David Brooks: Advice to Recent College Graduates – Think about How to be as much as What to be!

Dear Commons Community,

David Brooks has advice in his New York Times column today
for this year’s college graduates.  Essentially it comes down to:
it is not what you do but who you are and how you do it.  He provides
examples of graduates from elite colleges who want to make a good
deal of money on Wall Street as well as the altruistic graduates who
want to work in service to others.  He suggests that we seek excellence in
whatever it is we do.  His conclusion is a doozy:

“It’s worth noting that you can devote your life to community service and
be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero.
Understanding heroism and schmuckdom requires fewer Excel spreadsheets,  more Dostoyevsky and the Book of Job”.

Tony

 



 

Graduate Center Commencement Last Night at Avery Fisher Hall!

Dear Commons Community,

It was a proud evening last night at the Graduate Center’s Commencement at Avery Fisher Hall.  President Bill Kelly and Provost Chase Robinson presided over the ceremonies for our492 doctoral  and  82 masters degree graduates.  The main speaker was Janet Gornick, professor of political science and sociology, who referred to the importance of activism on the part of all of us and how we need to learn from and support Occupy Wall Street.   Honorary degrees were given to Marian Goodman, influential gallerist, who has exhibited many of the foremost artists of our time in New York and Paris, and Philip Levine, poet laureate of the United States.   The President’s Distinguished Alumni Medal was awarded to Binnaz Toprak, member of Turkey’s parliament, who received a doctorate from the Graduate Center in 1976.

Congratulations to all!!!

Tony