8/14/2019 Clark University 2002 Commencement Speech

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Commencement Speech

Clark University, May 19, 2002

Michael Staton ‘02

We are here now. Our first day seemslike not too long ago. I can see itclearly in the bottle of my life'smemories (it's at the top), separatedfrom me now by the bottleneck of the recent semester or so. Our memories are ordered by the ones wefeel the most, not by the increments of time they came in. We are here now, peering into that bottle,having completed our first third.

Life is divided into thirds sometimes. Education, Career, Retirement. Mind, Body, Soul. Social,Economic, Political. Cash, Debit, Credit. Heaven, Hell, Purgatory. In our first third, we read some books.Papers came out of the printer and the hand scribbled out tests. Notes fell onto some paper and flewinto a filing cabinet or a trash can. Parties convened and flocked away at flashlights. Organizationslabored to get the attention of the few people in between too busy or too lackadaisical or too naïve tocare. Teams prepared to conquer NEWMAC and more importantly find discipline and each other. Our best resolutions were submitted to, debated on, and sometimes passed by the ongoing conference of the cafeteria. Friends stayed up too late talking. Love kept us feeling because it was there, because itwasn't, or because it wouldn't go away when we wanted it to leave. Individuals listened in class for concepts and information and spent productive time not listening so that they could imagineer the future,sort out memories, create fantasies and dreams, and store them all into a database out the window intothe sky or into a corner of a classroom. That was us. Those are our memories.

A Professor, who must remain nameless, once told a story about some researchers who received agrant. They were hard at work, but their findings all described the issue as just really complicated. Thefunding agency was not amused, and had a reaction that the professor summarized as: "We could havetold you that. What do you think we are paying you for?" In there somewhere, he said it is the job of academia to reduce the complicated to the understandable.

When I came to Clark I knew a solid little and assumed college would help make sense of things for me -teach me the structure of the universe, planet earth and our species in it. We all know aboutassumptions: now, that little I knew is less solid, and I sometimes feel like I am drowning in complexity.Thanks to our beloved liberal arts curriculum, I have learned that all the academic skills, disciplines, andperspectives through which we can examine "the all around us," combine into a sliced up version of verycomplicated. And I think to myself: "I could have told you that, what was I paying College for?" There

was no warning explicitly stated in my acceptance letter or by my faculty advisors. My mother informsme it was not in microprint at the bottom of the bills, and I checked the website everywhere. So, I wondeif now is a good time to ask for my money back.

But just as you and I are about to file suit, we notice in the hopelessness of the infinity of words andequations and books and computer screens, lost in the darkness of our own thoughts, that we candoggy paddle in this ocean of nonsense; it's a struggle, but we are surviving. So now, I guess I amconcluding that schooling, this first third, isn't necessarily coming to understand the architecture of thegrand scheme of things, but rather learning to swim the currents of the confusing.

Michael Staton ‘02

 

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We are the class that will define the new century and kick off the new millennium. We stand on aplatform set by the triumph (for better or worse) of ever-bigger business, ever-innovative techno-capitalism, balance of power politics trying to find a new dynamic in a post-cold war world, and aboundless consumer culture. We are perhaps the first generation generally fluent in the language of thefourth stage of mankind -information technology. When we got here we were told that we are the classthat ought to, but we have become the generation that must. In his poem "Sonnet entitled how to run the

world," e.e. cummings wrote: "I item i immaculately owe / dying one life and will my rest to these children/ building this rainman out of snow." We are his children's children. Although we are not dying andalthough we do not need rest, we are still not sure how to. That is the riddle - the elusive responsibility ofour generation. At a critical phase in global change, we must focus on enhancing the standard of livingfor all while preserving for the future of life itself. This will not arise just through activism and politicalcommitment. No, the rainman will be realized through the slow settling of changes in our lifestyles,through wisdom trickling into our everyday choices not only as social, political, and economic actors, buteven more importantly as family members, friends, neighbors, strangers, and global citizens.

Two thirds are left, and we are peering into bottles. We have learned at least to stay afloat in thecurrents. We have been given tasks and responsibilities. Now we will start our personal futures. Thedatabases we made out the window are safe; the sky will follow us everywhere for easy access. But onthe way out don't forget to pick up dreams, fantasies, and memories you stored in the classroom cornersand dorm room waffle ceilings, because the structure of Clark University stays here for the next.

Michael Staton '02

Introduction at Commencement by Douglas Little, Dean of the College

Today's senior speaker is Michael Staton, who like so many Clarkies, has been a square peg in a roundhole ever since he arrived in Worcester from Houston as a member of the Class of '02 [ought two]. I firstmet Staton when he enrolled in my Global Citizenship course in August 1998, and I have alwaysregretted that he didn't have the good sense to major in History instead of Geography. Over the past fouryears, however, I have enjoyed watching him shake up Student Council, win poetry prizes, and journey

to the People's Republic of China to study punk rock, Beijing-style. Because Staton believes not only inelbow teaching but also in elbow learning, he has frequented faculty offices and departmental seminarsfrom the moment he set foot on campus. "Question Authority" is his middle name. When we at Clarkadopted our new motto "Challenging Convention, Changing Our World" at the dawn of the newmillennium, it was with students like Michael Staton in mind.