If you’re worried about whether the country will last as a constitutional representative republic, if you’re stocking up on Hormel Chunky Beef Chili in a can in preparation for the coming economic collapse, a SUNY college commencement just might be a cure for what ails you.
The commencement speaker Saturday in Geneseo was the institution’s president, Denise Battles, a sensible choice, as her address doubled as her own valedictory; she’s retiring after 10 years on the job. Besides, maybe this isn’t the time for flash.
In fact, a theme of the ceremony had to do with the importance of publicly funded education. Battles used her own life as an example, touchingly relayed — from a central New York farm family of humble means, first in her family to go to college, graduating from a private college (Colgate) with a load of debt despite financial aid, but going on to lead public institutions like the University of North Carolina at Wilmington before landing at Geneseo, where she wasn’t exactly a placeholder, judging from the new library (which my own daughter could not get enough of) or the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives gently but pointedly referred to (to audience applause).
A story of an even steeper rise against the odds came from the student speaker, Gaetan Jean Louis, a sociology and Spanish double major who grew up the son of a single mother in Haiti and has already given back by establishing a school library there. Take a moment to soak up the significance of your achievement and of this formal acknowledgement, he told the graduates, it matters. He also happened to pull in the day’s highest academic honor, Geneseo’s Richard Roark Award.
It should be noted here that SUNY’s tuition remains seven grand a year.
What exactly happened to college costs in this country is something that no one seems able to explain. Not long ago a Brit told me how her friends back home were complaining about tuition. “They have no idea,” she added. “It’s so much worse here.”
Just another blow for puzzled Americans to absorb, from the ruinous health care system to the Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan-led destruction of the manufacturing base to a politics that brings out the worst in everyone.
Thus the conundrum: As you contemplate the weekend’s college graduates, do you despair over whether society will hold together for them, or do you see them as society’s last best hope? I choose the latter.