Aug. 24, 2025: Convocation Remarks

Eric, you're so humble, you didn't even give me a moment to give you applause. Thank you.

Well, for the fourth time tonight, someone will stand here and say good evening, members of our faculty and staff. And especially welcome to Bucknell University transfer students and the Class of 2029! Let me also welcome the hundreds and hundreds of people who are watching us now online.

It is really and truly a great pleasure to join you as you stand on the threshold of what is likely to be one of the most transformative periods of your life.

Now these days, especially, such a statement like that might be hard to absorb. If you're feeling some mixture of excitement, anticipation and anxiety that makes it hard to think about the here and the now, and perhaps the first day of classes, I assure you, you are not alone. That's a historical reality for generations and generations before you, and I'm sure it will be for generations ahead.

A few days ago, in this very space, I had the opportunity to speak with your families and tell them how personal this all was for me. That I still remember what it felt like when I arrived for my first year of college — the nerves, the trepidation, the excitement … and yes, some fear as well. That may be especially so, because in just a few days it'll be 50 years since I sat, figuratively, in your seats. As a boy, I rarely left the limits of my home in New York City. My family could not tell me what to expect from school because I was the first generation to attend college. Nevertheless, at age 18, I boarded a plane for the first time and flew to the West Coast to begin what became — unknowable to me then — my life's journey, and my place on this stage tonight. A question I will ask you now: 50 years from now, 50 years from now, what do you think you will look back upon? Your journey to that seemingly distant future begins here and now.

Knowing what I know now, I wish I could go back and talk to my younger self as he walked onto campus for the first time. I would let that young man know that the unfamiliar surroundings would soon feel like home — and become a place that would be filled with treasured memories. I would tell him that the stranger he met down the hall in his freshman dorm on their first day would become such a close friend that he would one day officiate at his daughter's wedding. Most of all, I would like to explain to him that the next four years would not merely be about writing papers and studying for exams. Or for making friends and having fun. Rather, they would be his chance to begin writing the story of his life — all that he hoped and all that he wanted it to be, but more importantly still, a life he could not possibly imagine, could not possibly imagine, on September 18, 1975.

At the other end of each student's journey here is commencement. At Bucknell's Commencement ceremony in May, Jessica Livingston, Class of 1993 and one of the most successful start-up investors of our time, shared a perfect metaphor for our new graduates. She told them that until this point, they had travelled along a fixed — or more or less fixed — linear track: elementary school to middle school to high school, and then on to college. But here, she said, is where the track ends. College is the last step on the line. After that, Jessica said, it would be up to them, our newest graduates, to determine the direction of their journey forward.

And that is one of the higher purposes of higher education. As I told your parents just a few days ago, it's great to celebrate the career paths of our alumni, and the recognition that it brings, but, in fact, there is something far deeper at stake — the ability to think critically, to debate with both conviction and humility, and to cultivate deeply the life of the mind. Other schools may direct you to well-trodden paths, but at Bucknell, our higher aspirations are that we will guide you as you accomplish something far greater. Here, we believe, you will broaden your world view, understand yourself as never before and see the limitless possibilities ahead of you. The pace of change in our world will only accelerate, and entire job categories and career paths may well disappear — including ones you've been thinking about for the last three or five or eight years. But you can approach and embrace the future knowing that you have the capacity to stretch, to grow, to adapt and to overcome. Those are some of the goals of a great liberal arts education that you can seek — and through the willing help, the deep expertise, and the unique agency of our faculty and staff — make yours.

As you pursue your degrees, you will be given the resources to experiment in seemingly unrelated fields and discover what lies within the depths and the intersections of disciplines, some of which you know well, and some of which you know little. The campus, your fellow students and the surrounding community will offer opportunities to uncover passions and sample new endeavors. Through it all, we will encourage you — and teach you — to take part in challenging conversations with open minds and the deepest possible spirit of learning.

Over the next four years, we want you to stretch yourselves beyond the limits  — all the limits — of your previous experiences. In doing so, you will not only grow your intellect, but also your sense of self and the values that will define who you are. This is how we become the best and most authentic versions of ourselves. And this is how we develop and nurture a sense of wonderment about the world around us.

