Remarks of Sheilah Kast at Hood College's Commencement Ceremony, Saturday May 19th, 2007 Good morning, Dr. Church, President Volpe, Honored Guests, Trustees, Distinguished Faculty, Graduates! ... and friends. What a wonderful day! I'm thrilled to be here sharing it with you. One of the best parts of coming to WYPR/WYPF and getting to know the community has been our connection with Hood College & with Blazer Radio. It means a lot to all of us at WYPR to be linked to such a vibrant institution in this part of Maryland. I want to particularly thank Professor Al Weinberg for the energy & insight he puts into that relationship. You know, on the days when it crosses my mind to wonder why I moved away from wealthy national news organizations to work in impoverished regional public radio, always the FIRST answer that comes to my mind is: the interns. There are energetic, bright, creative young people who care so much about sharing ideas & building community & public discourse that they volunteer their time to work with us - I really get excited about them. This semester, as President Volpe mentioned, one of our interns has added to all those other virtues ... that she has been willing to commute from Frederick to Baltimore several days a week to intern with us - Stephanie Cowan, an honors graduate in this class. It's been a joy to work with her. It's such an honor to be speaking on this dais, and to be here with Dr. Homer Carhart, who has done so much for Hood College. I don't have the words to say how much an honorary doctorate from Hood means to me. My family is like a lot of yours: my parents didn't have the opportunity to attend college, but they had enormous respect for education ... and they were determined to open that door for their kids. I think all of us owe a debt of gratitude to parents who make those sacrifices, and I'd like to applaud the ones here today. My older brother, by the way, went straight from undergraduate to a Ph.D. in mathematics - and I suspect my parents are looking down from heaven in amazement that their daughter, who jumped from the classroom to the newsroom right after college, is receiving a doctorate. On their behalf, as well as mine, I thank you. President Volpe, if your speech is a 10-minute interruption on the way the graduates' party, I can only imagine what mine is. But I think I have some skills that may help: Daily news is my professional background: first newspapers, then ABC News. So I understand time constraints. It's been drummed into me. There's a guideline for commercial television news reporters that I think started as a joke, but it's far too true: "First you oversimplify, then you exaggerate..." Ted Koppel says, "We know your attention span in short - we helped make it that way." Therefore, in the interest of brevity, I'm not going to quote William Wordsworth at length ... but ... just that part of Intimations of Immortality that reminds me of you today ... the part about how we arrive on earth, as the poet says: ... And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home. Trailing Clouds of Glory. That's you. Today. You have been engaged in something Divine ... something bigger than you. Something that will endure, if you nurture it. You have a connection with the transcendent, Because here at Hood, you have been grappling with ideas. And ideas ... have ... powerful consequences ... I'm someone who, like many of you, enjoys words -- enjoys using them, choosing the right ones, arranging them, critiquing how other people use them. But what I'm talking about is more than that. Not just being glib, not just language - but Word as the ancient Greeks used it: Logos. Tha is: Ideas. Reason. Wisdom. That's what the liberal arts do: expose us to the finest elements - not just facts, but understanding ... of why things happen as they do. A liberal-arts education brings us to a sense of wonder about it. A sense of excitement. Albert Einstein said, "Never lose a holy curiosity" Your time here at Hood has been a chance to develop wonder, matched with the skills of wisdom. If it works, you'll ALWAYS be a student: You'll always have some ability, AND the curiosity, to approach an idea and to let it move you. Let me give you an example: There is nothing more powerful than the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - Powerful ideas. More powerful than our Founding Fathers, as accomplished and erudite as they were, could completely live up to. More powerful than we, even building on their foundation, have been able to live up over the generations. More powerful than we fully live up to today. But we TRY. Every day, those ideas shape our civic life. They mold how we define ourselves, and how we look at others. They inspire us. And they are only -ppfff -- ideas. Not armies. Not a physical force. Just ideas. No matter how often we fail, we are drawn back to these ideals. We gravitate to them. By contrast, greed is not an idea. Material success is not an idea. It can be a comfort. It can even be necessary, to support a family, or to support ideas. But it is a means to an end. If that's your inspiration, it's empty. Sophocles said, "Wisdom outweighs any wealth." And what about other ideas in common circulation today? Where is the tolerance implied in the Declaration of Independence? Civility gets lip service, but it's barely practiced. Part of why I'm in public radio now ... is that I got tired of the interruptions and animosity in commercial news. A big part of commercial broadcasting is not a clash of ideas, it's just a clash ... it's gotcha journalism. Where is the respect for the ideas of others - the willingness to examine what others believe, to take the time to understand them, even if upon reflection we disagree? And who even does reflection these days? We are waaaay too busy for reflection in American society. Anyway, reflection is boring. At least, that's its popular