May 12, 2023
Parents, families and friends…esteemed faculty…trustees, valued alumni and dedicated staff…and, of course, our graduates: Welcome to the Commencement ceremony for the Vanderbilt Class of 2023!
This year, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Vanderbilt’s founding. And you, graduates, are part of an unbroken chain of students who have walked our campus—and whose works and lives have shaped our university and our world, across three different centuries.
Today, you join in a tradition that began with the university’s first full Commencement in 1877, when the number of graduates was small enough that they could all fit in the chapel of Kirkland Hall—a building so new that it still smelled of sawdust. And which, come to think of it, smells of sawdust again today.
As we reflect on our history, one profound fact resonates across the decades: Vanderbilt was created with a purpose.
At some of America’s most venerable universities, the founding ethos was largely inward-looking, with an emphasis on scholarship, reflection and a sole focus on the life of the mind.
From the start, Vanderbilt was different. We, too, valued scholarship, reflection and the life of the mind. But our purpose went beyond that.
In an act of radical collaboration, Vanderbilt was established by a Northern titan of business and a Southern minister to help bind the wounds of a nation torn apart by civil war—to bring people of different perspectives together in shared purpose, based on common values.
From the beginning, Vanderbilt graduates were expected to engage with the world and apply what they have learned to make a difference. They were expected to have an impact.
One hundred and fifty years later, Vanderbilt has impact in ways Cornelius Vanderbilt could not have imagined, from the breakthroughs in our labs to our influence in many fields—here in the Midsouth, across the country and around the globe.
But graduates, even after so many proud accomplishments over the years, Vanderbilt’s greatest source of impact, still, is you.
After today, all of you will fan out into the world that urgently needs what you have to offer. Each of you will amplify Vanderbilt’s work, carrying it to every sector of society and filtering through your own talents, skills and perspectives.
During your time at Vanderbilt, we have asked you to engage with your education—and with one another—according to a set of principles we call the Vanderbilt Way. Today, I’ll let you in on a secret: The Vanderbilt Way isn’t just how things are done here around at Vanderbilt. It is also a great way to live your life. Because, first and foremost, living the Vanderbilt Way means always be growing.
And I know it might be tempting to think that because you’re graduating today, you are done, and that all of that strenuous and sometimes bothersome personal growth is finished. And, to be sure, you have grown a lot during your time on campus.
But the motto on the university seal that will adorn your degree says it all: Crescere aude. Dare to grow. It means that as long as we live, we want, we need to grow—professionally, personally and intellectually.
And I encourage you to grow on a path that is all your own. At Vanderbilt, we take pride in knowing who we are, steering by our own lights and not being too concerned about what others are doing or saying. We engage with the world based on our unique capabilities, values and aspirations.
Define your path the same way you’ve defined it here—through self-discovery, trying out new pursuits and challenges, learning from the experience and finding the courage to put yourself in positions that are not always easy. Keep these lessons and memories close. For when you need it, your Vanderbilt experience will provide you a trustworthy lodestar.
But we know growth is not always easy, especially when we choose our own path. It takes commitment, dedication and courage. And it takes support. Because we all grow best if we are members of a tightly knit community that supports us, but also challenges us.
This is why the Vanderbilt Way is built on the power of community. It is why we seek common purpose with others—because we trust, as our founders did, that there is far more to be gained in unity than in division.
Undergrads, think of your Move-In Day experience and how it felt to be welcomed to this university. I, myself, will never forget the fall of 2021—which was my first Move-In Day experience.
Move-In Day is an important moment for each family. It combines the excitement of starting a new chapter but also with some fears. Some of these fears are big—like, “Will I make new friends?” or “Is my child really ready for college?” And some are more mundane—like, “Did we buy the right sheets?”
It can all be exhilarating and stressful, all at the same time.