Now, to be sure, you must actively engage in this process. You've heard all three speakers tonight already say that. In my day, we used to hear of people going off to college to, quote, "find themselves." However absurd that sounds today, the real problem is that that phrase totally undersells the required effort. You cannot merely look for or seek the best version of yourself. You must actively form and shape the person you wish to be, serving as the designer, the architect and the builder. Only you can be in those roles.

As you begin forging who you are and writing your personal stories, you will quickly learn that failure will most likely be a part of your narrative. Jessica Livingston, who gave us the train track metaphor, has funded nearly 5,000 startups with a combined valuation of nearly $1 trillion. Yet, as a student here at Bucknell, she told our graduates, she struggled to find her passion, which took a toll on her academic performance and initially led her to unfulfilling jobs after school.

I also struggled, at times deeply, as an undergraduate. College life did not come easy for me. Every time I received a low grade, I felt ashamed and embarrassed. The added pressure of being a first-generation college student made it all the more crushing each time I struggled or failed. By my sophomore year, I began rehearsing the dreaded phone call — there was no email — to my parents to tell them that I couldn't handle school and I needed to come home. Those phones, by the way, had dials, not buttons, and were hard-wired into the wall. I tell you that not as a matter of historical curiosity, but to spur you on and think about that life that I had, symbolized in a dial phone when I was your age. And think about what you have now. I'll return to this in a moment.

Fortunately, I never had to make that call, thanks to the help of a faculty adviser — a true mentor who I had intentionally built a relationship with and who understood my potential, clearly better than I did. Each of you will have access to a similar support system here at Bucknell, if you take advantage of it.

The distinguished faculty and staff who are represented here tonight will help you through every facet of your Bucknell journey. Let their guidance give you the confidence to take risks and set ambitious goals. Don't take the easy path. They will not only help you persevere through tough times, but they will also help you grow through them. Your willingness to learn something from the experience is the difference between temporary setback and real failure.

Lebron James, one of the great NBA players of our day, was once asked if he thought Michael Jordan would still dominate the court if he played in today's NBA. Lebron responded, "I look at it like this: MJ wasn't perfect. MJ had bad games. He had turnovers. He had games where he felt like he should've been better. But I think the greatest thing about MJ was that he never was afraid to fail — and he would be unbelievable today still because of that." Perhaps LeBron was thinking of this quote from Michael (you can find it on YouTube): "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I was entrusted to take the game-winning shot and failed. I've failed over and over and over again. And that is why I succeed."

So, understanding that setbacks are inevitable, I encourage you to open your minds and spirits to all that you might experience and accomplish as Bucknellians. In many ways, you will never again have the freedoms or opportunities to explore in the ways you will at Bucknell — from your ability to learn from some of the most respected minds in their fields and the hands-on experiences offered by our academic centers and institutes, to the life-shaping chances to study abroad and the rarity of being surrounded by equally curious and driven peers. I can assure you that is a rarity and a privilege.

Don't waste a moment of your time here. And don't take the safe path.

Now I have to tell you, especially having spent 35 years in Silicon Valley, I am a life-long technophile. I have an iPhone collection going all the way back to the first generation, released about the time you were born, and a 41-year-old original Macintosh computer. Come to my office sometime, not all at once, and I'll show it to you. It still works. Across all fields of endeavor, and of course in everyday life, the impact of technology and an ever-more connected world is amazing. But I also must tell you that in my 50 years in higher education, I have not seen anything so dramatically alter, and in some ways diminish, the college experience.

Yes, the ability to access information and stay connected is both marvelous and deeply enabling. I watch students navigate between digital and physical worlds — absorbed in screens, then looking up to greet a friend, moving between virtual conversations and campus spaces. You're living in multiple dimensions simultaneously, we all are today, and it's remarkable.  

Yet I wonder, I have to wonder, in those quiet, in-between moments, what might you discover if you let yourself be just a bit more present? Our Campus Theatre, the Bucknell Farm, the meditation labyrinth, the historic Willard Smith Library, our three makerspaces and dozens and dozens and dozens of more places on this campus — they're waiting for you. Sometimes the most profound connections happen when we're not trying to connect at all.

But I also have to tell you there's more, and it goes way beyond connectivity and social media and screens. It's unstoppable, just like the internet was, which I saw for myself. It's a new paradigm in two-edged swords.

