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Tennessee State University Commencement Speech Mr. Joseph R. Cleveland
May 5, 2007
Thank you Dr. Johnson for that very warm and cordial introduction…President Johnson and First Lady , Distinguished faculty , H onored Platform guests parents, family and especially to you the honorable graduates of the class of 2007-- I am delighted and honored to have been invited to share this very special occasion with you, and further excited that it gives me the opportunity to return home to my roots. I want to personally salute this president for picking up and valiantly carrying the TSU baton for this leg of the Tennessee State Educational Marathon and I thank him for this opportunity to be a part one of the most important celebrations in our lives; The education of our future leaders. When I graduated from TSU, almost (4 decades ago) I couldn’t have known at that time what a sensational education I had obtained. That education prepared me for a life that I could only have dreamed of when I sat where you sit today. For that I am eternally grateful to this institution. I am even more grateful because, in addition to a superb education, TSU provided an environment that led me to the final decision on my partner for life Mrs. Evelyn Cleveland. She is also a TSU graduate. You see, I had known Evelyn years before coming to TSU as a next door neighbor, a class mate, and even a girl friend. But I had never had a chance to really see how she compared on the larger stage. Attending this University together allowed me to see her develop into one of TSU’s most coveted treasures, a Tiger Bell; that plus her ever supportive character “sealed the deal”. My wife, Evelyn has been my partner for over 37 years and she has been helping to guide my steps along the way. She is as proud as I am to be here to wish all of you very hearty congratulations on this major milestone in your lives. And of course, having been born and raised only fifty miles from here, several of our family and friends are also here to cheer you and I on. I am sure you are all thrilled and you should be. This is a key milestone in this journey of your life. Let no one short-sell you on just how significant this achievement is. What you have done here as both the student and the family supporter is an awesome achievement and your beaming pride is justified. The return on your investment will never, ever end. And, now Honored Graduates, the Sun is up and bright this afternoon which reminds me of a story appropriate for this occasion. When the sun rises on the Serengeti in Africa, the gazelle wakes up and takes off on a dead run. The Gazelle runs because he knows that if he isn’t running when the sun comes up he’s going to be somebody’s breakfast. Down the plains just a short distance away, the Lion “King of the jungle” wakes up with the rising sun and begins his day on a dead run. The Lion knows that, even though he’s King, if he isn’t running when the sun comes up, he or members of his pride could starve to death before dinner. So on the Serengeti, it really doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, and you’d better hit the ground running. Now in the Maasai language, Serengeti means “Endless Plains” and today you are embarking upon the “Serengeti of life” and, the Sun is rising. Today is the day for you to hit the ground running. In 1968, I sat where you’re sitting, felt what you must be feeling and wanted just as desperately for the speaker to get up, speak up and shut up before something interfered with my commencement. So I shall set the example and hit the ground running with my remarks and when I am done, I hope to leave you with thoughts to ponder and an expectation which may be slightly higher than you may have been aiming for, before we met. I have picked just three areas to focus your attention on:
The firm ground that has stabilized our way of life in many areas for so long is shifting and no one seems capable of adequately predicting the direction or the magnitude of the change. Noted author and columnist Thomas Friedman refers to this global phenomenon as a flattening of the world. And while he was talking specifically about business competition, he made reference to the multitude of related areas of our lives that will be affected by these trends. Here are just a few: New World economies like India and China are rising fast. Within a few years they threaten to elevate Global competition to resemble an all out street-brawl. What began a few years back as a simple outsourcing of repetitive, high volume, low wage, and low skill tasks has morphed into a virtual rout with almost every job up for bid? And yet, the opportunities have never been greater for those with high skills and a robust imagination. My Corporation, Lockheed Martin, alone will need 4000 engineers, finance experts and Human Resource leaders every year for the next several years. A number of you from this very class will be the difference makers who fill these critical positions. The debate on Global Warming grows fiercer every day as the Ice Cap melts, Polar Bears drown and each day ushers in another weather event more terrifying than the last. And yet, there are innovative new solutions popping up every minute and, I predict that some enterprising young entrepreneur from this graduating class will be the one to invent some dynamic new industry and employ a host of your fellow graduates to help solve this vexing problem. The nature of War and Peace has changed substantially within the last 40 years. The battle ground is no longer definable as it was for Normandy or Bunker Hill and there may never be another Battle of the Bulge. As you graduate, women and children are in the midst of the modern day battlefield as in no other times in our history, and terror seems bent on becoming the universal weapon of choice. And yet, new political alliances are being forced into cooperation because of the fearsome weaponry of terrorism. And I will wager that some very quiet and shy brainiac from this class of 2007 will become the Negotiating Diplomat, The persuasive Air Force General, The creative Homeland Security expert and the Globe Trotting Philosophical Strategist who join our current heroes in the battle for peace and democracy. The annual shift in the world’s demographics is causing everyone to look more critically and strategically at border security. While free trade agreements proliferate around the globe, nations seem more willing to import the work but less willing to import the high skill worker. The unrelenting growth in the world population teamed with the diminishing availability of resources is creating a plague of ethnic cleansing, Gender rivalry, and religious animosity. And yet, we have our first Woman, first African American, first Hispanic and first Mormon in the top tier of those being seriously considered to be President of the United States for 2008. You are the direct beneficiaries of some remarkable changes in Diversity and Inclusion. Someone from this class will create a world even