Nearly 2,000 University graduate and undergraduate students received degrees in December, and many graduates attend the relatively small commencement exercise on Dec. 20 in Crisler Arena.
"We all have someone to thank for standing here in Crisler Arena," said graduating LSA senior Jose Rivas. Rivas thanked his family, friends and professors for sacrificing and devoting time to his education.
"If you take only one thing away from this institution it is the belief in the helping hand," Rivas said.
University President Lee Bollinger centered his speech on the black birds that live on the University campus.
"We hope that your years here at the University have been all that you wanted," Bollinger said. "More than anyone else at the University, I am aware that we have not done everything that you wanted done."
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| WARREN ZINN/Daily An Enginering graduate takes a drink from a bottle of champagne at last month's winter commmencement ceremony. |
He suggested students look at the black birds through poetry and art, comparing the birds droppings to a Jackson Pollack drip painting.
Bollinger also said students should "resist being beguiled by easy answers" and warned against technology altering education.
"We should not read a great book or see a great painting and think we now know it," Bollinger said. Education is "an ever present and never ending conversation."
Bollinger stressed the value of continued learning after graduation.
"Try to deepen your relationships with those you have come to know: artists, poets...," Bollinger said.
The University Board of Regents also granted honorary degrees to David DiChiera, founder and director of the Michigan Opera Theatre and Chen Ning Yang, physicist and Nobel Prize Winner.
DiChiera said students should attempt to stay involved with the arts following graduation.
"What troubles me is that federal support for the arts is dismal," DiChiera said. The United States is in the lower third of all counties in the world for per capita funding of the arts, DiChiera added.
"Maybe it is fear that makes us look upon the arts with suspicion," DiChiera said.
DiChiera championed the arts as an educational tool for students.
"The arts help young people develop discipline, team work and problem solving skills," DiChiera said. "Incorporating the arts into your life can also expose you to diversity."
Opera music mixed into the conclusion of DiChiera's address emphasized the arts once more.
"Passions drove me and passion is what I wish will drive you," DiChiera said.
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