Winter 2002 commencement address

Jonathan Wolman
University of Wisconsin–Madison Kohl Center
December 22, 2002

It’s an honor to be here today — although, to be perfectly honest, I had to think about it twice when I got the invitation. I grew up in Madison and I come back as often as I can, but not necessarily in December. I salute your get-away.

In that spirit, let me begin with a welcome, not to the graduates, but to their friends and family who traveled to be here today. We know you’re anxious to wrap up these festivities and get to San Antonio, but let’s relax and enjoy the moment. After years of academic hopes and dreams, to say nothing of the tuition payments, this is the big game — an occasion not to be missed.

For me, it’s a day of delayed gratification. Thirty years ago when it was my turn to don this cap and gown, I did miss the occasion. On the day of winter commencement in 1972, I found myself one credit short. Obviously, I wasn’t a math major.

My problem involved a history course taught by Harvey Goldberg. Back in those days, Professor Goldberg was perhaps the most theatrical speaker on campus — certainly the most controversial. Radicals on the left would hang on his every word. Conservatives on the right would debate his every word. His lectures were standing room only. As for doing the final paper…well, I let that slip, and it turned out to be a problem. I had a job offer from The Associated Press, but it was predicated on the concept that I would be a college graduate.

Well, the requirements of the modern job market didn’t much impress Harvey Goldberg. As commencement day approached, Professor Goldberg was in France. From a café on the Left Bank, he decided that I could get my grade and enter the world of capitalist pursuits, but only after producing a paper on the economic underpinnings of European social development in the mid-18th century.

I did the paper, but getting it to France wasn’t going to be quick or easy. These were the days before fax machines, before e-mail — even before Federal Express. Who would come to the rescue but one of the invisible heroes of the modern American university — which is to say, one of the history TAs I hope there are some here today. I started with AP the very next week and quickly completed my education on the sanctity of deadlines. Having missed my own commencement, I’m especially proud to be celebrating with you today.

Surely the Kohl Center is the ultimate stress-free zone. As graduates, you don’t have anything more to worry about — no more exams, no more papers, no more work in the psych lab, no more night shifts on State Street. Today you can look ahead with unbridled optimism.

Unfortunately, it’s what we call a one-day offer. When the sun comes up tomorrow, you’ll have a full plate of post-graduate challenges and real-world anxieties. This is what your education is all about.

It’s crucial that you apply the lessons that are represented by your degree to address the issues and shortcomings of a complicated world. Some of these issues are as familiar as AP headlines:

• Terrorism and homeland security;
• Corporate greed and bankruptcies;
• Globalism and environmental conflict;
• Substance abuse among teenagers;
• The spread of AIDS in China and Africa;
• Religious intolerance and incessant war drums.

Yes, we who have come before you bequeath you quite the mess. And, yes, we’re relying on you to help clean it up.

If you are departing academia, your first task is to figure out how you can make a contribution and support yourself at the same time — granted that your first contribution may be debt repayment.

Family, friends and commencement speakers will offer plenty of advice, but is our experience really of any use to you? Things have changed just a little bit since I took my first job in 1973.

For an AP journalist, it was a world of typewriters and carbon paper in triplicate. To distribute our stories, we handed the copy to a telegrapher, who punched the material onto ticker tape, which moved across a phone circuit at roughly the pace of molasses. When man first walked on the moon in my sophomore year, AP told the story at 66 words a minute. Incoming copy from Vietnam –30 words a minute. Who could imagine how much things would change since then?

High speed, wireless, digital — today’s journalism graduate will send stories on to the Web at the blink of an eye. Faster really — 20 million words a day from AP alone, accompanied by thousands of photos and hours of streaming television.

And you know better than I, perhaps, that the pace of change is accelerating. Consider just the years since you made your way on to this campus. Back then, terrorism was a vague and distant threat, far from these shores — someone else’s problem, out of sight, out of mind. Homeland security — most of us had never heard such a phrase. Anthrax was an unpopular rock band. Cloning — well, Dolly was just a theory, not a sheep. And human cloning — well, that was for science fiction.

Back then the economy was full of hot spots. Dot-coms were on fire and, even in mature industries, the job market was exploding. Graduates could pick from a dozen offers and then a year later move on to something else.

Philosophy students put aside their Socratic inquiries in order to design fiber optic networks. Botany students would set aside their research in order to write source code for the X Box. By 1999, law graduates were commanding six figures. Business graduates pocketed the six figures and then bargained for stock options. Well, the bubble burst in 2001 and all of you know (that) you will be looking for work in humbler times.

Forecasters are looking for job growth in 2003. Personal income is likely to rise. But neither of the increases will be exponential. The change in the economic climate has changed your outlook, I know.

My son is graduating next May and suddenly he has become quite the realist. Even as he explores the boundaries of fantasy fiction for his English thesis, he has scheduled gap-year interviews with federal agencies and Madison Avenue publishing houses.

Whether you’re starting your first job on January 6th or sending out your third batch of resumes, just remember that when you find yourself doing well, you have an equal obligation to do good. Wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you become — make sure to combine your personal path with a commitment to the world around you. That’s the so-called Wisconsin Idea, and for you it is an idea whose time, today, has come.

You can make a difference.

• Work with purpose and integrity. Insist on business practices that promote a broad and honest prosperity.
• Drive the digital revolution to new heights, but not only for the gadgets and conveniences — engineering and technology can improve life for billions of people across the world who have never seen a dial phone, let alone a cell phone, let alone a personal digital assistant.
• Advance the frontiers of agriculture to help feed a hungry world and tweak the laws of commerce so that Midwestern farm families can prosper, too.
• Make amazing scientific and medical discoveries, but be sure to confront all of the implications. Every exciting breakthrough seems to raise profound questions of values and ethics.
• Stand up for the First Amendment and for the Sixth. These are the Constitutional pillars of free speech and due process, never again to be taken for granted. In a dangerous world with terrorists at the doorstep, it will take creativity and commitment from your generation to balance the needs of privacy and protection.
• Follow the news and dive into the great public debates of our day. I won’t belabor the point, since Madison has always been drawn to public discourse. In my line of work, it is increasingly rare when a city has two competing newspapers. Here you have two sets of competing papers with the State Journal and the Capital Times and with the Daily Cardinal and the Badger Herald. Obviously public discourse is alive and well in Madison.

When I was on campus, students and faculty debated and protested the war in Vietnam and the draft which sent so many college graduates directly into the military and into combat. Today there is a looming confrontation with Iraq and, while the government isn’t looking for a draft, surely this is a time for all people to be informed and engaged. However you feel about the subject, it’s essential that you keep up with events if you hope to ensure that America’s influence is exercised to a global good. That’s a lot to ask, but that’s the Wisconsin Idea writ large, and, for you, here again the time has come.

You’ve completed a lengthy and disciplined path to this day. Surely there were sacrifices along the way. You had to get up early one time to finish a history paper. There was a time you trudged through a howling snowstorm only to discover that the Union was out of fudge bottom pie. Or worst of all, the day that Napster died. So many obstacles, but I know that good things lie ahead — and for some of you, great things. I know it because of the way you have been prepared on this road to graduation.

As far as I’m concerned, we’re meeting here today on hallowed ground. My own education started right across the street in kindergarten at Washington Elementary School. My grandfather was an immigrant who did a leather business from the garage in back of his house until it was torn down to make room for Sellery Hall. My parents attended UW before me. My mom even made it to her graduation. And I studied in Vilas Hall with professors who personified the Wisconsin Idea of harnessing education for the good of the community.

I’d like to mention one figure in particular — the late Lester Hawkes. Les Hawkes was a courtly, rumpled character who taught a full load of journalism classes and also was the principal resource to weekly newspaper editors across the state. It might seem odd that an expert in small-town weeklies would prepare me for my work at a global news agency, but it was Hawkes who drummed home the fundamental virtues of accuracy, balance and credibility. They work in any profession.

We wanted to be hell-raisers back then, but in the Wisconsin tradition, he taught us to be barn-raisers. Close your eyes if you will, and think of the people like Les Hawkes who helped you make it to this day. In ways that you can’t predict, their lessons will endure for a lifetime.

Let’s end on an optimistic note. Churchill once said, “An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” We who have come before you bequeath you a world of difficulties — of conflict, of uncertainty — but also a world of challenge and adventure and endless opportunities. It’s a Wisconsin Idea to make the most of these opportunities…and let me start out by saying I wish you well.

Thank you very much.

Jonathan Wolman, who earned his bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin in 1972, is the senior vice president of The Associated Press. While on the Madison campus, he was a writer and editor for the student newspaper, the Daily Cardinal.