeking some sort of adult assistance. The number of college students requesting counseling or therapy has doubled in just four or five years.
At other places, but I’m happy to say not yet at Purdue, students have demanded to be kept, quote, “safe” from speech, that is, mere words, that challenge or discomfit them. At one large university, one, quote, “study”, I enclose it in quotes, purported to find a quarter of the student body suffering from PTSD because of an election outcome. Referring to such young people, someone has coined the distasteful but descriptive term “snowflakes.”
Some find a cause in the social media, which have reduced personal interaction among your younger contemporaries. Easier grading in high schools can lead to an unexpected jolt when a student arrives at college, at least if it’s a place like Purdue where top grades are still hard to come by. Another diagnosis points to overprotective parenting that limits some children’s opportunities to play and explore in unsupervised ways that require them to solve problems and resolve conflicts on their own.
What’s worse is that we come up with a lot of excuses for this behavior. We tell ourselves that we’re making decisions based on efficiency, on the balance sheet, on superior intelligence or unique talent and understanding. We tell ourselves it’s for the protection of our tribe or our trade. But by reducing decisions to these standards, we are forgetting about the empathy we are born with, about the trust others have put in us, and about the obligations to one another as human beings.
That is why culture is so important. Culture resists reduction and constantly reminds us of the beautiful complexities that humans are made of, both individually and collectively. The stories we tell; the music we make; the experiments and buildings we design. Everything that helps us to understand ourselves, to understand one another, to understand our environment – culture.
But, it’s not just the culture we learn about in textbooks or see in a museum. It’s the arts and sciences; all the different disciplines that ask us to try, to trust, and to build. It’s culture that inspires deep learning and curiosity, that makes us want to seek the universal principles that drive everything.
Today, everywhere I go – whenever I hear music effortlessly crossing a border or see an example of art transcending economic and political differences or witness scientists from dozens of countries collaborating – I am reminded how essential culture has always been, in every era, every tradition.
While data, evidence, logic, and reason provide one way to make sense of the world, the arts provide another: a distinct, yet complimentary mode of understanding oneself and experiencing the world, beyond facts and figures. Engagement with the arts has been shown to elevate resilience in the face of change, empathy and understanding of others, and capacity to solve problems.
And in today’s volatile world, having a well-developed creative capacity, in addition to strong analytic skills, is paramount. In fact, a 20xx World Economic Forum report placed creativity as one of the three most important work-related skills anticipated for 20xx.
So, my message to you today is simple: Never relinquish your paintbrush, your pen, your musical instrument, or any other creative tool at your disposal, because there is always another stroke, another stanza, another measure, another chapter in the work that will forever be known as you.
And when you see an opportunity to engage with the arts, or to support the arts, embrace it with all you’ve got.
In the past decade alone, we’ve seen historic hurricanes devastate islands across the Caribbean. We’ve seen ‘1,000-year floods’ hit the Midwestern and Southern United States multiple times in a decade. And we’ve seen record-breaking wildfires ravage California and record-breaking typhoons kill thousands in the Philippines.
This is a true crisis. And if we fail to rise to the occasion, your generation, your children, and grandchildren will pay a terrible price. So scientists know there can be no delay in taking action – and many government and political leaders around the world are starting to understand that.
Yet here in the United States, our federal government is seeking to become the only country in the world to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement – the only one. Not even North Korea is doing that.
Those in Washington who deny the science of climate change are no more based in reality than those who believe the moon landing was faked. And while the moon landing conspiracy theorists are relegated to the paranoid corners of talk radio, climate skeptics occupy the highest positions of power in the United States government.
Now, in the administration’s defense, climate change, they say, is only a theory – yeah, like gravity is only a theory.
People can ignore gravity at their own risk, at least until they hit the ground. But when they ignore the climate crisis, they are not only putting themselves at risk, they are putting all humanity at risk.
Taken together, these four elements of Beyond Carbon will be the largest coordinated assault on the climate crisis that our country has ever undertaken.
Thank you. We will work to empower and expand the volunteers and activists fighting these battles community by community, state by state. It’s a process that our foundation and I have proved can succeed. After all, this isn’t the first time we’ve done an end run around Washington.
A decade ago, no one would have believed that we could take on the coal industry and close half of all U.S. plants, but we have.
A decade ago, no one would have believed we could take on the NRA and pass stronger gun safety laws in states like Florida, Colorado, and Nevada, but we have.
Two decades ago, no one would have believed that we could take on the tobacco industry and spread New York City’s smoking ban to most of America and to countries around the world, but we have.
And now, we will take on the fossil fuel industry to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. I believe we will succeed again – but only if one thing happens, and that is: you have to help lead the way by raising your voices, by joining an advocacy group, by knocking on doors, by calling your elected officials, by voting, and getting your friends and family to join you.
Back in the 1960s, when scientists here at MIT were racing to the moon, there was a populist saying that went: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Today, Washington is a very, very big part of the problem.
I have met faculty across our schools who are expanding religious literacy; who are exploring the role of the arts in promoting justice; who are confronting the opioid epidemic from every angle; who are working to make state and local government more effective. Their work is nothing short of inspiring.
And I’ve come to know our students – absolutely amazing students. To the parents who are here, thank you, thank you for sending these remarkable young people to us. They are nothing short of inspiring. Interacting with them is one of the great privileges of living and working on a college campus. Adele and I have had dinner with them in the Houses. We’ve watched them perform on the stage and on the playing fields. I’ve met with them during office hours and talked to them as I’ve gone running with them. If you spend time with our students, you cannot help but feel optimistic about our future.
This past week, I had lunch with thirty graduating seniors. It was wonderful to hear how they think they have changed and matured during their four years here. I actually asked them how is your current self different from your 18-year-old self that arrived here on campus, and the stories were marvelous. And I’ve witnessed this process of transformation myself.
