As graduation ceremonies wrap up for post-secondary and high school students alike, we wanted to take stock of some of our favourite commencement speeches. These speakers, tasked with imparting wisdom and inspiration to the next generation, do a remarkable job, and these speeches leave us feeling proud, accomplished, and hopeful for whatever comes next for our students.
Kurt Vonnegut, Fredonia College, 1978
“Your class spokesperson mourned the collapse of the institution of marriage in this country. Marriage is collapsing because our families are too small. A man cannot be a whole society to a woman, and a woman cannot be a whole society to a man. We try, but it is scarcely surprising that so many of us go to pieces.
So I recommend that everybody here join all sorts of organizations, no matter how ridiculous, simply to get more people in his or her life. It does not matter much if all the other members are morons. Quantities of relatives of any sort are what we need.”
Malcolm Gladwell, University of Toronto, 2011
“When the revolutions in the Middle East began last fall, people said this is the result of Facebook and Twitter and they’re along the same lines as people who say, ‘if only we can come up with the right kind of software, we can educate every child properly, or if only we can come up with some magical new engine that doesn’t pollute, the world’s environmental problems will be solved.’ But here’s the thing that you’ll learn as you’ll go out into the workforce, and that is that technology alone doesn’t solve problems.
Social media does not create revolutions. It’s a tool. Nothing more or less. Real revolutions are born out of righteous anger and courage and vision. The person right now standing up to the government forces in Libya is not being sustained by their tweets or Facebook postings. By the same token, computers don’t educate children. Real education happens because of a personal connection between a teacher and a student, and a fancy new engine won’t solve our environmental problems. Our environmental problems are, at root, caused by our values and our behaviours and our expectations.”
Jesse Thistle, University of Windsor, 2020
“I know because I was among this class of overachievers when I graduated from university in 2016. It is you the overachievers, the ones who buck off the pain of centuries, the ones who are strong and articulate and laser-determined, it is all of you who will lead our peoples forward in a good way.”
Taylor Swift, NYU, 2022
“But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass, like, a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it.”