more harmonious and civil than we have a right to expect. The only question is, who among you will lead this revolutionary change? These are certainly tough problems. But I have found that in my life time the problems have been no tougher than the tools available to solve it. Before the gun, a ferocious beast was a problem. After the gun, the beast was still ferocious, but a lot less of a problem. So, I am confident that, in your lifetime, the tools and methods will sufficiently improve to solve the problem at hand. Breakthroughs like the complete mapping of the human genome will give us longer healthier lives; Nano-technology will allow us to manipulate matter at the molecular level, for revolutionary tools and medicine. Mega fast miniature computing will give us vast memory stores and information robots. So while the challenges you face are, indeed, monumental, they bring with them some of the most remarkable opportunities a curious person could ever imagine. The leaders against these new challenges will be the curious men and women of courage, integrity and a passionate vision of success. Your generation has these qualities in abundance. You are prepared to go forth and lead from the front of the pack because you graduated from TSU, not in spite of it. When I graduated here, I was not told that I had been given all the knowledge I would ever need to succeed. I was told that I had something even better, in my first 3 years in this industry; I was occasionally engaged in discussions at work on technology in areas beyond my exposure. It shook me that I knew so much in so many areas and yet could be in the dark so easily on a few others .On Those things which I had been exposed to ,I had no trouble holding my own. My strategy on the areas I hadn’t been exposed to was stay just as engaged through the conversation seeming to understand all that was being said. But when the meeting was over, I made a beeline to the library to find out what they were talking about. And the next day, I was always prepared. I imagine some others in the audience have been there! So the something better that I had when I left TSU was that I had learned how to learn. You too have been given that valuable asset and you must cultivate and leverage it to excel. Being prepared to take on the future does not mean that you know everything there is to know. In realty, being prepared means that you know how to find what you will need, whom you will need, and when you most need them in order to overcome a challenge. What separates winners from losers is the extent to which you believe that you are prepared to succeed. One of the most important lessons you will ever learn is that perspective matters. How you see things can be as important as the things you see. Henry Ford said, whether you believe you can or believe you can’t -- you are right!! I can remember as clearly as if it yesterday a time in my quest to become an Engineer when I came dangerously close to giving up! It was just after my sophomore year. I had lost my focus and allowed my grades to slip. For the first time I started to doubt whether I could make it? I thought maybe Engineering was just not for me. My greatest concern was how to tell my mother I had made a promise to her and to myself that I was just about to break. I made my way home, just 50 miles southeast. When I walked through the door, before I could say anything she said “what’s wrong with you, you look like you lost your best friend”. I got right to the issue and said “I think I am going to change my major, I didn’t do well this quarter and maybe Engineering is just not for me”. Her face tightens and her whole demeanor changed. She responded by asking rapid fire questions and not giving me time to answer “I thought you said you wanted to be an Engineer? What made you think it was going to be easy? How do you think all the other people became Engineers? You will never be one if you don’t think you can. This quarter is a very small period compared to the rest of your life!! You get back down to Tennessee State and you make good on the promise you made to yourself!!!! That little speech made the difference and I have drawn on that wisdom many times since. Never doubting what I could achieve if I put my mind to it!! Shaping your perspective is how you turn preparation into excellence. The table of the future is reserved by name for those who subscribe to excellence. But excellence resides along the road less traveled. Excellence is not a state of being; excellence is a state of belief. General Colin Powell said “ If you are to achieve Excellence in big things, you must develop a habit of excellence in little matters. Excellence is not an exception; it is a prevailing attitude.” You have been thoroughly prepared by TSU to learn; now you must cultivate excellence. Someone asked Tiger Woods one day why he was so focused on winning when he played Michael Jordan in a game of basketball. Tiger said, “I never do anything intending to be second best”. That is how you cultivate excellence – NEVER DO ANYTHING INTENDING TO BE SECOND. As the sun comes up in the morning, you will find yourself on the Serengeti of life. No longer cuddled in the warm embrace of TSU, You will wonder aloud whether you are truly up to the challenge. Then your perspective will present the world as flat, but you will know how to succeed in it because you know how to learn, leverage it. When the demographics of the world appear overwhelming, remember your cultivated network of lifelong TSU supporters and Nurture it. When the climate changes appear beyond your control, remember the wisdom of your mentor and embellish it. So now the time has come for your generation; the time is going for mine. This is the nature of the sun. It rises, then it sets and it rises yet again. Between the sun rise of the Gazelle and the sun set of the Lion, is all the time you have to make a difference on a daily bases. But THAT’S ENOUGH!! Recently I heard a story about a mother sharing some last moments with her daughter at an airport. Standing near the security gate, the mother hugged her departing daughter and said, "I love you and I wish you enough". Overhearing the conservation A passerby said to the mother, "When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough'. May I ask what that means?" The mother said, "That's a wish that has been handed down for generations. It means: I wish you enough darkness to appreciate the LIGHT I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude BRIGHT. I wish you enough rain to banish all your DROUGHTS. I wish you enough happiness to abandon all your DOUBTS. I wish you enough pain to make your pleasures SING I wish you enough gain to never want for a THING. I wish you enough loss to value what you POSSES I wish you enough treasure, to have a giving CHEST. I wish you just enough lows to elevate your HIGHS Then, I wish you enough hellos, to offset all GOOD-BYES. I wish you God’s speed in taking advantage of the time you have. I WISH YOU ENOUGH.
THANK YOU
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