Good afternoon to the great Class of 2028! On behalf of the administration, faculty, and staff, I’m delighted to welcome you to Duke University.
It may be hard to believe that it’s been just one week since we were all together right here, saying farewell to your families.
Whether you’re a new first-year student, or you began your studies elsewhere and have joined Duke as a transfer student, I hope you had a great week of orientation, and that you’ve begun to feel at home, both here on campus, and among your classmates.
Feeling at home is important—and as a community we have developed an array of traditions to help you bond with this place and its people. As Provost Gallimore mentioned, this convocation ceremony is one example of tradition, as we mark the opening of the academic year, and formally welcome a new class of students to Duke.
Here on stage, we’re wearing traditional academic regalia that dates back to the Middle Ages and connects us to generations of scholars around the globe who have shared our commitment to learning.
Once you survive this gauntlet of speeches—another tradition of academic gatherings—you will join in singing the Duke University alma mater, Dear Old Duke, which was introduced 100 years ago by the graduating members of the class of 1924.
The lyrics emphasize your lifetime connection to Duke that begins today, and which will continue far beyond your graduation, regardless of where life may take you.
You’ll hear the alma mater ring from the Chapel Carillon at five o’clock every Friday evening, and we’ll have many other opportunities to sing it together, including here in Cameron Indoor Stadium, right over there with the Crazies in the student section, at the end of every basketball game.
And in four short years, we will all be in academic regalia again for your commencement, and your class will sing the Alma Mater one last time together.
By then, you will have experienced a vast number of Duke traditions, and likely started some of your own. These traditions are the ways, large and small, that we bond as a Duke community—a community of learners and scholars who support and uplift one another, and propel each other to greater successes than any of us would be capable of alone.
You are now members of a global network of more than 200,000 students and alumni who are connected by these Duke traditions.
The traditional excellence of this university has been systematically built over the past century, as you will learn from being part of our ongoing Centennial. Our excellence into the future—over our second century—is now in your hands, and in those of your classmates.
I know that Dean Guttentag and his colleagues in admissions were right in admitting you to Duke; and I share his confidence that you will do right by this extraordinary university.
To help you on your way, let me discharge another tradition, which is to offer you a bit of advice as you begin your studies tomorrow. My advice is simple: The surest way to get it right is to be honest about getting it wrong.
I realize I may be going against the grain here. The world today seems to urge us all to stand by our convictions. We celebrate finding and following our passion—particularly in an election year.
To be clear, strongly held beliefs or opinions certainly have their place, especially when they are arrived at slowly, through careful study and with an open mind, and grounded in a fair reading of evidence.
But in truth, how many of our beliefs and opinions actually stand upon that sort of bedrock of reasoned inquiry? How many, if we are being completely honest, are instead adopted through socialization? Or taking cues from other people who seem more qualified to say? Or other logical short-cuts we rely upon, out of necessity really, given all the layers of complexity surrounding all the choices we need to make?
Of course we must be guided by enduring values. And holding onto our strong beliefs and opinions, even those with less than worthy provenance, would be perfectly fine were it not for the unwarranted certainty, even ferocity and defensiveness, with which we often keep them.
Even if we happen to be right, we have no cause for self-righteousness; but as I’ve noted elsewhere, we seem to be living today in a world more likely to respond to challenges with indignance, where opposing views are met with unreflective condemnation rather than conversation.
Understandably, with wars engulfing much of the globe, with political tensions rising in so many nations, and with so much social change and instability, our natural human tendency is to recoil and rebuff. We are right; they are wrong. In such an uncertain world, we crave certainty.
Even, perhaps especially in such times, I hope you will see Duke as a place for getting things wrong.
The word “wrong” comes to us from the Old English. It meant crooked or twisted, rather than straight. The difficult road to the right answer is often just that: a winding path with changing directions along the way. Please allow yourself—for your sake and ours—to take those necessary twists and turns.
That’s what universities are for. We will question you; we will challenge you; but we will not judge you for getting things wrong while we all work together to find the path to the right answers. Experience shows that what seems a wrong turn at the time often proves to be the way home.
