Faculty member Christie Launius offered the following remarks at the 2015 spring commencement:
“Good morning, welcome, and congratulations to all of the graduates. I am deeply honored to be speaking to you this morning at what is a unique moment in your lives, simultaneously an ending and a beginning. In this liminal, in-between space, I would like to ask you to think about the uses to which you will put your education. Even though the ink is not yet dry on your diplomas, I am asking you to think beyond your individual interests as you contemplate what’s next.
“Like quite a few of you, I am the first generation of my family to be college educated. My parents married while they were still in high school, and started a family soon thereafter, so college was not in the works. My dad worked as a coal miner for 30 years, which was a good union job that paid a living wage and offered benefits and some workplace protections, but it was hard, dirty work, and I grew up listening to him tell me that I should go to college so that I would have a chance to find a different kind of job.
“I remember that as a first-year college student, I was excited, terrified. . .and absolutely clueless. I found myself in what felt like a different world, one where people not only spoke differently, but also seemed to see and understand the world differently. In many ways, I felt like an outsider, and like I didn’t belong in that world, but I managed over time, to figure out how to navigate it so I could earn my degree. In the end, higher education was the means by which I moved out of the working class and into the middle class—it was a vehicle for upward class mobility. I earn my living now by my head and not my hands, and I have some control over the pace and the content of my work. Without higher education, that would likely not be the case.
“But higher education turned out to give me something more than entry into the middle class. More significantly, and subversively, I used the skills gained through my education to turn around and think critically about that education. I thought about how and why the world of home seemed so different from the world of higher education, and how that divide made it harder for students like me to succeed. I thought about how higher education had changed me for the better, and what it had given me, but wondered whether it had done so at the cost of distancing me from the family and friends I had grown up with.
“And finally, I thought about how different my experience of upward class mobility was from the ways I saw it represented in popular culture. Rags-to-riches stories are everywhere, but they tend to focus only on the rise, and not on what happens after the rise.
“The more important story is the story about what happens next. I want to hear stories about using the knowledge and skills and cultural capital gained through education to make change in your communities. Whether you are the first or the fiftieth person in your family to graduate from college, your current level of educational attainment places you in a privileged minority in this country. In this moment you are literally surrounded by other college graduates, but it is worth remembering that almost two-thirds of Americans age 25-29 do NOT have a bachelor’s degree. How will you use that privilege to make the world a better place? If, like me, you’re the first in your family to graduate from college, how can you hold the door open behind you? And if you’re not the first in your family to graduate from college, how might you draw on your connections to help widen access to higher education? I decided to use my educational privilege by becoming a professor, teaching at an institution that serves students like I once was, and teaching them in ways that not only ease their transition but also encourage them to see themselves as change agents.
“I described myself as excited, terrified, and clueless when I started college, and to be perfectly honest, that’s also how I felt the day I graduated. Many of you are probably feeling some of that right now, excited to be celebrating this remarkable achievement, but also worried about what the job market holds for you. So even as I am challenging you to think about what’s next, i.e. your social responsibilities as newly-minted college graduates, I also want to remind you that it’s okay to not have everything figured out, and it’s okay to ask for help and advice and support, from those same people who helped you reach this milestone in the first place.
“I was reminded by a recent graduate that “adulting” is hard work and a scary business, and I don’t disagree. The story of being an adult is about contributing to civic institutions that are focused on improving the quality of life for all of the members of a community, including the ones who maybe don’t look or act like you, and who are among the majority in this country who don’t have a college degree. The story of being an adult is also about giving your time and your expertise even when, perhaps especially when, you won’t benefit on a personal level. It might take the form of running for a seat on your local school board, being a troop leader, or a coach. It may mean being an advocate for those whose voices and perspectives are marginalized by the mainstream, or calling out injustice when you see it.
“The story of how you got through college has already been written, but the story of what happens next starts now. Working-class writer Janet Zandy argues that while those who have used education to rise can’t go back home in a literal sense, they can use their working-class knowledge of home to do valuable work in the world. You all have valuable work to do, graduates, and I encourage you to draw on the entirety of your backgrounds and knowledge as you do it. I look forward to hearing your stories as you develop what happens next.”
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