University of Maryland Graduate School, Baltimore
May 25, 2005

William H. Foege
Emeritus Distinguished Professor of International Health
Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University

Graduates, and every one who is here because you are precious to them. Your parents and friends, the faculty, the workers who make this institution run effectively, your incredible president and the administration. They are here because you graduates represent their dreams, their hopes, you are a part of their contribution to a better society, one of their sources of immortality.

I was cooking dinner with my grandson who was 6. I spilled bacon grease on the floor and he immediately jumped down from his chair saying, “I’m going to tell grandma.” I asked why he would do that since it would only get her excited and he said, “OK but I am at least going to tell mommy.” But why would you do that? He answered, “Because she needs some excitement in her life.”

Today you have some excitement in your lives. We are here to celebrate one of your absolutely great moments.

It’s better than the lottery. Win the lottery and the next day you are the same person except with money in your bank account. But you are leaving today having won a lottery of the mind. Be absolutely grateful.

Whether you make the rest of your life about yourself or others--I will, of course, give you some advice. Why? Because the passion to teach far surpasses the passion to learn. That is why we have commencement addresses. I have compiled some of the lessons I have learned 278 of them! I will share but 12.

LESSON #1: BOSSES

I was at my wife’s four-year-old class in white coat, showing them how to use a stethoscope, an otoscope, a reflex hammer etc., talking about how to stay healthy, when a four-year-old girl asked, “Do doctors have bosses?” That is not an accidental question and I would like to follow her career. I told her their patients are their bosses. Some weeks later I used the example at a UNICEF seminar and asked who their bosses were. They said, “All the children of the world.” But then we concluded, if they were to do their job correctly they must see their bosses as all of the children of the world plus every child who will ever be born in the future!

You will all have bosses to do annual performance ratings. But in a very real sense--every person who will ever live in the future is your boss. Because you are preparing for them the world they will live in.

Abraham Lincoln has no biological DNA in our gene pool. And yet we are aware daily of how important it is that he lived. His importance is that he left the social equivalent of DNA and his social DNA will go on forever. The same is true for each one of you. Your social DNA will go on to influence the world for as long as there are people.

LESSON #2: THE USES AND LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE

Those outside of science are often overwhelmed by the sense of certainty that they think scientists have but certainty, as the great physicist Richard Feynmann taught, is the Achilles Heel of science, religion, medicine and politics. He said even physics facts are certain only within some margin of error and we are always trying to prove them wrong.

How to use science? One problem was elucidated 700 years by Roger Bacon when the Pope asked him for a summary on science. He gave a summary, including the observation that science lacks a moral compass. The great challenge to us is to use our science for the benefit of all. We have yet to learn that lesson. I say to students that they should love science, absolutely love it, but don’t worship it. There is something better than science, and that is science with a moral compass, science that contributes to social equity, science in the service of humanity.

LESSON #3: THIS IS A CAUSE AND EFFECT WORLD

Stephen Hawking said that the history of science is the gradual realization that things do not happen in an arbitrary fashion. Jonas Salk reminded us, evolution will be what we want it to be because this is not a fatalistic world. You would not be here if you were fatalists. You got an education because you actually think you can change the future--AND YOU CAN. Of course we are all a mixture of fatalism and non-fatalism. I often say that I’m most fatalistic when I get into a taxicab because I’ve lost control. One night in Philadelphia I got into a taxicab heading from the airport to the downtown. It is not far, but suddenly I realized I was smelling alcohol. So I engaged the driver in conversation to see how great my risk was. I said, “You should know I’m a high-risk passenger.” He asked what that meant and I told him that I have been in five taxi accidents in my life. He said, “That’s nothing. I’ve been in a lot more than that.”

LESSON #4: BE A GLOBALIST

The bumper sticker “Think globally, act locally” is catchy but it’s totally inadequate. What the bumper should say, and then it wouldn’t make a good bumper sticker, is “Think and act both locally and globally.” Einstein said nationalism is an infantile disease; he called it the measles of mankind.

LESSON #5: KEEP YOUR BALANCE

Try to be a Generalist and Specialist simultaneously. Be curious and keep learning about the world. Curious about everything, because then you understand where your specialty, your gifts, your talents fit in.

LESSON #6: FRIENDSHIP

Samuel Johnson said that we cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.

Many of you found friendships here. Maintain those friendships because they are worth the trouble.

LESSON #7: DO NO HARM

Every profession has this as rule #1. Yet they often think of the errors of commission. We hurt far more people through the errors of omission. The things we don’t do. When I left for Africa 40 years ago, my supervisor said, “By the way. You will never forget the people you kill.” I finally understood you do forget them because you don’t know them. They are the ones hurt by the things we didn’t do. The vaccines not given, the science not shared, the orphans not cared for, the refugees ignored.

LESSON #8: TENACITY

Tenacity won’t always bring success. But it is the only thing that will. In the 1968 Olympics, John Stephen Akhwari, running the marathon, fell and injured his knee. He continued on, falling further and further behind. Long after every one else had finished he came limping into the arena and received a standing ovation. When asked by a reporter why he continued when he had no chance of winning a medal, and it was almost embarrassing, he said, “My country did not send me 7000 miles to start the race. They sent me 7000 miles to finish the race.”

Mae West once described a suitor as so tenacious he was the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of. Learn tenacity.

LESSON #9: THE MEASUREMENT OF CIVILIZATION

Historians have tried all kinds of measurements: Knowledge, technology, control of one’s environment. None of them work. Even happiness doesn’t work. As Will Durant pointed out, if it was the criterion then three year olds would be more civilized than their parents.

But there is a measure. The measure of civilization is finally how people treat each other. It measures a nation, a political party, a society, a university, a teacher, a graduate. How you treat people will be the measure of you as a person.

LESSON #10: THE NEED FOR OPTIMISM

The trouble with being an optimist, of course, is that people think you don’t know what’s going on. But it is the way to live. I tell students there is a place for cynicism and a place for pessimism and whenever you need it, contract for it but don’t get those people on your payroll. They will ruin your day.

LESSON #11: CLOSE THE GAP

Now that you are part of this blessed and educated group, CLOSE THE GAP so that everyone has the opportunities you have had.

Don’t for a moment think you did it on your own. You have had a president and faculty who have made this the objective of their lives. Society and families invested in you and you can now leave here to use that investment for yourself or you can leave here so grateful, so thankful, that you decide you want everyone to have that chance. You can promote the idea that the place of birth, the color of skin, the finances of parents, will no longer be the factors that determine whether a newborn baby gets to have the same chance that you had. You can leave here so grateful that social justice becomes your song. Your ambition. Your identification.

Gandhi reminded us that people often become what they believe themselves to be, and if you now see yourself as the person who lifts people out of poverty that is what you will become.

LESSON #12: WE CAN NEVER REST

It was at the battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 when Col. Thomas S. Allen of the 5th Wisconsin rallied the troops with words that the survivors remembered for the rest of their lives. “When the signal forward is given, you will start at double quick and you will not stop until you get the order to halt.” And then he added, “And you will never get the order to halt.”

Improving the world for our future bosses, our neighbors even though they won’t be born for hundreds of years, is worth your efforts--learn the lessons well, for we will never get the order to halt.

Mary Oliver, in her poem “When death comes,” writes:

“When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

I wish you a good life, a life of participation, not just having visited this world. A life where you shape the world, where the future labels you a good ancestor. Churchill said, “History will be good to me. I know because I intend to write it.” Get up every morning knowing you are writing history. Get up every morning thanking your family, this faculty, this president--for teaching you how to do that.

And thanks for letting me be part of this moment.

Thank you.