Valedictory Address

“Valedictorian Address” (24 May 1990): 1-7. (UA Case 68, Box 2)

Your Honor, Distinguished Members of the Platform Party, Faculty, Parents, Relatives, Friends and Fellow Graduates:

Good Afternoon. It gives me great pleasure to be able to congratulate all of you today and to be a small part of the celebration confirming our educational achievement.

For most of us, graduation from university is a “turning point” in our lives. Upon entering university, many students have but two responsibilities: (1) don’t call home looking for money, and (2) don’t disgrace the family. Unfortunately, both of these rules are often broken by the end of Orientation Week!

Nevertheless, with these simple parental instructions, a university student is born. And over the next three to seven years, the responsibilities and expectations of us change, enlarge, and eventually culminate on Graduation Day; and it will be these new responsibilities and challenges of making a difference in society as Graduates, that I will be addressing today.

In every graduation celebration symbolizing an ending and a beginning, there is both the remembrance of triumph and the anticipation of good times ahead.

Today we rest easy with the knowledge that our years at the University of New Brunswick are completed; that our purpose of obtaining a higher education is a goal all of us have attained – each of us in our own way, but with the common bond that we have struggled together on this campus to reach today - Graduation Day - a time when we can all feel proud of our endeavors and achievements. One large group of graduates who can take special satisfaction with their accomplishments are UNB’s adult student population, who, today, make up over 25 percent of all UNB students and whose presence and contribution on campus is continually growing.

No matter what your age, however, the memories we each leave with today will be different; but all of us have some common experiences of a unique UNB campus life: from cheering on the Red Devils on a cold Saturday night, to enjoying a “cold one” at the Social Club: from getting ticketed by those dreaded “Green Hornets” to standing in a line-up at the Bookstore so long that we almost pitched a tent and stayed all night; from being educated on the most beautiful campus in Canada, to nervously awaiting a job interview at the Campus Employment Centre; from pulling an “all-nighter” for that big exam, to enjoying the culinary delights of Beaver Foods, from reading the Bruns on a Friday afternoon, to rocking to Ujamaa, mon, on a Friday night; from enduring the embarrassing, and sometimes, humiliating rituals of UNB Orientation, to awaiting acceptance of a student loan; from the professor who forgot to show up for his exam, to kitchen cupboards filled only with a lifetime supply of Kraft Dinner. These will be some of the memories we will never forget - not the equation for a sphere lying in a three-dimensional plane!

Our years at UNB have been productive ones and this university education we celebrate today has now shaped and molded us to take our place in society as part of the newly-educated generation and the responsibility that now brings.

We must recognize the good fortune that has been ours to earn a university degree. Not only have we benefited from the wisdom and knowledge of the faculty, but even more so, we have had the opportunity to be challenged in a search for knowledge. Although we may not recognize the benefits immediately, I believe that the lessons we have learned “up the Hill” will always be an inspiration and guidance to our lives ahead.

For the majority of us, we are about to enter a new way of being as we leave here today and another chapter of our life has been completed. Many will depart for various regions of Canada and some graduates will eventually establish themselves in distant parts of the globe, each to make a unique contribution through our own talent and vocation: whether it be nursing the ill, teaching future generations, writing the “Great Canadian Novel,” protecting our forests, organizing the offices of the future, controlling a large corporation, programming the computer systems of the next century, practicing the rule of law, engineering the cities of tomorrow, discovering new scientific processes, or keeping the next generation physically fit; we have all gained so much over our years at UNB.

Now, what is the “good” that we may anticipate, as we stand here on the brink of a new beginning?

In 1990, we are on the threshold of a new decade, and the last of the Twentieth Century, Most exciting of all we have entered a world which has never held such promise of peaceful revolutionary change. From the courage of people in Eastern Europe to the reduction in the Arms Movement, we can confidently believe in a world which offers true hope for peace and prosperity. Most significantly, we have witnessed the voices of the ordinary people (including a great number of students) be the catalyst for this tremendous change.

Over our years at UNB, we have also seen the growth of a global concern for the environment as one of the premiere social issues of our time. We must always keep this goal alive and preserve a healthy environment for generations to follow.

As well, in 1990 we enter a world which is growing smaller at a shockingly swift pace due to massive technological and communication innovations. Consequently the world’s problems of poverty, discrimination, injustice, and nuclear arms, are all problems we have inherited, not by choice, but by the tide of history – which has become our generations fate to resolve.

It has often been said that the world’s hope is embodied in its youth – not necessarily a time of life, but state of mind, where the qualities of energy, imagination, and courage, along with an appetite for adventure, can best yield the promise of a better tomorrow.

I think the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy said it best in a speech he delivered to UNB graduates at the 15 Annual convocation on October 12, 1967:

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a [person] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance…”

This, my fellow graduates, is the challenge that awaits us – to leave here today with the confidence that we can make a difference to society. It is not just a new job we are going to or a profession we are entering; but as individuals, we will each make a contribution in our own way towards an even better tomorrow.

In closing, I would like to wish Dr. Downey, on behalf of the Graduating Class, the best of luck in whatever he undertakes, and thank him for making our time at UNB so special. We will always feel certain affinity for him as we both leave this campus together.

Continuing in his tradition of ending speeches with a profound truth, I would now like to conclude with a favorite of mine:

“Do not follow where the path may lead, Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

I hope each and every one of you will forge that “new trail” in your lives, and let others try to keep up with you in all that you do.

Until we meet again on this campus as UNB Alumni, may I wish you good health, much successs, and great happiness.

Congratulations Class of 1990!!!