Commencement
The calendar year for 2009 is drawing to a close, with more uncertainty than recent years. It is also a year in which two important anniversaries are being celebrated, and it is from these that I will draw my comments.
The first is one I would guess that few of you noted. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the telescope. In spring 1609, a college professor in Italy went on spring break and just happened to turn his homemade telescope to the night sky to look at the moon and the other planets.
In a week of heavenly observation, Galileo observed features never before seen by any human being. What he saw and described in a book called “The Starry Messenger” changed history. A view of the universe that had been unchanged for nearly 2,000 years since the time of ancient Greece was transformed. Galileo paid dearly for his discoveries, but he laid the foundation for modern approaches in science and education.
I’m a scientist by training, and do not anticipate making any advances that will change history. I have learned a bit though about both scientific and self-discovery. Like this class, I was a December graduate. I was fortunate to start my first professional job the following spring working for the federal government exploring for minerals on an Indian reservation in Arizona. My first week as a paid scientist did not yield any scientific breakthroughs, but it certainly changed my view of the universe.
My first assignment was to tow a jeep from headquarters near San Francisco to Tuscon, Ariz., track down a house trailer in storage there, and set up a base camp on the reservation before my boss joined me about a week later. It sounded adventurous, and not too hard for a college grad. I learned a lot that first week though, and none of it had ever been in any course syllabus. Some of it was technical -
And some of it was sociological –
5. that driving a vehicle with U.S. government license plates does not endear you to everyone you meet;
6. and lastly, that it is profoundly uncomfortable the first time you are living in a setting in which you are the minority.
That first week on the job was an almost overwhelming adventure. Fortunately my boss arrived a day or two later, before I did harm to any more government property or to myself. I learned a great deal from him that first field season about managing on my own. I learned more about geology, too, some of which I had even heard about in classes.
Probably the lesson I recall best occurred one evening when we were coming back to camp very late. We were many miles from anything resembling civilization, and I was the designated driver, maneuvering down a desert mountain. When we made it to the dirt road on the valley floor, he asked that we stop and that I turn off the headlights. We got out to look at the sky on what was a clear moonless night, but with an uncountable number of stars overhead.
After a while we watched a new moon rise. Since our eyes had adjusted to the low light, he told me to continue driving back to the main highway without the headlights on. In that 30-minute drive, I saw features and animals of the desert which I had never seen before. When we got to the highway, he told me to turn the lights back on and merely noted that “headlights might keep you alive, and can speed up a journey, but they also keep you from seeing all that’s really going on.” To this day, when driving at night and when the situation allows it, I try to drive without the tunnel vision that headlights impose.
The second anniversary is a bit nearer in time, and well-remembered by all of us 50 years of age or older. It was 40 years ago this July that Apollo 11 went on a week-long adventure that succeeded in landing two men on the Moon, that object near us which Galileo first described. This year has included many anniversary celebrations, and re-publication of several books authored by the Apollo 11 astronauts.
One that has kept me up several nights is called “Carrying the Fire.” It was authored by Michael Collins, the pilot of the vehicle that orbited the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited the surface. This book captures the uncertainty and danger underlying the Apollo missions, the preparation undertaken to improve the odds that they would succeed, and the wonder of being among the few to ever view Earth from our nearest neighbor.
Collin starts his book with a 1901 quote from one of the Wright brothers, describing their approach to flying machines –
“There are only two ways of learning to ride a fractious horse; one is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each motion and trick may be best met; the other is to sit on the fence and watch the beast a while, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. The latter system is the safer, but the former, on the whole, turns out the larger proportion of good riders.
It is very much the same in learning to ride a flying machine. If you are looking for perfect safety you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds, but if you really wish to learn you must mount the machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial.”
At this point, some of the parents may be getting a bit nervous, thinking, “Oh boy. First he’s got them driving at night without headlights, and now he wants them on bucking broncos.”
To a certain extent they are right. But with a little guidance and some good judgment, it’s pretty easy to know when and where and why to turn off the headlights. And there is no school anywhere in the world better than Findlay that can teach people to select which colts to break and how to train them. Most significantly, it is very important for everyone to know when to get off the fence and do the hard, effective work that needs to be done.
It isn’t easy; and mistakes will be made. Probably the best advice I heard regarding that concern came at the December 2006 commencement address provided here by Richard Anderson, Chairman of the Toledo-based company, The Andersons, and one of Ohio’s business leaders. His son asked him one time –
Dad, how did you become so successful?
I made good decisions.
How do you make good decisions?
It takes experience.
How do you get experience?
Make bad decisions.
Education can substitute for some experience, but real learning begins as you choose and reflect upon the experiences which will educate you each and every day for the rest of your life.
You will need more teachers and mentors and ministers to continue to assist you. Note that they come in all guises and from stations above and around and below you.
And you will need friends and family and loved ones to help tend the bruises when you get thrown from that horse. Or to hold the flashlight while you change the tire that blew out because you were looking at the moon and not the road.
Thank you for listening. On behalf of all of us at the University, congratulations on reaching this point where you can begin to chart your own voyages of discovery.
