August 7, 2004

Purdue President Martin C. Jischke made these comments during commencement ceremonies on the West Lafayette campus.

President Jischke tells Purdue grads the end is but the beginning

It is a great honor for me to speak with you on this very important day.

I can safely say that all of you will remember this occasion for the rest of your lives. It will be forever etched in your memories because of the enormous significance of this event.

At this ceremony today we are celebrating your great accomplishments. And in a larger sense, we are marking a turning point, in your lives. From this time forward, nothing will be the same for you graduates.

This includes no more 7:30 a.m. lectures; no more sleeping through 7:30 a.m. lectures.

At the same time, we are not here to mark an ending. This is a beginning. That is why this ceremony is called a commencement.

The poet T. S. Eliot said: ". . . to make an end is to make a beginning. "The end is where we start from."

When you leave Elliott Hall this morning to join family and friends for photos, congratulations and hopefully some cake you will make a beginning and start the rest of your exciting lives.

This is also an exciting moment for the faculty, staff and administration of this university. The pageantry associated with this ceremony is a time-honored tradition in celebration of the power of education. We believe deeply in the potential of education to impact your future and to improve the quality of life in this troubled world.

I believe education is the most powerful force for positive change that humankind has ever known. I believe you will be able to use your education to make a difference not only in your own lives, but in the lives of other people. One of our goals at Purdue has been to light within you a love for community service that we hope will burn strongly throughout your lives.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: "Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. . . "You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." You have within you the power to make a great difference in the lives of other people.

Your study at Purdue University has been difficult. It was designed to be difficult to challenge you, to bring out your full potential. Your commencement signifies that you are well prepared for the future that awaits you. But it does not mean that your education has come to an end.

What you are doing today is embarking on a lifelong journey of learning. And that indeed is event worth celebrating.

Education is not a destination. Education is a journey. And in our rapidly changing world, your ability to continue learning and respond to change will be the key to your future.

Change has always been with us. It has molded our history. Indeed, the only constant throughout time has been change.

But sometimes change catches us and even our highest leaders by surprise.

In a summer much like this one 176 years ago, President John Quincy Adams headed to a Fourth of July celebration outside of Washington, D.C.

This was a special celebration. President Adams was the featured guest at a ceremony launching one of the most ambitious projects of the day.

On July 4, 1828, construction began on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal that would link Washington, D.C., to important commercial points in the west. The planning and construction of this canal was a triumph of science, engineering, technology and business.

On the exact same day, another ceremony was taking place in Baltimore. This event celebrated the onset of construction on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

The canal was completed in 1850. Within 25 years it was in steep decline as the fortunes of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad grew and prospered.

The great John Quincy Adams had failed to read the changing winds of time. The day construction on the canal began, its fate had already been sealed by changing technology the birth of railroads. It took 61 years from the time that great and expensive canal was started until it went into receivership.

That was a swift change of fortunes in 19th century America.

But change in our time is taking place at a far more rapid pace.

It has been estimated by Industry Week magazine that to cover the last 50,000 years of human existence would require the life spans of about 770 people.

Of those 770 people: 600 would have spent their lives in caves or something less; only the last 68 would have had any effective means of communicating with one another; only the last six would have actually seen a printed word; only the last four would have measured time with precision; only the last two would have used an electric motor.

In fact, much of the technology that comprises our modern world today would have only been developed during the life span of that 770th person. We are privileged to live in such a wonderful time.

Just 100 years ago when the Purdue class of 1904 graduated only 14 percent of homes in the United States had a bathtub; only 8 percent had a telephone; there were only 8,000 automobiles in the entire nation; and only 144 miles of paved roads.

Much has changed.

It was only 100 years ago this summer that life on our planet was changed forever when the St. Louis World's Fair introduced one of humankind's greatest creations: the ice cream cone! Think of a summer without them!

The generation that came of age and graduated in the mid-20th century has been called the Greatest Generation for holding up under the tremendous strain of the Depression, for serving during the Second World War, and for spearheading a post-war period of technological development that is unprecedented in the history of the world.

The changes of the 20th century took us from the horse and buggy to the moon and far beyond.

When you were born, your parents did not have cellular telephones, e-mail, the Internet, DVD players, or the digital cameras that they will so joyously use today.

Much has changed in so short a time.

Yet with all that was accomplished in the last century, I believe the next 100 years will be even more stunning. And as rapidly as change evolved in the 20th century it will accelerate exponentially in the 21st.

We are at a transforming moment in time when a convergence of disciplines is about to change the world.

All the collective incredible accomplishments during the 20th century along with all the advances that have taken place throughout history all of that is really just the beginning. And you are the ones who will accomplish what is to come.

It is a tremendous and exciting challenge. And you are up to it.

In the summer of 1960 when John F. Kennedy accepted his party's nomination for President he was speaking to the people of his generation. But his message is timeless and it has meaning for you as you begin your lives in this exciting, changing century.

Kennedy said: "We stand today on the edge of a new frontier, a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils; a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats. . . . "The frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises - "it is a set of challenges."

These graduates we are celebrating this morning are the leaders who will use the power of their education to build the challenges of our time into the promises of tomorrow.

On behalf of the Board of Trustees, the administration and our faculty, congratulations to the Class of 2004!

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