May 14, 2005

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

Purdue president tells graduates history hints at tomorrow's promise

We are surrounded today by all the pomp and circumstance befitting a celebration of these accomplished graduates. It is quite appropriate. Pomp and circumstance is as traditional to commencement ceremonies as caps and gowns, excited graduates and ecstatic parents.

While pomp and circumstance is an essential part of every commencement, hardly anyone knows what the phrase actually means. "Pomp and Circumstance" is the traditional title of the commencement processional march that we heard so beautifully performed here today. It was written in 1901 by a British composer, Sir Edward Elgar, who borrowed the words from William Shakespeare’s "Othello." Elgar was so happy with his new composition he is reported to have told a friend, "I've got a tune that will knock 'em flat!"

The piece was an instant success. In 1902 it was performed under the title "Land Of Hope and Glory" for the coronation of King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria. The first performance of "Pomp and Circumstance" at a commencement ceremony was in 1905, when the composer received an honorary degree from Yale University. The music immediately caught on with universities. And for the past 100 years, "Pomp and Circumstance" has been part of the pomp and circumstance of virtually every commencement in this nation.

Music scholars tell us it captures the complexity of emotions that emerge on this day — the triumph of accomplishment, the joy of success and the terror concerning what’s going to happen next.

Congratulations to our graduates. You have worked long and very hard. You deserve a day of pomp and circumstance. All of us join you in this celebration of your success. This university is designed to be quite difficult, to stretch your abilities and show you how far you can go. One of the great lessons you have learned here is that you can go very far, indeed. You should feel very proud of what you have accomplished.

Congratulations as well to all the friends and family who have joined us today. You have worked hard, too. In fact, some of you are no doubt exhausted. If not from work, then from worry. As a parent myself, I understand what this day means to you. You have dreamed about it even longer than our graduates. No one succeeds without help from family and friends. You are a key to everything we are celebrating today.

We live in a nation that loves to mark anniversaries and celebrate them. In addition to the 100th anniversary of "Pomp and Circumstance," at commencement programs, there is another event being marked this spring — a truly culture-changing moment in our history that occurred in 1955. Maybe you have already guessed what I am talking about. This spring marks the 50th anniversary of the very first McDonald’s restaurant franchise. In 1948, in San Bernardino, Calif., Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a restaurant that made hamburgers fast and sold them cheap. It was a novel idea, but it was another businessman, Ray Kroc, who launched the first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Ill., in the spring of 1955. He eventually bought out the McDonald brothers and started a company that would circle the globe introduce a lifestyle-changing concept: Fast food.

In 1955, a McDonald’s hamburger cost 15 cents. French fries were 10 cents, shakes were 20 cents and coffee was a nickel. That’s why we call them the good old days! Today, more than 30,000 McDonald’s Restaurants in 119 countries serve 50 million customers every day! For better or for worse, or maybe for a little of both, what Ray Kroc launched 50 years ago this spring changed America forever.

Fast food and a nationally standardized product were both new concepts fifty years ago. And they were just what a newly mobile and affluent society was waiting for. We often think of the 1950s as a quiet decade of conformity before the turbulence of the 1960s. But actually it was a decade that swept in enormous change, the full impact of which would not be felt and understood for some years to come.

Think of all that took hold in our culture during the 1950s and still impacts the way we live and work today: fast food, home air conditioning, interstate highways, jet travel, suburbia, the civil rights movement, television, Play-Doh, motel chains, space travel, Tupperware, the polio vaccine, computers, Disneyland and, of course, rock ‘n’ roll. I have only just touched the surface.

The post-World War II era of the 1950s launched the most incredible period of economic, technological, medical, cultural and artistic growth the world has ever seen. But I believe what lies ahead is even more exciting. With all that has accomplished in the last half of the 20th century, I believe the next 50 years will be even more stunning. At the dawn of the 21st century, we are entering what I believe will be the most exciting time in history. We are at a transforming moment in time when a convergence of engineering, science, technology — pharmacy, agriculture, the arts, business, education, medicine, consumer and family sciences — is about to change the world.

The sea change created by information technology alone in the past 25 years will seem mild compared with the revolution that is now emerging through advances such as new protein-based drugs, nano-devices (and) fuel cells that will power tomorrow’s automobiles. At Purdue today, we are researching science and technology in which biology and electronics are merged, creating "gene chips" that can instantly detect food-borne contamination. In nanotechnology the possibilities include probes that could be injected into the body for medical diagnostics and repair. The graduates of today will have the opportunity not only to experience, but to create this next great period of change. You are ones who will create tomorrow.

John Schaar, a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of California Santa Cruz, says, "The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination."

The 1950s and all that followed were created by what we have come to call the "greatest generation." This was a generation molded by depression and war, people who shaped the course of history and built the promise that you are fulfilling today. There are members of this generation in our audience today. We owe them all a deep debt of gratitude. We also recognize there is room in the march of time — in fact there is an enormous need — for more than one greatest generation. I believe you graduates of today can be the next greatest generation. And your success will be measured by more than personal gain. It will be measured by your willingness to serve your nation, your communities and one another.

Edward Everett Hale was a 19th century American writer who said, "I am only one, but still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do." Hale is little remembered today. He was the grandnephew of Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale. He was the nephew of Edward Everett, the most famous orator of the mid-19th century, whose little noted nor long remembered two-hour speech at Gettysburg, Pa., preceded President Abraham Lincoln’s timeless two-minute address.

One of Hale’s best-loved books was titled "Ten Times One is Ten." It is the story of ten people who attend the funeral of a mutual friend and discover the deceased man has helped each one of them in a different way. They resolve to each lend a hand to someone else in return. And as each new person who receives a lending hand goes on to help someone else, they believe this can ultimately circle the globe. A more recent book and movie on the same theme are titled "Pay It Forward." Hale’s 19th-century book so inspired people of his time that groups were formed in communities throughout the United States called Lend A Hand Societies. Lend A Hand Societies performed small deeds and large ones, including, at times, loans to college students enabling them to complete their education.

Today as you leave this university to fulfill the dreams that have inspired you, to take part in the great changes that are now sweeping our world, it is my hope that you will always remember the motto of the Lend A Hand Society — words that came straight from the writings of Edward Everett Hale. He said, "Look up and not down. Look forward and not back. Look out and not in. And (always) lend a hand." On behalf of the Board of Trustees, the administration and our faculty, congratulations to the class of 2005.

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