As is our tradition, I want to start by recognizing any peers who started with you and have passed during your time at Denison. I want to recognize and remember Zoe Hines, who I know meant a lot to members of our graduating class.
Over the last few years, I have used this occasion to offer some parting advice to seniors on how to use your Denison education to launch successfully into your lives and careers.
You are graduating out into a rapidly changing world driven by AI, geopolitical shifts and a range of other disruptors. As you navigate this historical moment, I offer five simple pieces of advice:
First, use your liberal arts education to guide your everyday life. You worked hard to get this education, now use it. Be the critical thinkers and creative problem solvers who know how to use data and reason to understand problems and issues in their complexity and to be the optimistic and forward-looking thinkers who can innovate and find paths forward, especially around problems that seem intractable but are not.
Be the liberal arts graduates who know how to communicate effectively, especially with people who see the world differently than you. Our faculty taught you to weave words together so that others can understand your points of view and so you can listen and hear what others are saying. This allows you to be the bridge builders who can connect ideas and people in ways that propels organizations, companies and communities forward.
And be the liberal arts graduates who practice and role model intellectual humility. Liberal arts graduates understand that they might be wrong. Hence, they are lifelong learners who are always seeking out alternative views, facts, and experiences. The liberal arts teach us to be skeptics about views, starting with our own.
Second, remember that habits are better predictors of success than goals. Denison alumnus, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits has changed my views on education. Yes, skills matter, but habits matter just as much. Clear helped me understand that in life most of us do not rise to the level of our goals, but rather, we tend to fall to the level of our habits.
Develop good life habits to remain healthy and develop important work habits like- showing up on time, working hard, being ethical, and leading with curiosity, perseverance, and humor.
Third, develop healthy relationships. If you get the relationships in your life right, everything else will fall into place. Develop relationships with people who bring out the best in you. Shed toxic people. Denison is defined by relationships. Hopefully, one of the things you learned at Denison is what a healthy relationship does and does not look like. As part of this, nurture your Denison friendships so they can continue to shape your life. A hint- be the one who keeps your Denison crew connected. Allow Denison friendships to anchor the rest of your life.
Fourth, be present in the moment. Always focus your time and attention on enjoying the present moment, learning from that moment, and performing at the highest level in that moment towards whatever you are trying to achieve.
Remember, the stories we choose to tell ourselves about what is happening are more important than what is actually happening. I will repeat something that I said your first night on campus, in slightly different words. Don’t tell yourself stories about failure, we all have them in our post-college years, but rather tell yourself stories about every moment being an opportunity to learn and grow so you can architect the life you want for yourself.
Fifth, careers only look linear backward; find a place to start and take it one step at a time. The best first job you can ever get, is the one that is available. Your first job is merely your first job. Find someplace to start and take it from there. My first three jobs were a disaster, but I learned from them, and my fourth got me on a path that I did not anticipate when I graduated from college that has shaped my life. To do this well, lean into your Denison network. It’s a great alumni network use it. And use the Knowlton Center. We are here for you, as you launch and make early career pivots.
These five pieces of advice are somewhat timeless, but they are particularly important in this moment. I have been reading and thinking a lot on two topics that are shaping this moment. Both will require liberal arts skills, habits, and values for you to architect your life and for you to contribute to the world around you.
The first is the rise of AI. I recently finished a super interesting book called Open to Work: How to Get Ahead in the Age of AI by Aneesh Raman and Ryan Roslansky that uses LinkedIn data to take a snapshot of how AI is reshaping the job market. Their conclusion is basically embrace the liberal arts. To navigate an AI disrupted job market new college grads and young professionals need adaptability and a focus on human skills like creativity, curiosity, and face-to-face communication that AI can’t replicate.
As I read more, it is clear to me that we need a new generation that can use AI to solve problems and create things of value in ways that uses ethical reasoning and human centered design. That is you.
The other issue is what we call political polarization, but I am not sure that is the right phrase. All the data suggests Americans are more similar in our views that we have been led to believe. But we are finding it increasingly hard to harness the power of differences of opinion, differences of life experiences, and differences of goals to create new ways of seeing and understanding the world around us.
What we lack is civic fluency. We need more people who have the capacity and interest to navigate information critically, engage in civic discourse and collaborate to solve shared challenges Our experiment is the work of citizens coming together in their communities to work with people they know, people they don’t know and most important people they know who have different views and perspectives. to solve problems and create pathways for every member of the community to flourish in the ways they desire and deserve.
This is a nod to our graduation speaker — Eboo Patel. Eboo is a friend and has long been a champion of all that is right, exciting and challenging about the American experiment in democracy. His starting place is the American experiment needs to be through of as pot-luck meal. Communities work best when everybody shows up to the public square with their own life-experiences, views and perspectives and offers them as a gift to the common good to be shared and enjoyed. The differences make the meal more interesting, rewarding, and meaningful.
His second profound starting place is that cooperation across our difference is the key for everybody to thrive. Curiosity, not fear & anger, is the foundational condition for human freedom and flourishing.
Eboo echoes the famous line by John Dewey, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” He has been one of the most insightful and powerful voices for how higher education can step up and into this space in this historical moment. When I listen to Eboo, I always hear a call for more liberal arts skills and more liberal arts graduates in the public square.
We have given you, our graduates, the skills, values, and habits to do this work. I am excited for you to hear from him today.
That is my advice: You get to be the architect of the life you want to live. Do so by using the Denison education you worked hard to receive. Develop good habits and nurture healthy relationships, starting with those you made at Denison. Be present in every moment and be performance-oriented. Find a job, and don’t worry if it is not the perfect job; it won’t be. Finally, stay curious, grateful, and positive.
The key is curiosity. Be curious about everyone, everything and in every moment.
You are graduating out into an interconnected world that is changing quickly, where the opportunities and challenges are both deep and wide. The world needs liberal arts graduates who can lean into complexity, who understand connections, who can lead from a wise and ethical core, and who are committed to the common good.
Be those people. That is a Denison tradition.
Last year, I reached out to Denison alumnus Steve Carell and asked him for some career advice. I will repeat it today and then retire his remark.
“President Weinberg asked me to give him a quote for this speech. Something thoughtful, and wise. The best advice I can give to you is: don’t listen to anything Adam Weinberg tells you… except if he tells you this: Kindness is underrated. Decency is the antidote to hatred, and generosity of the heart will never go out of style.”
I want to end with a request — stay connected and committed to this college. Come back for your reunions. Put a Denison coffee mug on your desk at work, a bumper sticker on your car, and a Denison pennant on your refrigerator at home. You are great people, and we want the world to know you are Denisonians. Identify yourself so other members of our extended family can do the same.