Now for this to work, you also have to be patient with other people. When they at first seem so very wrong to you, keep in mind that they might actually be right—even when their ideas might seem impossibly strange to you, and yes, even if they should upset you.
And I assure you, we do all get it wrong from time to time, far more often than we’d like to admit. I’ve been wrong more times than I could count.
For instance, I was dead wrong about dogs.
A seemingly trivial example, perhaps. But let me explain.
As you’re getting to know the university, two community members you’ll likely see around campus are my dogs, Cricket and Marlowe. They, like other dogs, are amazing, loving creatures.
But you see, I didn’t grow up with dogs. One of eight children in my family, I shared a bedroom with four other brothers until I was around six years old. As you might imagine, there was really not much space for dogs, or cats for that matter. So my pet experience was limited to tropical fish and a turtle. Neither experience turned out well, but that’s another story.
The bottom line was that I was never around dogs much; but I still had feelings about them—mainly apprehension, if not fear. They growl. They have sharp teeth. They are not particularly kind to rabbits or squirrels, so why wouldn’t they take a nip at my leg or my forearm?
After I was married with children of my own, my wife Annette—who had grown up in a home with dogs—began to lobby for one. I fiercely resisted, with my misgivings compounded by a belief that dogs were destructive and, given my serious investments of time and energy as a do-it-yourself homeowner, my fear that they would trash the house.
Well, my wife and kids eventually wore me down. And I’ll be the first to admit that I could not have been more wrong.
Count me a dog-person today. Our 14-year-old labradoodle Cricket is the joy of my life. Our goldendoodle puppy Marlowe is a bashful but loveable member of the family. Dogs have contributed immeasurably to my life. And while we’ve cycled through hundreds of chew toys over the years, our home is absolutely none the worse for wear.
Here’s the point: If I could be so wrong about dogs, so absolutely determined not to bring one home, how wrong might I be about other matters?
How many other times might my quite real if unfounded anxieties and fears—of different people, of strange places, of unsettling ideas—have limited my experience and understanding of the world?
The chance to encounter people whose life experiences, perspectives, and beliefs are different from ours is a gift, if only we will accept it.
Bringing you together—and creating conditions under which you can learn together; challenge each other; trust each other to talk honestly and listen carefully; and entertain the possibility that you might, just might be wrong—that is Duke’s gift to each of you.
Being open to sincere challenges to our thinking, and appreciating other perspectives, doesn’t weaken our values, but rather clarifies them. In a world that shouts, a world addicted to bullhorns and demands, ultimatums and pressure tactics, this kind of close human engagement, grounded in dispassionate education, evidence-seeking and persuasion, is not easy. But the world sorely needs it, and you are fully capable of it.
Try this: When you find yourself tempted to say “that’s outrageous,” or “I disagree,” or “how could you think that?” instead say: “Tell me more about why you think that.”
Eight words we would all do well to remember.
Saying “Tell me more about why you think that” invites conversation and discourse.
It shows someone that you are interested in their perspective. It opens the door for them to explain their position—and maybe even the life experiences that led them to that position—in a conversational way.
This can be challenging, both for the person pausing to ask for more information, and for the person who is asked to share more about their perspective. Especially if they feel that their perspective is not well understood or represented here at Duke.
But if you listen carefully, you might just be persuaded. Or persuade someone yourself. But you will learn, in any event. You will understand another person, a fellow traveler in our confusing, expansive, human world, a bit better.
Again, the surest way to get it right is to be honest about getting it wrong.
In closing, I have just one additional piece of advice to you today, which is something I share with all new Duke students.
This place is exciting, as it should be. And I’ve no doubt you will be engaged in many new activities and pursuits, as you should.
But please be sure to get some sleep.
Just as the surest way to get it right is to be honest about getting it wrong, the surest way to be our best is to get some rest. So, turn off those phones. We all need enough sleep to keep our minds alert and our hearts open.
Duke University Class of 2028, we are thrilled that you are here. You are poised to play an important role in this great university’s second century, and I can’t wait to see everything you will achieve!