reputation. Maybe fuddy-duddy college professors practice reflection - not the rest of us. Unless, of course, you've spent years grappling with ideas at Hood College! This is not a newsflash -- I know you know many of the influential ideas at work in the world today are not uplifting. One of the most potent ideas in today's world is Islamic Jihad -- a philosophy that says life is not sacred. In fact, the terrorists see taking lives of the infidel is a duty, a holy sacrifice to the Almighty. We are told Jihad does NOT reflect the ideas of the Prophet himself. It is a perversion of Islam. Still, this call to violence is strong. It motivates millions of people to fight, to sacrifice their time, their money, their energy, their families ... even their lives. Like most powerful ideas - it is contagious. It is growing. It energizes those who embrace it. And it will not be stopped by physical force. You can only confront an idea with another idea. A powerful idea. Your generation will need to sort out whether the ideas that we in West embrace - that life is precious, that we are endowed by Our Creator with inalienable rights, that everyone should have the chance to live in liberty - can those ideas effectively counter Islamic terrorism? Outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain addressed precisely this in an interview with NPR yesterday morning.* He said: " ... This terrorism has been a generation growing; it'll take a generation to knock it out. " [That's YOU. The generation in question. And then -- as you know, Blair has been a close ally of President Bush on the war in Iraq, but he raised a criticism. He said: ] "The criticism that I think is more telling is that the only way you are going to knock out this terrorism eventually is not just through the force of arms but through the force of ideas. And if there IS a weakness in our position, [Blair said] in my view, it's that you need to construct an agenda that is about freedom, yes, and democracy, yes, but also about JUSTICE and opportunity for people. Which is why progress on poverty in Africa matters, in my view. [Blair went on to say] I think a deal on climate change matters, even for this broader picture. And I think the Middle East Peace Process matters. So - if you want to defeat this terrorism, you have to defeat it at the level of ideas as well as at the level of security." That's a big agenda. A lot facing young citizens today. I hope it underscores how important it is to align yourself with noble ideas. Not every idea has equal worth, and not every idea will motivate you. You have to care enough to engage ideas, evaluate them and apply them - and when you do, you'll find yourself using the talents and skills you developed here at Hood. I know most of you graduates already are doing that - combining noble ideas with action. Let me mention a few: * Phoebe Anderson, during her senior year as a social-work major worked with trauma victims and people with serious mental illness - and ran a ballroom-dance fundraiser for the auxiliary of Springfield Hospital Psychiatric Center. * Katie Chick is a double major in English and Music, as well as a cheerleader, a residence counselor, a fundraiser and sometime teacher. * Joyce Johnson was moved by her experience, losing her husband at the Pentagon on Nine-Eleven ... to return to college to study Thanatology; Mrs. Johnson decided she needed to make a contribution to other survivors who lost loved ones in those terror attacks. * Whitney Trettian is a double major in Philosophy and English, heading to M.I.T. for a masters degree in New Media. * Homer Carhart, who is about to become part of this graduating class, is someone who puts big ideas into action, with his support of so much at Hood College. And there are so many more stories from this graduating class. I am awed by the accomplishments and success I see arrayed before me ... but I'm also moved to share with you graduates ONE MORE idea, sort of a warning ... one that I wish I had internalized at your age. It's the idea that failure is wonderful teacher. Don't be so afraid of failure ... that you never take risks. You can learn so much ... and you can achieve so much, if you push yourself ... to take some risks. My husband represented the U.S. as ambassador to Romania for three years. One of the advisors who spoke to the new crop of ambassadors and their spouses before we set out told us: If at least 40 % of your initiatives don't fail, you're not trying enough new things. I was agog: had never thought of a forty % failure rate as a goal, as something to be strived for. That was a diplomat's way of saying the same thing Mario Andretti says about car racing: "If everything seems under control, you just aren't going fast enough." That's where that sense of wonder and excitement from a liberal education, that I mentioned earlier, comes into play. There's a lot do! No time to waste! Now I try to take more risks in life. My favorite iteration of this concept is from another impressively articulate British Prime Minister - Winston Churchill. He said, "Success ... is the ability to go from failure to failure, with no loss of enthusiasm." I love this formulation. It's packed with insight. It implies, as I mentioned, that there's a lesson in every failure, that it can make you better. And of course, it stresses that incredible Churchillian determination - "Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never."** But even more than that, it implies to me that what the world may judge as failure ... is not necessarily a fiasco for you. And that as you find your success, you might not always be applauded -- but you should not be deterred. Don't lose heart. Reach into those ideas that motivate you -- and maintain your enthusiasm. You have such an interesting world that you're engaged in. And you're so well prepared for it. Congratulations - and good luck!