The following is the prepared text for Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway’s address at KU’s 2003 commencement ceremony today.

It has happened once again.

We have tricked you into wearing black gowns and flat hats on a day when black absorbs the full power of the sun’s rays, and a gown shuts out any cooling breeze.

We have thereby ensured that your last, pungent memory of your alma mater will be the aroma of 5,000 people sweating.

Why do we do this? Why these clothes? Why this ceremony?

Like all rituals, KU’s graduation ceremony has symbolic meaning. It is repeated, annual behavior meant to reinforce and preserve the experience and values of the Jayhawk tribe.

The perspiration dripping down your face is a reminder of all those academic challenges you sweated through.

The walk in those gowns down the hill symbolizes your steady march toward graduation.

Think about it. Your tuition dollars entitled you to a hike up that slippery slope of credit hours, pre-requisites and departmental requirements.

This last semester saw you reach the crest of that hill. Today you walk easily down the other side. Your trek is complete. You have acquired that most special, mythic status, a Jayhawk graduate.

The walk you took today represents your academic journey of the past few years. There were tight spots, like the squeeze through the Campanile.

There were friends and family cheering you along the way, as there were today as you left the Campanile and descended the hill.

There was the heavy hand of university authority, one last time.

Those yellow trashcans reading “Deposit Containers Here,” meaning check your champagne bottles at the door.

You entered the stadium through a gauntlet of faculty. Why do we do that?

Could they be checking your credentials (Arts Forms?) one last time, making sure no imposters sneak through?

Other universities graduate. KU walks.

As I say every year, THE WALK IS THE CEREMONY AND NO ONE WALKS ALONE. Everyone will remember the walk and who walked with you. Will anyone remember the speech?

I know the answer to that question.

But this brutal fact of commencement life actually liberates your speaker. As many of you are secretly hoping, I could just sit down.

Not a chance.

Look at it this way: you took four, five, six years to get to this point, what is another 45 minutes? Just kidding.

I want to be true to the ancient Jayhawk tradition of advice giving, equipping you at the last minute with words to live by.

The New York Times columnist Russell Baker once faced this same dilemma. He defended advice-giving on anthropological grounds.

Baker said, “Ancient commencement custom demands that somebody stand up here and harangue the poor graduates until they beg for mercy. The ancient rule is, make them suffer.”

Get it? Suffering through the speech is another part of the ritual. It is the sitting part of the walk. So let me finish by helping you take your medicine. No matter how much you beg for mercy, here are ten rules to live by.

First, some advice about money. I realize you don’t have much of it now, but there is at least an 18 percent chance you will have money someday. There is a 100 percent chance that your family thinks you’ll earn some money.

Rule #1
1. Never invest in a business that you know nothing about. If no one knows what Enron does, don’t presume that they are making money at it.

2. It is not a real job unless they pay for health insurance. Parents, do not claim that your child has a career unless someone covers hospitalization.

3. Share your wealth. Not now, because you don’t have any. But later when you do. Family comes first. They must be provided for. But then think about helping that homeless guy you saw pushing the grocery cart with his worldly belongings. The two of you have more in common than you are willing to admit.

4. Do not pick up a check if there are more than 30 others in your group. This rule should never be broken.

Next, some advice about living.
5. Celebrate diversity. A Black, Oklahoma congressman, J.C. Watts, once told me a profound truth. No one in the universe had any choice about the color they were born. If diversity is good enough for God, it should be good enough for us.

6. Tommy Fawcett, who is here today, your parents want you to take that job in Dr. Mayo’s school.

7. Jessica Risley, Teach for America, is a great program. Good luck in Baton Rouge.

• 8. While we are talking about teaching, honor your professors. Many people have shaped you and made you the kind of person you are. Don’t be arrogant enough to believe that you did it alone. Don’t think that just because you were born on third base that you hit a triple.
• 9. Know who Senator Joe McCarthy was and what McCarthyism is: the persecution of innocent people through sensational but unproven accusations. You may need this knowledge, even in Kansas.
• 10. Speaking of Kansas, stand up for your state. Have an explanation ready when some smart aleck in an airport says, Kansas: Last year they tried to ban evolution, this year they tried to outlaw sex.

Finally, remember the advice that Conrad Hilton offered when someone asked him what he could pass on to others, after 50 years in the hotel business, “Always keep the shower curtain inside the bathtub.”