KU News Release

May 19, 2008
Contact: Lynn Bretz, University Communications, (785) 864-7100.

Text of speech given by KU chancellor at commencement May 18

LAWRENCE — The following is the text of University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway’s commencement speech.

Once again, as Jayhawks have done for 136 years, we gather together to celebrate your graduation from a great university. The movements of the ritual stay the same. It is a kind of symbolic dance, what an anthropologist might call a rite of passage.

Students march through the campanile and stroll down the hill with great joy. Some stop to offer libations to the gods, then try to conceal assorted bottles beneath their robes.

As they enter the stadium, students walk between a corridor of faculty. It is a passage of some significance, exposing students to some risk. Every student secretly fears that a faculty member will suddenly grab them by the shoulder and shout out, “I know you! You didn’t pass my course. What are doing here?”

My advice, if this happens to you, is to just explain that it is a ritual repeated for decades. Your parents expect you to be here. You are happy to fulfill their expectations; it’s the least you can do after years of contributing to their anxiety and doubt. So, Class of 2008, welcome to KU’s celebration of your accomplishment.

But wait a moment. This graduation is also different. Let’s be honest about it.

You are members of the Class of 2008, the year that KU’s football team won the Orange Bowl and the basketball team won the Final Four. For the rest of your life you will remember 2008. It was in 2008 that the debate team beat Harvard, Todd Reesing became a Heisman Trophy candidate and Aquib Talib went in the first round of the NFL draft.

2008 was the year that Mario Chalmers made a spectacular three-point shot that sent Jayhawks around the world jumping and shouting and hugging, creating euphoria of grand intensity. So much intensity, as a matter of fact, that 50,000 people rushed to the center of Lawrence to share in the celebration.

The Class of 2008 brings a unique reference point to your future. “You graduated in 2008? Wow, what a game!”

There has never in history been a graduating class that brings to this ceremony the credentials that you bring. 2008, the year that we won it all.

Your kids will read about 2008, but you know what it felt like to be there — in San Antonio, at Rita’s Bar, on the streets of Lawrence with 50,000 instant friends, everyone waving the wheat in rapture and bliss.

Everyone knows where they were at the moment of celebration. There are thousands of stories. One student told me that he was astounded to see older celebrants dancing with abandon. “Old people, old people!” one of his friends warned, looking out for their safety. I met a man who totaled his car trying to get to the game. But it was okay, he said, because I knew we would win. God wouldn’t spare our lives to let us lose.

Where was the chancellor? He was in San Antonio jumping from one person to another after Mario’s shot. I hugged my son. I hugged my daughter-in-law. I hugged my wife. I hugged Lew Perkins. I high fived the governor. The governor hugged the coach. Everyone hugged somebody else, including the small policeman who was unsuccessfully trying to keep Darnell Jackson from climbing over the press table to hug his mother.

All of these moments combine to endow your graduation with the magic of 2008.

I recently read a letter by Nathan Robert Carter, a KU junior. He understands why 2008 is so special. He wrote a letter that captures this magical feeling. Carter says, “In the coming weeks and months, sports analysts all over the country will place the 2007-2008 Kansas Jayhawks under a microscope. What made them champions? Curiosity will pull us to the newsstands. We’ll all pick up the new Sports Illustrated…we’ll read every article they write.”

But Nathan is most interested in what they won’t write. He says, “They won’t write about what KU basketball actually is … KU basketball is not one moment. It’s not one player or one coach. It’s not one team … It’s not even Phog Allen or James Naismith.” It is 50,000 people within five blocks in “just one big universal high five. It doesn’t matter if you know anybody or not. Walk down the street and hold out your hand.” Nathan Robert Carter has it right. He understands the magic.

2008 was the year that Bill Self chose to stay at KU. The year that KU’s athletic director, Lew Perkins, was recognized as the best athletic director in the country. A year in which the debate team, and the special education department and the public administration program finished the season as No. 1, according to U.S. News and World Report. 2008 was the year that KU architecture students built an arts building for tornado-ravaged Greensburg. In 2008, 500 student athletes had a 3.0 GPA.

We also say, every year, that the walk is the ceremony. Instead of graduation we say, “We walked the hill in 2008.” As we walk together, remember what 2008 stands for — the year that the team made us all champions.

What really happened in that game? Our team was behind by nine points with two minutes left.

People were beginning to think about excuses. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to give up. To accept defeat. To be satisfied with “almost.”

Instead the team found a way to win. That is the magic of 2008. You will leave this hill and this campus as a specially endowed person.

Remember not just that the Jayhawks won, but how they won. They accepted the responsibility for winning.

That responsibility is transferred to you in this graduation ceremony. We all become winners on graduation day.

To put it simply, Jayhawks are winners, on the field, on the court, in the classroom. 2008 bestows upon you special gifts. Go forth and use them well.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.

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