2009 Chancellor's Speech

May 17, 2009
Remarks by Chancellor Hemenway at 2009 commencement

It is a great honor and privilege to welcome the Class of 2009 to the 137th annual Commencement of the University of Kansas. Congratulations, Jayhawks. You made it and you made everyone proud!

For an event like this, usually you are asked to turn off your cell phones. I want you to keep yours on today, but turn them to silent, because you’ll need them a little later.

First, let’s talk about commencement. You know what commencement means. For KU, it is a big deal.

In Jayhawk speak, “you have walked,” as in “I walked in 2009.” You have “walked the hill,” joining 4,000 graduates in the university’s most time honored ritual, one that binds Jayhawks together, attaches them as friends with an educational glue that never breaks.

As we say every year, the walk is the ceremony. You have to walk before you can fly. The walk prepares Jayhawks for flight.

I have asked students why this walk becomes so important. What would happen if you didn’t walk? Their responses are interesting.

Adam McGonigle says, “If I didn’t walk I might end up poor.”

Jennifer Schneider swears that she has already had a nightmare about the Campanile falling on her fellow students and threatening the walk. However, redemption came when tons of ice cream flooded the stadium and saved everyone’s life.

Jackie Pasching wants to have another setting where she can wear her size 36 baby blue Jayhawk boots.

Ken Simons walked with his daughter Marissa because he missed the opportunity to walk in 1980. He felt his life would be redeemed by walking in 2009 with her.

So, obviously the walk is important. We can even supply a play-by-play report. You have now walked through the Campanile, descended to the floor of the football stadium, and marched through the gauntlet of faculty, some of whom were startled to see you there, especially given your dubious performance in that eight o’clock calculus course in your sophomore year.

I have observed the importance of the walk at these ceremonies for the past 14 years. I enjoy watching the stadium fill up with graduates. It never gets old and it is always colorful. I walked first in 1996, and today was my final walk as KU chancellor.

I have seen much change in those 14 years. Clothing, hairstyles, technology, music: all of it constantly changing, as it should, because change is part of life. We learn from change, it helps us grow by forcing us to take risks. I can see that risk taking in both my son and my father.

When I first walked as Chancellor, my son Arna, was seven. He was a very curious boy, always wanting to see how things worked. One day Arna went down in the basement. He took his screwdriver with him and unscrewed the wall plates covering the electrical outlets, so he could see the wires inside.

I concluded that curiosity has its limits. I sat down with him to try to communicate why this electrical experimentation was not a good idea. I explained that he could be shocked or electrocuted.

“What is ‘electrocuted’?” he asked.

I tried to explain electricity, and how he could be badly injured if he played with electrical outlets. Searching for a dramatic example, I said, “When really bad criminals are executed, they are strapped in a chair and electricity goes through their bodies and they die.”

Arna was impressed. I finally had his attention. I also had his mother’s attention. She was not impressed by my parenting skills. Arna, thought a moment, then he looked up.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just give the criminal a screwdriver and tell him to unscrew the outlets?”

Arna saw things a different way. But like most students he wanted to know the risks.

Sometimes you have to take those risks, which brings me to my second story.

My father, Myrle Hemenway, is 92 years old. He was a public school teacher and university faculty member for over 50 years. He enjoys telling the story of how he managed to enroll in college in 1935 at the height of the Depression.

My father graduated from high school in 1934, the son of Nebraska farmers. He loved learning, and he was good at it, but the college he applied for told him that he was so poor, his ability to make it through even his first year was very unlikely.

He was not about to let that stop him. He had thirty dollars and a plan. He would farm for a year in 1934, build up a nest egg and enroll in 1935. It was a risk, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him from pursuing his dream.

But after the harvest, he had even less money. His $30 nest egg was down to fifteen dollars. At this point, he figured he better get to college before he went broke. I’m glad he did, because that risk enabled him to change his life—and mine.

What is the point? Never let the promise of hope lose its power and brightness. Take the risk. Seek to change your world and the world of those around you. You walked today because others walked before you, and you will empower others to walk after you. My father helped me to walk 60 years ago, and your family and friends empowered you to do the same today.

All those risks, all those changes add up over time.

So, let’s take a few risks. Your life is ahead of you; so is mine. Let’s go back to the cell phones, because they’re a symbol of change. It used to be you took pictures on a camera that used film, and you made telephone calls on a phone with a cord.

Now we have phones that are cameras, cameras that are phones, and everything in between and beyond. These little devices have changed the way we communicate, interact, and create opportunity in America.

We are going to try something different. I don’t know how it will work. It might be a disaster, but that’s what risk is about.

I want you to get out your phones and take a picture of you and whoever sits next to you. Then I want you to e-mail your pictures to thehill@ku.edu and we’ll put them on the KU Facebook page. You will have a personal memory of KU Commencement. You’ll be able to tag the photo at Facebook.com/KU.

So, I repeat. Take your pictures, email them to thehill@ku.edu. Look for them on the KU Facebook page. Years from now you can see how much you’ve changed. Everyone, take your photo. If you don’t have a cell phone, borrow one.

Everyone finished? It isn’t a photo shoot, take one photo and e-mail it to thehill@ku.edu.

I know what you’re thinking. You are thinking that I am too old for this. You might think there are places like Twitter where you can go to gossip without me seeing what you’re up to. But, I’ll let you in on a secret: on Twitter, I’m known as “Bob-is-the-bomb-41.” I totally know what you did this weekend.

Change happens—even for chancellors.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawks!