Commencement 2022
Created Creative
By Wendell E. Pritchett
May 16, 2022
Hello Class of 2022! Now, I know you can do better than that. Let’s really hear it for the great Class of 2022!
That’s more like it.
We gather today to celebrate your many achievements. We also mark the remarkable years—unprecedented, even—that you have spent at Penn.
These historic times have required much of you all. You have experienced more and endured more than many Classes who came before. Yet, to our everlasting pride, you more than met the challenge. You evolved. You thrived.
You could even say you’ve developed certain special adaptations that now set you apart.
Superpowers, if you will.
Among them, your Class exhibits heightened resilience and responsiveness. Exceptional optimism tempered by pragmatism. Courageous compassion and selflessness.
Also super strength, Spidey senses, and amazing web-slinging abilities.
Wait. Ok, maybe you haven’t evolved those superpowers…. Though that would be pretty awesome….
I argue as well that you now possess even stronger skills for navigating the unfamiliar, the unexpected, and the uncertain. You see the world—its many countless challenges and unmapped possibilities—with near-superhuman keenness. Where others see a roadblock, you discern a path forward.
Now, because this is Penn, I will not simply claim all of these fantastic things as true without evidence. Like the scholars and scientists we are, we will put my claims to the test—one last test before you officially graduate. And we’re going to do it right here and now, though I promise it will be quick.
Listen up as I share some instructions. Here’s how your test will go. I will show you a picture of a landmark at Penn, something iconic, and I want you to guess what it is. But there’s a catch.
The iconic image will be presented in some way that is unfamiliar. It may be an extreme closeup, or an unusual angle. I want you to think about it, then shout out your answer. Once I hear some sort of crowd consensus, I’ll reveal the correct answer. Got it? Ready? Ok, let your last test begin.
Can I have the first image, please?
ON SCREEN APPEARS: THE BUTTON CLOSEUP
Do I have any guesses? Come on, call it out.
Ok, let’s see what it actually is.
ON SCREEN APPEARS: THE BUTTON SCULPTURE
The Button is correct! Now that we’re all warmed up, let’s really get this party started. Next image, please.
ON SCREEN APPEARS: LOVE STATUE CLOSEUP
Alright, let’s hear some guesses! Say it loud!
Ok, let’s have the reveal.
ON SCREEN APPEARS: LOVE STATUE
Great! Let’s get right into round three.
ON SCREEN APPEARS: BEN ON THE BENCH CLOSEUP
Alright graduates, let’s have the answer! Yell it out.
Alright, let’s see the image.
ON SCREEN APPEARS: BEN ON THE BENCH
It’s no surprise you are rocking this test. Here’s our final image.
ON SCREEN APPEARS: QUAKER CLOSEUP
I think I hear the right answer but yell it out again to be sure.
I believe you nailed this one. Final image, please.
ON SCREEN APPEARS: THE QUAKER
As President, I officially declare that you all passed—with flying colors. You also proved my hypothesis beautifully.
Your shared experience as a Class has been forged in the crucible of global change, enormous and at times quite scary.
This experience has granted your Class certain gifts. Among them, your advanced ability to roll with the challenges, to navigate extreme uncertainty with resilient creativity.
That gift will continue serving you well all your lives. Which is a very good thing because the world needs your unique abilities more urgently than ever. Fundamental threats to democratic norms and values; pandemics and climate change; the rip currents of war: You don’t need me to tell you that life—and the world—won’t be getting any simpler or more certain anytime soon.
Thirty years ago, the late and forever great Maya Angelou penned an essay about this very thing. She observed that, for all our assumptions, we actually know nothing certain about how our day will go. We cannot know for sure what each day may bring.
Who, after all, could have possibly predicted the twists and turns of the past two years?
I now quote Angelou’s essay: “Life is pure adventure,” she wrote, “and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”
I want to linger for a moment on that final, wonderful sentence: We are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.
Angelou rightly observes that while all of us have the capacity for such creativity, it does not simply bubble up by default. Especially amid adversity, there is no autopilot for ingenuity, no cruise control for craft. When a calamity like COVID overtakes us, we must be inventive.
How well your Class has proven it.
That fateful spring of your sophomore year, when Penn decided to evacuate campus to save lives, you turned your own lives upside down to make the plan a reality. You adapted to wholly online learning. You gave of yourselves to care for others. You masked up, marched for Black Lives Matter, got out the vote, got vaccinated and boosted. All of this you did while sacrificing special milestones and moments of joy, on top of acing your studies and extracurriculars, I might add.
You invented new scenarios as needed, and you made it work.
Writing three decades ago, Maya Angelou couldn’t have predicted any of the things you have seen. Yet, with the example you have set and your achievements we now celebrate, I believe she could just as easily have been peering into the future and writing about you.
Ten years, 25 years, 50 years from now, you will reunite for milestones. You will gather for weddings and anniversaries and, of course, Penn Alumni Weekends.
At each and every one, you will swap stories about living through an era-defining moment of enormous adversity and rising to the challenge.
You will take pride in those memories. You will reminisce.
And I bet you will still, still, be pretty tired of Zoom calls.
Speaking of reminiscing, while I was preparing to celebrate you today, I did a little digging. I wanted to recall something that occurred way back in 2018, at the beginning of the fall semester. That was a distant time which, according to the official COVID timeline of events, occurred roughly 100 years ago.
I took a look at the Convocation ceremony for the Class of 2022, and I was reminded that President Gutmann called you the “once in a millennium class.” She has been proven even more right than she knew.
But, looking back, I recall that you chose a Class nickname as well. Do you remember? That balmy August evening, by popular acclaim, you elected to call your Class “22 Together.”
If our former president has been proven more right than she knew, then all of you have proven downright prophetic.
This Class will forever be woven together more tightly than most. You proved that you are indeed created creative, and you have the amazing track record to back it up. In this and countless other ways, you have earned our everlasting respect and deserve our longest and loudest applause.
So, I ask all the families here today to stand with me now. All of our Trustees, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends, please stand now and join me in showing our boundless affection and pride for the Great Class of 2022.
Thank you and congratulations!