‘Tis the season for pundits to pass their wisdom onto waiting graduates. During May and June, the annual ritual known as the commencement address is inflicted upon thousands of high school and college graduates as they count down the minutes until they grasp their coveted diplomas.
Occasionally these speakers will have an impact: public officials may use the occasion to float a trial balloon of a new policy or a well-known speaker might share revelations that will mean something to the class. Those speeches are worth listening to.
Out of the dozens of commencement speeches I’ve heard, a few are memorable. The most notable was one Pat Conroy delivered to The Citadel Class of 2001. A Citadel graduate, Conroy’s relationship with the college had been stormy. In the late 1960s, he became active in anti-war protests at a time most of his classmates were headed to Vietnam as newly minted second lieutenants. He later penned The Lords of Discipline, a work that made him a persona non grata to many alumni. In the 1990s Conroy actively promoted the admission of the first woman into the Corps of Cadets in a highly publicized court battle that produced less than fine moments on both sides.
Clearly, he was not your average commencement speaker. When The Citadel invited Conroy to give the commencement address, he used his flair for drama to cement a reconciliation with his alma mater. During his address, he reflected on his anti-war activism and , in an emotional show-and-tell moment, introduced Al Kroboth, his basketball teammate who fought in Vietnam and became a prisoner of war. Conroy praised Kroboth for his courage and bravery drawing a thunderous applause that lasted for three minutes. Conroy’s rapprochement was complete and his speech remains a topic of conversation on the Charleston campus.
Conroy knew the first rule a commencement speaker should follow: know your audience.
He touched topics that his audience cared deeply about. By contrast, most commencement speakers give addresses that could take place before graduates of any high school or college in the country with no thought to what makes that campus or that class unique. You know the platitudes:
- The future is yours for the taking.
- Work hard and you’ll realize your dreams.
- Aim for the impossible to make the most out of your life.
- Make sacrifices and help others just as your parents and predecessors have helped you.
You can no doubt add dozens of themes to this list.
Those are not bad messages for a commencement but they are as generic as white bread. Many speakers do not research what is special about the audience; any audience of graduates will do. Conroy, who had first-hand knowledge of The Citadel, knew that affirming military service was a value his audience cherished.
The second rule a commencement speaker should remember — it’s not about you; it’s about them.
I heard a recent commencement address by an accomplished speaker who ignored this rule so thoroughly that he could have been the inspiration for Toby Keith’s classic song below.
The speaker had an extensive introduction documenting why he was well qualified to talk to the class. As a student of speeches, I hoped to hear a fresh take on traditional themes or at least some interesting anecdotes. But no…. I just heard more about the speaker. He amplified the points mentioned in his introduction and used anecdotes from his own life to make the requisite three points to graduates. What were those points?
To be enormously successful you should
- work harder than anyone else around you — a traditional graduation theme
- have talent — which he said was a God-given gift that you couldn’t do much about
- have luck — when he maintained usually comes from hard work.
History provides countless examples of people succeeding despite hardships but our speaker chose examples from his own life. He talked about times he tried and failed in activities for which he had little talent. And then he closed with a paraphrase of a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson and others: “I find the harder I work, the luckier I get.”
The speech might have worked better for high school graduations where class members are starting life in college or in the world of work. This particular audience involved adult students who had earned their degrees while working full-time and going to class at night. Their pursuit of a college degree in the midst of considerable work and family obligations indicates they know the value of hard work. If they paid attention to the speech, they must have found the speaker to be patronizing.
But one point about graduation speeches is that the graduates, like this particular speaker, were probably thinking about themselves and the moment they would walk across the stage. So in the final analysis, it didn’t really matter what the speaker said.
The speaker did no harm; but he didn’t do much good either.
Special Speeches 