Since 1985, The Humanity Initiative has searched for the most compelling and empowering messages among each year's commencement speeches.
Happily, the wisdom, humor, heart and insight we discovered, no matter when delivered, have wings: they still apply, perhaps even more so, to succeeding generations -- for we all graduate to new challenges year after year.
Included here and curated to provide a diverse menu, are many of the very best, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to John F. Kennedy to Tim Minchin.
FIRST, A NOTE ON ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
While warnings from as far back as Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold have proven real and prescient, too many of us still dismiss scientific fact, shield ourselves from admitting what a severely challenged environment we are leaving for our children.
Too often, in self-defeating preference for material welfare at the sacrifice of sustainable life, we trash our only home, whistling past the cosmic graveyard. As we lose bees, we destroy the cycle of life. As we heat glaciers, we flood our cities. As we burn coal, we breathe toxins.
Writer Toni Morrison was among the first commencement speakers to address directly the possibility of a diminishing rather than an expanding future. At Wellesley College in May 2004, she stated: “…I’m not going to talk anymore about the future because I’m hesitant to describe or predict because I’m not even certain that it exists. That is to say, I’m not certain that somehow, perhaps, a burgeoning ménage a trois of political interests, corporate interests and military interests will not prevail and literally annihilate an inhabitable, humane future.”
Environmentalist Paul Hawken followed suit in May 2009 at the University of Portland: “You are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on Earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken.”
Professor E. O. Wilson, in May 2011 at the University of North Carolina, added: “… this is the time we either will settle down as a species or completely wreck the planet.”
Now, in 2024, we have a planetary reckoning. Spurred by the courage and clarity of so many Earth-wide activists, humanity has awakened to our crises. Forefront nonprofits like the International Rescue Committee (aiding refugees in crisis) and Ashoka (supporting systemic social change) work at nothing less than sustaining humanity’s viable existence on Earth.
Commencement speeches are a delightful and accessible hallmark of humanity's progress. As audiences have expanded exponentially with the advent of the internet, gone are the days when most speakers hide behind the simplicity of bromides and platitudes. Students worldwide hear the sirens and they are keen to understand transformational change.
So please enjoy the heart and soul these 27 men and women offer us -- their deeply personal insights, inspiration, wisdom and humor -- about how best to rescue our humanity at this crucial moment in human evolution.
TB
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P.S. We often are asked for our "Top Ten Commencement Speeches of All Time." Here are our latest choices for the most inspirational and empowering. They also work well together as a menu for reflection on how each of us, no matter age or circumstance, might magnify our life.
1/ Toni Morrison Be Your Own Story Wellesley 2004
2/ Vaclav Havel Radical Renewal of Human Responsibility Harvard 1995
3/ Paul Hawken The Earth is Hiring Portland 2009
4/ Barbara Kingsolver Your Money or Your Life Duke 2008
5/ Steve Jobs Find What You Love Stanford 2005
6/ Jim Carrey The Effect You Have on Others Maharishi University 2014
7/ J. K. Rowling Failure and Imagination Harvard 2008
8/ David Foster Wallace Real Freedom? Kenyon 2005
9/ Neil Gaiman Make Good Art University of the Arts 2012
10/ George Saunders Becoming Kinder Syracuse 2013
Also, for the fun of it, here are a few outstanding class day speeches (given to seniors the day before commencement).
And our suggestions on how best to write a commencement speech.
Here too is a terrific video (Graduation: A Song & Speech for the Ages, May 2017) by Nimo Patel, Nipun Mehta and folks from all over the world: http://www.dailygood.org/story/1597/graduation-a-song-and-speech-for-the….
Lastly is this Public Radio show on commencement speeches that I was invited to participate in: Minnesota Public Radio show (June 2011).
