GraduationEssay Preview: GraduationReport this essayI have two major unfulfilled goals in life. First, I want to get an article published in the Readers Digest. Any article will do. Second, I want to give a speech at the graduation ceremony of my high school. I could probably have done this in 1959 Ð- I was student body president and the best stand-up comic on campus Ð- but I decided not to. I now want to make up for lost time and a lost opportunity.
So, on the outside possibility that some editor at Readers Digest will read this and then decide to publish it, which will then catch the attention of the principal of Mira Costa High School, I have decided to give my speech here. (Note: “mira costa” is not Spanish for “mired in costs.” The Spanish phrase for “mired in costs” is “graya davisa.”)
Before I begin my speech, I want to take a quick survey. I direct this question to the guests, not to the graduating seniors.“How many of you recall clearly your high school graduation Ð- I mean before the all-night party?”Please raise your hand.Leave your hands up, please. Now I have a second question.“How many of you recall anything from the speech delivered by the distinguished orator who was brought in by your principal to inspire you on gradation day?”
If you dont recall anything he said, put down your hand.Now, for those of you who still have your hands raised, I have one more question:“How many of you were so inspired by a remark made by the distinguished orator that it in some way shaped your life?”If you cannot think of anything, please put down your hand.Now take a look around the stands. How many hands do you see?Thank you for helping me conduct this important survey of public opinion.Now for my speech. . . .THE ALARM CLOCK OF LIFE, AND WHY WE HATE ITI want to thank Principal McCormack for inviting me to give this graduation speech, a speech which I feel certain will inspire todays graduating seniors for the rest of their lives, as graduation speeches invariably do, as we have just seen.
My father, Dr. Landon, was the dean of American College of Arts and Sciences and the leader of the ABA. (And indeed, he was a student at the University of California, Berkeley.) My father is one of six surviving college students, who attended high school with my father during the 1940s and ’50s, and attended Cal for 30 years following my father’s passing. I am now an associate professor of English at the University of Georgia, and I am the author of my book, “The Making of America: A History of the Rise of the American College of Arts and Sciences”.
As a twenty-something American college professor, I am familiar with the history of American colleges, including I am the founder and chairperson of the American College of Arts and Sciences and the president-elect of the Association for University and College Republicans (AURA). We are committed to teaching excellence, to promoting the educational opportunities the public may have for themselves, and to being one of the great equalizers that America can have.