Diversity is the dominant theme for the class of '84
Among the waves of mortarboards at commencements across the U.S. this year, several, as usual, bore signs and greetings. One at the University of California at Berkeley offered a proud—and significant—variation on the customary HI, MOM. It read: HI, I AM MOM. The message aptly symbolized the presence of older generations among 1984's 1.37 million graduates, Mario Savio, 41, a leader of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964, finally earned a physics degree, summa cum laude, from San Francisco State University. At Lehman College of City University of New York, Joseph Lipner, 83, was named to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with high honors. Foreign-born students, too, went to the head of their classes. New York's City College valedictorian, Chi ("Christopher") Luu, of Viet Nam, entered this country only five years ago, unable to speak English. Commencement speakers, an unprecedented number of whom were women, reflected the notable diversity of the graduates and ranged widely over topics from the dangers of nuclear war to the merits of wandering. Nor did the speakers neglect some themes that spring eternal. At Middlebury College in Vermont, Actor Burgess Meredith urged: "Make love! Propagate!" A commencement sampler:
Behavioral Scientist B.F. Skinner at Colby College in Waterville, Me.: "Orwell painted a strange portrait of what the world would be in 1984, and across this nation this spring, commencement speakers will be comparing that prediction with what has actually happened. Do we believe that war is peace? That freedom is slavery, that ignorance is strength? We used to have a Department of War and a Secretary of War; now we have a Department of Defense and a Secretary of Defense. But we have not gone as far as Orwell predicted and renamed it the Department of Love and the Secretary of Love. It's true we are watched all the time by television cameras when we go into our bank even though we are not planning to rob it or go into a supermarket even though we are not planning to do any shoplifting. But we've not yet learned to love Big Brother as Orwell predicted, and we are not quite ready to believe that two and two are five."
Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Thomas J. Watson at the University of Vermont in Burlington: "Are you satisfied that no progress has been made on nuclear treaties in three years? Are you satisfied that Soviet-American relations are at an alltime low? I talked to a Russian last week whom I knew quite well in Moscow. He was over here on a visit. He said, 'You know, Tom, we always looked at you as competitors; we sometimes looked at you as adversaries; now you have forced us to look at you as enemies.' The Soviets will never be our friends. On the other hand, they're here on this small planet with you and me, and we've got to learn to live with the Soviets or we're surely going to destroy each other."