Oswalt calls on William & Mary grads to take time to wander
Actor, comedian delivers address at alma mater’s commencement
WILLIAMSBURG — William & Mary’s Class of 2023 marked the culmination of their years-long journey with a packed house and plenty of laughs.
The school held its university-wide commencement ceremony Friday evening at Zable Stadium, where the excitement was in the air as family and friends filled the stands to watch the graduates take the spotlight.
As students filed in after the traditional walk across campus, they waved from the big screens as they were greeted by scattered cheers.
“Welcome to a beautiful night at Zable Stadium,” William & Mary President Katherine Rowe said as she congratulated the graduates.
From as early as the processional, it was clear whom people were on the edge of their seats to see. When actor and comedian Patton Oswalt first appeared on the big screen, he was greeted by a eruption of cheers, meeting them with a mock-bashful, “Who, me?” gesture at the camera while Rowe laughed beside him.
“Thank you for this privilege,” this year’s commencement speaker said before turning to the more than 2,000 graduate and undergraduate candidates assembled before him: “You poor bastards.”
This year’s graduates are entering a tricky situation, said Oswalt, likening himself to a department store shift manager, giving his staff a pep talk before its shift. But instead of a normal shift, it was a shift full of disasters, from a tornado sweeping through the building to an army of rabid possums descending en masse. And while all of this was going on, the staff — or this year’s graduates — were expected to just go about their business as normal.
“You don’t have a choice to be anything but extraordinary,” he said, telling graduates they were uniquely suited to the task. “It’s stunning to see what you guys are standing up against.”
But that doesn’t mean it has to be all hard work, all the time. As Oswalt — a W&M graduate and owner of a 2.8 grade-point average during his time in Williamsburg — said, “You should also wander easy.” Though he put in plenty of hard work and long nights, he continued, everything extraordinary
in his life had come from the wandering.
During his remarks, student commencement speaker Abdimalik Hassan offered a proverb from his native Somalia, which he translated to, “If people support each other, they do not fall.”
Before he came to William & Mary, Hassan said he wasn’t sure if belonging — one of the school’s core values — could be a universal experience at an institution as storied as this one. After four years, he said the answer is unequivocally yes.
Honorary degrees were conferred upon Oswalt, a Portsmouth native; and Hank Wolf, a two-time W&M graduate, former rector and former member of the Board of Visitors. Oswalt received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree while Wolf received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” Oswalt said, quoting “Blade Runner,” the 1982 film. “All of these moments are waiting to be experienced and marveled at by all of you.”