Commencement Address - Oakton Community College
President Charles Middleton

May 14, 2003

Good evening.

Thank you Dr. DiLeonardi for your very kind introduction.

President Lee, thank you for inviting me. Jennifer Calimag, members of the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, guests, and, most importantly, members of the Class of 2003.

It is a pleasure to speak with you today for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Roosevelt University and Oakton Community College have been educational partners for many years.

Our two institutions have jointly established dual admission programs and 2+2 programs so that students can complete both their associates degrees and their bachelor’s degrees in as little as four years. I know several of you here are participating in these programs. In fact, each year about 50 Oakton graduates transfer to Roosevelt to earn their bachelor’s degree.

Our two institutions share a number of other characteristics. We are both relatively new schools. Roosevelt was founded in 1945, not very old when you consider that most land-grant universities were founded in the late1800s. And, Oakton was founded in 1969.

Our missions are also fairly similar. We both reach out to students of all ages and backgrounds, offering classes during days and evenings for the convenience of those who work. We also both take pride in the fact that we have excellent professors who care about students as individuals.

And of course, we both serve students in the north and northwest suburbs. Our Schaumburg Campus is the largest university facility in the area, while Oakton serves more than 435,000 residents who live in its district.

There are a number of Oakton professors and staff members who earned their degrees at Roosevelt. If you would be so kind, please stand so that the rest of the audience and I can recognize you. I think we’ll form a mini Roosevelt alumni association here at Oakton!

One of the most important things a commencement speaker should do is inspire the graduates. So I thought I would turn to one of the greatest thinkers in history, Homer. The first Homer was Greek and wrote poetry related to heroic events in 800 B.C. Some think he was the first historian. Others think he wasn’t a single individual, but an amalgamation of many poets – sort of a poetry workshop. I prefer to think of him as a genius incarnate.

In the Iliad he wrote: “Of men who have a sense of honor, more come through alive than are slain, but for those who flee comes neither glory nor any help.”

And, elsewhere: “I detest the man who hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and speaks for another.”

There are other fine quotations, but they, like these, hardly seemed relevant for this occasion.

So I turned to another more modern Homer. Homer Simpson. You remember him – he’s the genial father who is on TV every Sunday night at 7.

Homer Simpson says that there are three little sentences that will get you through life:

First, “Cover for me.”

Second, “Oh, good idea, boss!” and

Third, “It was like that when I got here.”

Would you like a couple more? OK.

“What’s the point of going out? We’re just going to wind up back here anyways.”

And

“Every time I learn something new, it pushes out something old! Remember that time I took a home wine-making course and forgot how to drive?” Just as well, too, if you ask me.

I’d like you to remember back to what your life was like before you got here. Before your schedule was complicated with classes, study groups and tests. It may have been simpler, but I bet it was a lot less satisfying.

A college education adds so much to a person’s life. It is a transformational experience during which we learn about ourselves as much as we do about subjects like calculus, British history, and Homer, the Greek one, I hope.

You are joining thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands, who have benefited from this wonderful institution – the community college.

Kweisi Mfume, the former Maryland congressman who now is president of the NAACP, graduated from the Community College of Baltimore before earning his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude and his master’s degree at the Johns Hopkins University. He credits his community college experience with giving him an opportunity to redirect his life. Perhaps you can relate to his story, and can share in his pride, now that you have earned your Oakton diplomas.

“I’d been on the sidelines of life for six years after dropping out of high school,” he said in a recent speech. “The Community College gave me a chance to adjust and to prove, not only to others but also to myself, that I could make it through life. And quickly I learned that I was not alone. I learned that there were others who were just as timid, just as unsure, just as uncertain as I was. They had been out of school for a few years, or many years. Some were young like me; others were much older in life, seeking to acquire new skills. We all shared a commonality. We were all scared, we were all timid, we were all uncertain about going into this structured environment that we always heard about. And we had to ask ourselves, were we really up to it?

“And the one thing that made the real difference then, and I think it makes a real difference today is community colleges,” he continued. “The community college took the time to embrace us and to make us feel comfortable. It allowed us to make mistakes and said it’s OK, to do that as long as you learn from it. It allowed us to find a way to matriculate together after having before then lived our own separate lives, doing whatever we wanted to do. It allowed us to understand that that door and that threshold was different.”

Although I never attended a community college, my college experience shaped my entire life. It, more than anything else, helped me become the person I am today. When I was growing up in Miami, my ambition was to become the manager of a grocery store. I worked at one and loved the job. I also admired the manager, so I decided to go to college and get a business degree like him.

I enrolled at Florida State University and just loved it. The only problem with my plan was that during my second year I had to take Economics 101. For the first time in my academic life, I was lost.

Fortunately, with the help of a wonderful teacher -- I’ll never forget Mary Elizabeth Thomas -- I discovered that what I really enjoyed, and what I was actually quite good at, was history. So I changed my major, and earned my degree in history, with an emphasis on British history. I subsequently earned master’s and doctoral degrees in history and became a history professor.

I mention these bio-bits because I’m sure many of you, like me, changed your minds and are receiving your diplomas today in fields considerably different from the one you originally chose. Although some might not agree, I say, good for you, because college is the time to experiment, the time to be exposed to as many ideas and concepts as possible.

I hope many of you continue your education at a four-year university – Roosevelt would be great – because your Oakton education has prepared you to be successful students at many top-notch universities like ours.

Education provides people with the tools necessary to be functioning members of society. You will probably never need to know how to calculate a deflection formula (or even know what it is!) or how to fill a prescription or how to file a legal brief. But somewhere down the road, you will be dealing with architects, doctors and lawyers, and you must be able to communicate with them clearly and thoughtfully.

For those of you who don’t plan to continue with a formal education right away, I urge you never to stop reading books, to take continuing education courses and to find ways to become involved in your communities. Right here at Oakton, you can enhance your life by taking classes in Chinese, sign language, computer repair, accounting, piano, sculpture and many other interesting areas. And, if you think an area of study is interesting, then it will have utility for you as well.

The important thing is that you keep on learning, exercising your mind. Life is a marathon, and like the marathon runners who train constantly, all of us must stay in mental shape to be able to compete in this large, complex world.

I encourage all of you to consider making public service and engaged citizenship a part of your Oakton legacy. There are lots of ways you can do this. You can tutor a young child, join a service club, volunteer for your church, synagogue or mosque, or become active in politics. As an Oakton graduate, you have much to offer our society in addition to obtaining a good, well paying job. In fact, if all you do is get a good job, the value of your education will have been considerably diminished.

Each one of us has the ability to make a difference in the lives of those around us, but we have to take the first step. Consider this story.

Once upon a time there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to catch up. As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer he called out, “Good morning! What are you doing?”

The young man paused, looked up and replied: “Throwing starfish in the ocean.”

“I guess I should have asked, ‘why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?’”

“The sun is up, and the tide is going out. And if I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

“But, young man, don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach, and starfish all along it. You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man listened politely, then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves and said, “It made a difference for that one.”

There is something very special in each and every one of us. We have all been gifted with the ability to make a difference. And if we can become aware of that gift, we gain through the strength of our visions the power to shape the future. We must each find our starfish. And if we throw our starfish wisely and well, the world will be a better place.

Congratulations and best wishes to all of you.