Artificial intelligence — AI — represents one of the most transformative technologies of our time, offering unprecedented opportunities to accelerate discovery, enhance creativity and tackle complex global challenges. Yet AI also raises fundamental questions about authenticity, critical thinking and human insight — particularly in disciplines where the process of thinking and creating matters as much as the outcome, especially for young minds.

The question is not how to avoid detection, but what you might forfeit by bypassing intellectual struggle that, as you've heard, is at the forefront, and I hope always will be, of university life. Those moments of wrestling with ideas, of hitting walls and finding ways through — that's where growth happens. That's where you discover what you're capable of. When I failed my Ph.D. qualifying exam for the first time, and had to confront that reality, and decided to take it for the second and only — the last time I could — I knew, somehow, that I'd be talking about that for the rest of my life, because of what it taught me about the value of intellectual struggle in the face of failure. As you navigate these years, you'll have no choice but to develop your own wisdom about when AI genuinely enhances learning and when the struggle itself is priceless and irreplaceable. And this is just one of myriad ways where our faculty is invaluable — helping you navigate these choices with wisdom and discernment.

Now I recognize I'm offering this reflection during a time of enormous change in your personal lives and in our volatile world. There's real emotional weight to coming of age amid such transformation and uncertainty. Perhaps that makes these quiet moments that I spoke of even more precious, providing a bit of space for clear thoughts and unobstructed visions of the lives you’re creating, uniquely, for yourselves.

Isn't that all the more reason to indulge in the quiet moments? To allow space for clear thoughts and unobstructed visions of where you take your lives?

Consider just two examples of those who came before you.

Serena Tramm, Class of 2020, majored in mechanical engineering but was also captivated by a class on astrophysics. She decided to integrate the two disciplines to become an applied science systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

And Alex Golden, a theatre major in the Class of 2017, packed her time at Bucknell with campus activities, which she says prepared her for the rigors of a career on Broadway. Just seven years after she graduated, she was the associate music director and associate conductor for a Broadway production of The Notebook, scored by a composer who wrote some of the very songs she once performed on campus with her a cappella group.

And beyond the Bucknell community, I once read one of the very best examples of a young person adapting to the changing world in the pages of The Wall Street Journal.

It was 2014. A singer-songwriter, not much older than you, had written an op-ed. In it, she discussed the fear consuming the music industry. Many were giving up on the economics of recorded music. Albums were losing out to singles. Singles were losing out to streaming and piracy. Artists and record labels — they were all panicking, making deals that only further devalued their precious craft.

However, the op-ed's author argued that the music industry wasn't in decline. Rather, it was ripe for change. Same facts, different view. She wrote that artists who leaned into making personal connections with their fans would see audiences loyally buying their albums. Performers who offered the social media generation surprises and unexpected moments would create an online fandom that further boosted their careers. Singers and bands who dared to step out of the bounds of genre wouldn't alienate their followers, as many had thought, but grow their fanbase instead.

Now this essay was received with a good deal of skepticism, and I'm sure some eye rolling. Certainly, a 24-year-old singer wasn't the usual Wall Street Journal prognosticator.

However, 11 years later, with 114 million albums sold, it's pretty clear that Taylor Swift was right.

Class of 2029, Bucknell is designed to be a safe place to explore, experiment and endeavor. But it is not a place to hide from the difficulties and challenges and unknowns of this world. We all must engage them. Higher education will not build you a fortress against challenge and change; it will provide you, rather, with endless new frontiers, but only if you let it.

The fact that you are sitting here tonight means that we believe that you have the creativity, that we believe that you have the intellect and the imagination to succeed in the revolutions of our day. You have the ability to foresee challenges and opportunities that others will overlook. Over the next four years, your talents and your potential will flourish with the instruction and support of the scholars around you.

In a few short years, the tracks you have been riding on will come to an end. And you're now at the last stop, looking out from the platform at the world of possibilities before you. How will you venture forward? Which direction will you take? What does success look like to you, and how will you achieve it?

More importantly, perhaps, how will you bring others along with you, leaving this world better than it is today? And for that, I can only say: please. I ask you again: When you remember your first day, 50 years from now, what will you see in between?

As with so many of life's important questions, you cannot give answers now, but this moment — this night — is the start of your journey to uncover them, and thereby build the best and the most authentic versions of you.

Once again, welcome, Class of 2029!