They’ve got you fooled,” Dr. William H. Cosby, Hon’90, (better known as Bill) informed some 5,000 Penn students sweltering in nylon graduation gowns. “You think it’s something special to sit in the sun and pass out. Four years of a higher education, you’re sitting in the sun to pass out!”
For its 241st Commencement last month at Franklin Field, Penn was treated to some vintage humor from the Philadelphia native, entertainer, educator, and philanthropist. (And no one passed out, at least during the ceremonies.) Cosby, who had already received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Penn in 1990, focused his brief remarks on the students rather than himself, making no mention of the personal tragedy he endured earlier this year when his son, Ennis, was murdered.
He welcomed his audience with the deep and gravelly “Hey! Hey! Hey!” of Fat Albert, but later adopted a paternal tonemore that of his famous television character, Cliff Huxtable. To the Class of 1997, Cosby broke the bad news:
“You’re
in debt … That’s why your folks want to talk to you. You’ve got a
degree now. They expect you to work your way out of it. Those people are
back there not to receive you, but to shake your hand and let you know you don’t live there anymore.”
He
soon turned serious, though, describing his conversations with former
political prisoners during a recent visit to Robben Island in South
Africa. He heard in their own words how they labored in the glaring
white lime rock quarries, how for three meals a day, they ate grains”and
how ‘for breakfast, they gave a teaspoon of brown sugar on the top, and
how every morning we ate in a circle until we got to that brown part,
and the brown sugar was the last and most tasty morsel … ‘”
But he recalled that when he asked them: “‘When the time came, and you were free, did you get ’em?’ [that] the answer, ladies and gentlemen, was no. ‘We didn’t have time to worry about revenge because … our goals were in front of us, and we had to move on …'”
So too, Cosby told the graduates in particular those who may not have lined up their dream jobs yet, “You don’t have time for revenge and you don’t have time for anger.” A good job isn’t an American birthright, he pointed out. “The United States of America was not founded on giving a gift to every person born, except one opportunity.
“Those of you born in the United States of America don’t really know the word … But I’ll tell you what: Meet an immigrant. Whether that person is driving a cab or picking up trash or washing the windows, they have a goal, and know that this is the land of opportunity.
“You were born into this, now work it. Work it
the same way as a person coming from Russia, coming from the Caribbean,
coming from China, coming from Thailand. This is your country. Work your own opportunity.”
Though
the message wasn’t entirely new, it was delivered brilliantly, and it
inspired hearty applause from the graduating students and their parents.
According to Dr. Judith Rodin, CW’66,
president of the University, a Penn education lays the groundwork for
turning opportunities into successes. In her opening remarks, Rodin
suggested that the University’s administrative forebears “would be
astonished if they could join us today”not
just by the physical growth of the university, but by the graduates.
“No, I’m not referring to the nose rings or the roller blades,” she
said. “I think their eyes would surely widen in disbelief if they could
glimpse the knowledge you have obtained, the ideas that abound, and the
concepts that you have come to grasp here at Penn.”
Looking
out on a sea of mortarboards adorned with Sesame Street characters,
Viking horns, beer-can pyramids, and other decorations, Rodin said she
often wondered what William Smith, Penn’s first provost, “would think if
he could leaf through the University course roster today.” She cited
such offerings as cognitive neuroscience and literatures of jazz as
“exciting new ways of understanding old ideas and new ideas that have
altered and will continue to transform the way we live our lives.”
Perhaps
no one has partaken of more courses at Penn than Dr. Edward B. Shils,
the G.W. Taylor Professor Emeritus of Entrepreneurial Studies, who first
graduated from Wharton in 1936 and now has earned his sixth Penn
degree, a doctorate in juridical science. Dr. Stanley Chodorow, Penn’s
provost, told the audience, “This gives ‘perpetual student’ a new
meaning.”
Rodin also reminded those receiving their first Penn degree that they have now joined the ranks of University alumni, who have served as “outstanding guardians of this great Universityas trustees and overseers, as advisors and advocates for our unique mission.”
