May 9, 2009
Eugene 'Gene' H. Cordes, PhD.
Guest Speaker and Recipient of honorary doctor of science degree
Good morning to graduating students, their families, friends, and the community of University scholars on this day of celebration. I know the University of Nebraska in Lincoln well. It is a great place: one of the nation's premier land grant universities. The University does a fine job in serving its students, community, state, and nation. I trust that all of you share my pride in the university that you have chosen to make your own.
Today, I wish to make one central point. Education is the most productive investment that people can make in themselves, parents can make in their children, and society can make in its citizens. The point applies to people of all ages. Learning must not end at graduation: not from high school; not from colleges and universities; not from graduate or professional schools. Learning is for a lifetime.
Graduating students - your education will serve you in many ways going forward: qualify you for a job; open the door a higher degree; guide you as you raise your children; help you vote intelligently; facilitate your participation in community life; assist you in effective management of your resources; help you profit from technology changes; participate actively in maintenance of your health; encourage you to accept challenges, sustain your spirit in times of sorrow or loneliness; and more. But I want to emphasize one point: the completion of your work here that we celebrate today provides one thing above all others: the foundation for continued learning.
Old people are perhaps too eager to give young people advice. Commencement speakers are surely among the worst offenders. I am going to spare you advice couched in quotations from the dead and the obscure. But I am going to give you just one piece of sensible, Nebraska-style, advice. Never stop learning. As you leave the university today, commit yourself to a lifetime of active learning.
For the past few years, you have been encouraged in learning by a family of motivators: requirements for graduation; exam dates surfacing on the horizon; due dates for papers; recognition of the advantages in doing well academically. Learning has been facilitated by the knowledge of your professors and that contained in your textbooks. All that has ended. But the importance of learning has not lessened. You are pretty much on your own now to actively seek out new knowledge.
My crystal ball is probably no better than yours but there are some things that I know for certain and that are important for you.
First, when I was teaching, the saddest thing that students ever said to me was: "I don't need to know that". You have no idea what you will need to know to optimize your life going forward. Never stop learning.
Second, ten years from now, jobs will require new knowledge and new skills that cannot now be predicted. Many of you will have jobs then that do not exist today. Many of those jobs will require knowledge that does not exist today. Never stop learning.
Third, earning a living aside, just getting along in daily life will change enormously over time and the pace of change will increase over time. When I was your age, there was little television, no hand-held calculators, no computers, no cell phones, no Internet, most airplanes had propellers, and cars had clutches and chokes. There were no MRIs, no computed tomography, no sonograms, and no laser surgery; there were no lasers. And I am still alive. So prepare yourself for change. Never stop learning.
Fourth, eagerness to learn will encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and take advantage of new opportunities, whether they be personal or professional. Doing new things can be exhilarating. But it requires confidence to make breaks with the familiar and explore the novel. That confidence comes from knowledge. In your professional life you may have
no choice but to get out of your comfort zone and do something new, perhaps entirely new, and perhaps several times over a career. There is no such thing as assurance of lifetime employment. You will hold more than one job, perhaps several jobs. You may choose to change or someone else may force change on you. There is only one way to be prepared: never stop learning.
I want to make a special plea for your continued learning: strive to become scientifically literate. The fact is that science and its facilitator and product - technology - are too important in the lives of all of us to be left solely in the hands of scientists. We require a scientifically literate society.
Here is a revealing anecdote. A bioethicist from the University of Pennsylvania had the occasion to ask members of the Pennsylvania legislature the following question: Where in the human body is the genome located? About a third said in the gonads, another third said in the brain, and a third decided that they just didn't have a clue. Some of you may be feeling a little uncomfortable about now, not knowing just where this mysterious thing called a genome resides within you. The fact is that the human genome is in every cell in the body with the exception of mature red cells. So none of them got it right.
Consider the most critical issues that face all of us moving forward: education, health, energy, global climate change, national defense, industrial productivity. All have a substantial element of science and technology and several are dominated by science and technology. We require a scientifically literate society to ensure that public policy on these issues is created thoughtfully and in light of the best scientific evidence that we have and can create. Scientific literacy is a responsibility of citizenship.
Scientific literacy entails the understanding of scientific concepts. It implies the ability to search out and understand answers to questions that derive from our experiences and to read and understand written material about science issues in the popular press. Scientific literacy implies the ability to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods employed to generate it.
Happily, there are abundant sources of reliable scientific information to help you. I have particularly in mind the web sites of federal funding agencies including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. If you have access to the Internet, scientific literacy is within your grasp. A related point: if you pay taxes or will pay taxes, the information created through research supported by these funding agencies has been paid for by you. The information is yours. Take possession.
And I have a suggestion about where to start in seeking scientific literacy: become a full partner with your physician and pharmacist in caring for your health. Learn enough human physiology and pharmacology to ask health care professionals the right questions and understand and evaluate the answers. Your health will be better because of your active participation in its care.
I congratulate each and every student today on the occasion of your graduation from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. We mark the successful completion of several years of hard work: being a student is having a job that is never complete. There is no going home at the end of the day knowing that your work is done. This is a day to celebrate your accomplishments and you should celebrate. I am delighted to join you in celebration.
There is a second group of people, many of them are here today, that also merits recognition: they are known as parents or caregivers. They are the people that loved you, cared for you, and nurtured you for 18 years or so. A few years ago, they saw you leave their home and care to continue your education here in Lincoln. My guess is that many of your parents or caregivers shed a few tears on that occasion. There will be more than a few moist parental eyes again today but for a different reason: their apprehension has been replaced by your accomplishment; their uncertainty replaced by pride in what you have achieved. Today we recognize and celebrate that achievement. You might want to give the older folks a hug later today and say thank you. This is their day too.