I helped to advise three of our incoming first-year undergraduates this year, and they helped me experience and understand Harvard through their eyes. To Andrew, Claire, and Karen, thank you for sharing your first year for [with] me and for teaching me so well.
Thank you. Thank you.
Good morning, Class of 20xx!
Thank you, President Tessier-Lavigne, for that very generous introduction. I’ll do my best to earn it.
Before I begin, I want to recognize everyone whose hard work made this celebration possible, including the groundskeepers, ushers, volunteers and crew. Thank you.
I’m deeply honored and frankly a little astonished to be invited to join you for this most meaningful of occasions.
Graduates, this is your day. But you didn’t get here alone.
Family and friends, teachers, mentors, loved ones, and, of course, your parents, all worked together to make you possible and they share your joy today. Here on Father’s Day, let’s give the dads in particular a round of applause.
Stanford is near to my heart, not least because I live just a mile and a half from here.
Of course, if my accent hasn’t given it away, for the first part of my life, I had to admire this place from a distance.
I went to school on the other side of the country, at Auburn University, in the heart of landlocked Eastern Alabama.
The truth is, success is a process—you can ask anybody who’s been successful. I just passed on the lane up here here, successful restauranteur Danny Meyer, who’s sitting here with his family—Charles is graduating today. Ask Danny or anybody who’s successful, you go to any one of his restaurants—Shake Shack, love it!—Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern—you will be impressed by not only the food, but the radical hospital and service. Service is not just about when you’re getting served.
When I started my talk show, I was just so happy to be on television. I was so happy to interview members of the Ku Klux Klan. I thought I was interviewing them to show their vitriol to the world, and then I saw them using hand signals in the audience—and realized they were using me, and using my platform. Then we did a show where someone was embarrassed, and I was responsible for the embarrassment. We had somehow talked a man who was cheating on his wife to come on the show with the woman he was cheating with and, on live television, he told his wife that his girlfriend was pregnant. That happened on mywatch.
Shortly after I said: I’m not gonna do that again. How can I use this show to not just be a show, but allow it to be a service to the viewer? That question of "How do we serve the viewer?" transformed the show. And because we asked that question every single day from 1989 forward—with the intention of only doing what was in service to the people who were watching—that is why now, no matter where I go in the world, people say "I watched your show, it changed my life." People watched and were raised by that show. I did a good job of raising a lot of people, I must say. That happened because of an intention to be of service.
Two weeks ago, I was in Spain. I made a pilgrimage to visit the home of one my great heroes, the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals. He was 97 years old when I was a freshman in college. He had lived through World War I, the Spanish Civil War, World War II.
I was so lucky to have played for him when I was 7 years old. He said I was talented. His advice to me then: Make sure you have time to play baseball.
And I’ll let you imagine how that might have worked out.
But in reality, that wise counsel, “to make time for baseball,” was a profound reflection of the philosophy that motivated his life. Casals always thought of himself as a human being first, as a musician second, and only then a cellist. It’s a philosophy that I’ve held close to my heart for most of my own life.
Now, I had always known Casals as a great advocate for human dignity. But standing in his home two weeks ago, I understood what it meant for him to live that philosophy, what it meant for him to be a human being first. I began to understand just a few of the thousands of actions he took every day, every month. Each was in the service of his fellow human beings.
I saw letters of protest he wrote to newspapers from London to Tokyo. I saw meticulous, handwritten accounts of his enormous financial contributions to countless refugees fleeing the carnage of the Spanish Civil War – evidence of a powerful, humanistic life.
Because we all stem from Africa. So in Africa, there's been more time to create genetic diversity." In other words, race has no basis in biological or scientific fact. On the one hand, result. Right? On the other hand, my definition of self just lost a huge chunk of its credibility. But what was credible, what is biological and scientific fact, is that we all stem from Africa -- in fact, from a woman called Mitochondrial Eve who lived 160,000 years ago. And race is an illegitimate concept which our selves have created based on fear and ngely, these revelations didn't cure my low self-esteem, that feeling of otherness. My desire to disappear was still very powerful. I had a degree from Cambridge; I had a thriving career, but my self was a car crashand I wound up with bulimia and on a therapist's couch. And of course I did. I still believed my self was all I was. I still valued self-worth above all other worth, and what was there to suggest otherwise?
What is your dream? What ignites that spark. You can’t kinda want that, you got to want it with every part of your whole heart. Will you struggle? Yeah, yeah… you will struggle, no way around it. You will fall many times, but who's counting? Just remember, there's no such thing as a smooth you want to make it to the top then, there are sharp ridges that have to be stepped over. There will be times you get stressed and things you get depressed over. But let me tell you something. Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times, three times but he kept going.
Throughout our history, Dartmouth faculty and graduates have had an outsized impact on the world of the arts. Frost, Geisel, and Orozco in early times; Pilobolus, Romero, Kaling, Rhimes, and Arad in more recent years, just to name a few. And as Gail and I have attended your student concerts and plays, visited your studio art installations, and enjoyed the works of aspiring authors and poets on campus, we actually see the future of Dartmouth’s impact on the art world.
At the end of World War II, the famed School for American Craftsmen was born right here on the Dartmouth campus. And in 1962, Dartmouth pioneered a new model for performing arts centers across all of higher education with the opening of the Hop. Not long after, the Dartmouth theater department served as the earliest pathway for women on this campus, some of whom are seated amongst you today as proudly adopted members of the Class of 1969.
And today, the Hop, the Black Family Visual Arts Center, and our newly reimagined Hood Museum of Art together serve as the epicenter of artistic creation and expression on our campus and an incredible source of fulfillment for all of us.
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