OPRAH TELLS 2017 GRADS: LIVE IN TRUTH
Speakers offer advice at Skidmore College commencement ceremony
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> Skidmore College delivered 624 degrees Saturday during its commencement ceremony at Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
Three well-accomplished individuals also received honorary degrees, and each provided advice, congratulations and inspiration to the 106th graduating class of Skidmore College.
Felicia Mohau Mazibuko, who graduated from Skidmore College on Saturday, attended the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. The school — which provides educational opportunities to academically gifted girls from disadvantaged backgrounds — celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
Winfrey, a well known media personality and entrepreneur, said Saturday that the moment she met Mazibuko years ago, she noticed something special about the girl.
“I knew instantly she had it,” said Winfrey. “She had that thing, that essence that
you can’t really define, that spark of resilience and hope and aspiration and drive that says ‘I can, I know I am.’”
Winfrey shared her dream for the graduates.
“I have been so blessed to live inside the dream of God. I figured out early on, you know, I had these dreams for myself. I used to tell my father, ‘I’m going to live in a house on a hill,’ ‘I’m going to have a million dollars,’ and I learned early in my career that the dream I had for myself couldn’t compare to the dream that life had for me,” said Winfrey. “So I figured out how to lean into life; to lean into life and allow the flow that was designed for me to follow, and to allow that flow to be my guide. And every decision I have ever made has come from listening to the flow that represents the truth in me — that is also the truth in you. You already know the truth.”
Winfrey said all graduates have lived in truth their whole lives, and she wants them to continue to live in truth.
“Being able to make the right choice based upon what is the truth of you is the dream and hope I hold for you today, because being able to do that has led me to this stage and many other stages throughout the world,” said Winfrey. “It’s the truth.”
Another speaker was Ann Rubenstein Tisch.
“You have to be prepared to organize your lives around challenges, dead ends, failures and veering off course. They are all part of life. Every one of us has experienced them,” said Tisch. “Failure can only be avoided by saying nothing and doing nothing, which of course leads to a life of no purpose, substance or joy. The best way to deal with trying times is to recognize them as invitations to think. Over and over highly accomplished people say they learned much more in their failures than from their successes.”
Tisch had a dream years ago to give girls an opportunity to attend an allgirls public school. Tisch reached out colleges, university and non-profit to help Tisch and her team create an all-girls public school in New York City.
“I faced a barraged of negativity, and I was sure I was failing. I wish back then I heard the quote that ‘Failure should be our teacher and not our undertaker,’” said Tisch. “Graduates, there’s valuable knowledge tangled up in fear. You can get to it by relying on that which you trust — your instincts, your inner voice, your mentors.”
Tisch eventually turned her dream into a reality by opening the Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem in 1996.
Tisch said for graduates to learn to redefine failure as part of the process of success.
“It will help you build confidence,” said Tisch.
Wes Moore, who serves as CEO of Bridge-EdU, wrote two New York Times bestselling books. In 2010, The Other Wes Moore was published, and three years later a particular class had to read it before their college careers began.
Moore spoke to Skidmore College’s Class of 2017 back when they were freshmen, and it was only fitting he spoke to them on their graduation day.
Moore asked the graduates their majors.
“That’s the last time anyone will ask you that,” Moore said. “The question of what you majored in will fade, the question of what you stand for will not.”
The graduating class selected business professor Mark Youndt as its faculty speaker. Youndt quoted one of his favorite poets, Gary Snyder: “Stay together, learn the flowers, go light.”
Madison Plummer, Matt Lueckheide and Abude Al-Asaad were student speakers. Plummer, the class president, reflected on how the college experience is about memories, while Lueckheide and Al-Asaad, who served as chairs of the Senior Gift campaign, announced the 2017 graduating class broke the record for highest percentage of graduates to donate in the Senior Gift campaign.