Well, that first Move-In Day I witnessed was a dreadful, rainy day. But when I arrived, and it was pouring, just like today, I found hundreds of excited, joyful and heavily caffeinated upperclassmen—some of you among them—all wearing matching T-shirts in various colors, whose precise meaning I still don’t quite understand. They had been there since 6 a.m. and now were doing their very best to outperform even the very best NASCAR pit crew as they welcomed their new classmates and their families.
And as cars pulled up to unload, I watched the families’ faces through the windows, and I could see the transformation. The worries and stress disappeared, and you could see the reaction that took their place instead: “This will be fine. I belong here.”
It was a powerful, emotional moment that showed so clearly who we are.
And then it hit me.
Most of our students, who had been up since dawn and were creating an unforgettable first experience for the next incoming class at Vanderbilt, never had that experience themselves. For COVID had prevented many of them from having their own move-in moment the previous year.
It was beautiful proof of how much we want every person, every member in this community to know that they have a place right here—right here, at Vanderbilt.
And if you have experienced that sense of belonging, whether it was your first day or during any time here at Vanderbilt, you know the feeling of reassurance it brings, remember its power, and help instill that feeling in others—even if they are different from you, and even if those differences scare you a little.
And Class of 2023, as Chairman Evans noted, you heroically forged your own community during your time at Vanderbilt, despite your crucial first year on campus being cut short by the pandemic, and despite the COVID precautions the following fall.
You stepped up.
You are members of the heroic generation at Vanderbilt. You learned hard lessons about the importance of community. About sacrifice for the common good. About staying connected with one another despite all the obstacles that life can throw at you.
And now you are coming of age in America at a moment of extraordinary polarization, when too many people on both sides feel as if they don’t belong.
This feeling can manifest itself as loneliness, which has reached epidemic proportions—especially among people of your age. Or it can manifest itself as the rage that has poisoned our civic life.
The urgent and even existential challenges society faces, the problems you will be asked to solve, require boldness and courage. They also require working together across divisions of all kinds, real and imagined, among people, cultures and communities.
In short, these challenges demand radical collaboration—and at Vanderbilt, we know how to do just that!
They also require an open mind and a commitment to civil discourse. These are required for the progress of any community in which the members have different points of view. And they are required for all personal growth as well.
At Vanderbilt, we deeply believe in the power of free expression, diversity in opinions and constructive dialogue—not because these are nice things to have, but because they are the essence of a community dedicated to growth and development.
This value we place on free expression and civil discourse is as “core Vanderbilt” as it gets. It runs deeply in our DNA. It was reaffirmed by our fifth chancellor, Alexander Heard, who said, “A university’s obligation is not to protect students from ideas, but rather to expose them to ideas, and to help make them capable of handling, and, hopefully, having ideas.”
And we reaffirm our commitment to free expression and civil discourse now, in an age that needs it more than ever.
For universities and societies need thoughtful consideration rather than rushes to judgment. They need deep inquiry and reflection instead of knee-jerk reaction. A challenging viewpoint ought not to signal the end of dialogue, but an invitation to engage.
We all need to remember what we have in common with one another, not what sets us apart: Common values. Shared purpose. Community.
In our polarized time, I entreat you to heed these forgotten lessons. Take your inspiration from the great Maria Ressa, who has indelibly shown us, just yesterday, the immeasurable value of free expression and constructive, fact-based discourse—as well as the courage required to practice and defend them when things get tough.
For if we abandon these values as a nation, then, in our zeal to claim America only for those who think and believe as we do, we will surely lose America itself.
Graduates, this is what it means to receive a Vanderbilt education. This is how you live the Vanderbilt Way.
Today, you make a momentous transition.
Today, you make all of us proud.
So go now and take the Vanderbilt Way wherever you go. Be a black-and-gold wave that washes over the world with creativity, compassion, ingenuity, optimism and grit. Live your own unpredictable and inimitable lives. And in whatever you choose, make them lives of consequence.
And remember that your global Vanderbilt community is always here for you.
And remember this cry, which is shorthand for the Vanderbilt Way, which I hope will provide you with strength and inspiration for your whole lives:
Dare to grow!
And Anchor Down.