Departing chancellor challenges students to use new skills for common good

BY DAVID STEINKRAUS
Journal Times

Saturday, May 17, 2008 8:37 PM CDT

SOMERS — It was like a movie, a perfect May day with sunshine and trees in bloom, graduates in their caps and gowns and the respected headmaster making his farewell. Yet, John Keating, who retires in August as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, did not use his time Saturday afternoon to stroll across green fields of memory.

He looked to the future, not his but that of the graduates seated in rows in the Student Athletic Center. The university granted degrees to 387 people this spring, although not all attended graduation.

The afternoon commencement was the final one for Keating. In the morning, the university graduated people with master’s degrees and degrees in science. The afternoon ceremony was for students with degrees in the liberal arts, and it was those fields and those skills which Keating made the theme of his keynote address.

While starting to clean out his office, he came across very old lecture notes in which he described his optimism about the state of the world. And yet, he said, he has lived his life with wars in which the United States was involved.

“And that doesn’t count all the wars that have gone on in various pockets around the globe,” he said, “but I guess that I thought we were moving in the right direction.”

Using the words of John F. Kennedy, he called on graduates to begin to solve the world’s problems even if those problems will require lifetimes to solve, and to apply the knowledge and skills they have gained for the common good.

“The world and its societies are too complex to think that simple answers will resolve its problems.” If the university has done its job, he said, students have learned to think critically and have learned the skills which will help them with the universal struggle to become harmonious individuals.

“Information is exponentially available everywhere, all the time. You need to think, to cull out what is needed to respond to complex issues in your life and in our society,” Keating said. “I hope you were exposed to current issues while at Parkside, but I predict that some of the biggest issues you will face in your future are not yet known or identified by you or anyone else.”

For himself, he said after commencement, he has no immediate goals. He wants to relax for a time, and continue with at least one national group he’s involved with. Keating is the fifth chancellor in the university’s history. His replacement will be selected by the university system.

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