Later this afternoon, Notre Dame announced that the commencement speaker in May for the Class of 2013 would be Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, one of the most powerful people in the Catholic Church, and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2012. Of course everyone was ecstatic. Here we were, at the best Catholic university in the United States (and I'm assuming world but I can't back that up), getting the Cardinal of New York, a longshot candidate of being the next Pope, as our commencement speaker. Live and in person. Wow!
Wait, that's not what happened at all.
Before I get into the actual result, let's give a brief history of Notre Dame Commencement Speakers of Recent Memory (NDCSRMs).
2012: Haley Scott DeMaria, a former Notre Dame swimmer who was severely injured, and survived, the brutal 1992 bus crash that killed two of her teammates. On the 20th anniversary of the incident you would think that Notre Dame students would be excited to hear her inspiring words of perseverence and the strength of the Notre Dame family. Nope, everyone complained.
2011: Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, leader of two wars, former President of Texas A&M, the 7th largest university in the United States. Pretty cool, right? Nope, according to Patrick McDonnell, "I saw that a few students were excited, but most reactions were of indifference, simple acceptance or slight disappoint."
2009: Barack Obama, newly elected President of the United States. The Leader of the Free World! Whether I voted for him or not, this is amazing! What an opportunity! Nope, we complained because he was pro-choice. We complained about the MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD. Would we complain if Jesus came back down from Heaven to give the address???
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| Notre Dame complaining about having to sit through a boring lecture from the President |
The point of college, when you strip it down, is education. See: The University of Phoenix. At the end of the day, we are paying for the quality of education. Higher quality education = higher tuition costs. Tuition is also inflated by research that the school does, the social and charitable work that the school does, and the quality of life on campus (basically all non-school, non-charitable benefits to a student) to break it down to an extremely basic level. Let's see how Notre Dame does at all of those:
Education
- 17th best University in the U.S. - US News and World Report
- 12th best College - Forbes
- Best Business School - Bloomberg
- 10th highest median starting salary at $53,400 (across all majors) - PayScale
- An 11-1 student to faculty ratio
- 65 degree programs
- Excellent Career Center and Career Fairs
- Signaling effect to employers from a Notre Dame degree
- 53 Student Service Organizations
- 9 Student Religious Organizations
- Events such as Bengal Bouts and Bookstore Basketball that support worldwide charities
- Connections to local community service institutions
- Access to hundreds of Holy Cross priests
- 19th best Food Services in the Country
- Prettiest campus in the world
- 385 clubs and organizations
- Over 20 Division 1 sports teams
- The 2nd best football team in the country in 2012
- New facilities (Mendoza, DPAC, Jordan, Rolfs, Purcell Pavilion)
When we pay for college, we pay for the access to all of these things. We aren't entitled to any of them, we aren't guaranteed any of them, we are simply given access to them and the opportunity to use them. Everyday, Notre Dame students take advantage of these opportunities without gratitude because we feeling entitled to them. And maybe we are. Maybe we deserve them because of the check that we write every six months. I don't think that we deserve any of this.
The four years that I have had at Notre Dame have been, by far, the best four years of my entire life. I've grown in academic ways, in social ways, in religious ways, and in personal ways. Did I know I was going to go to a great school in August of 2009 when I first arrived at Alumni Hall? Yes. But I had no idea that I would become a better, more well-rounded person who was better prepared to go out and face the world. I will be eternally grateful for what Notre Dame gave me. College isn't about buying a diploma so you can get a job. College is about growing as a person, and Notre Dame, more than any school in the entire world (research not needed, differing opinions ignored), allows, and forces, students to grow as people.
So back to my first point about Cardinal Dolan. Every single review I saw of the choice of him as speaker was negative or sarcastic. They pointed to how he wouldn't be funny. They called him a homophobe. They said it wasn't as good as Brian Williams from three years ago.
There are things that are wrong with Cardinal Dolan. Most notably, he's a strong opponent to gay marriage, but so is the Catholic Church and we've all decided to go to their school. He's strongly against abortion, which Notre Dame and the Church also agree with him on. He investigated a sex abuse scandal and took priesthood away from the offenders, which we're all in favor of. At the end of the day, he's a successful, and very powerful, religious man that we can all learn from.
So what do we think we're entitled to? I've heard multiple people complain because Stephen Colbert turned us down (may or may not be a rumor, I have no idea), who was a former commencement speaker at Knox College and at Northwestern. How dare he turn down prestigious Notre Dame?!?!?! Who would have the gumption to do that?!?!?! Now we're stuck with this Cardinal? I can't believe I'm paying $50,000 for this.
If Notre Dame wanted to, they could mail us our diplomas and not have a ceremony at all. That wouldn't change our standing as graduates, and it wouldn't take away what we had done, and how we had grown, during our time here. Instead, they're throwing us a party on a beautiful May morning in the most storied football stadium in the world and we can invite whoever we want. If you want a different speech, that's fine. Here's Colbert. Here's Will Ferrell. Here's Brian Williams. Here's Steve Jobs. Are they any less meaningful words because they were directed at Northwestern or Harvard or Stanford and not the 2013 Class at Notre Dame? Is Cardinal Dolan not going to say something interesting or inspiring as well? Isn't a new speaker better than hearing a backup speech from someone who has already done it somewhere else?
What I'm trying to say is that we aren't paying $50,000 for a 20 minute speech at our graduations. We aren't paying for our graduation. We're paying it for our four years of experiences, of which graduation is simply a period on the end of a chapter. Anyone choosing to speak to us should be something that we're grateful for, not that we feel entitled to. So instead of complaining because we didn't get more whipped cream on dessert at the end of a beautiful, gourmet meal, how about we appreciate what we've been given already, and look forward to what Cardinal Dolan will say.
