William E. Conway Jr. Graduation Keynote | Trinity Washington University

Thank you very much, Dr. Kelly, President McGuire, deans, faculty, family members, friends, and of course students. Thank you for the great honor of giving me of being your graduation speaker. I really think the honor today belongs to you, not to me. I'm sorry that my wife isn't here. She's the driving force behind our nursing scholarship program. To update the numbers, now over 3,000 people have received Conway scholarships, and our goal is 10,000 nursing scholarships, which we hope to get to.

Congratulations to the graduates. I know it was not always easy or fun, and I suspect a lot of times it maybe even seemed useless. You know, if I think back to my college time, it was a long time ago, you know, but I didn't think all of it was added value, really. But now that you've earned your degree, as President McGuire said, you have a set of special responsibilities, and I'm going to talk about that in a minute. I think it's very important that each of the people getting a degree today—whether bachelor's or an advanced degree—that you think back to those people who helped you earn this degree. I would say it would be a unique person who did this all alone. I would congratulate that person as well, but for many others it's some combination of people who love you and badger you and finance you and encourage you and, you know, castigate you sometimes to help you get the degree. I think you should make sure that you always thank those people who are here and who helped you. You do that, and they certainly make sure you do that.

Far less important than your role here today and the people who've helped you get here today is my role here today. In looking at the schedule, I'm the one who kind of stands between you and getting your diploma, so I will be mercifully brief. Usually when I speak in public I talk to people about investing money; it's kind of how I made my money, and I don't usually tell them how to live the rest of their lives. I'm certainly not going to do that with you. I cannot even remember who gave the graduation speech when I graduated from college. I have no idea what he or she said. I am positive that it had no significant impact on my life. I also received a master's degree from the University of Chicago about 45 years ago, and I have no idea who the speaker was then or what they said. So I'm not fooling myself, and I'm not going to fool you, that what I have to say is something that you're going to remember and that's going to change your life. To gain some insight into what I might say to you, I went online and looked on the internet for graduation speeches that were supposed to be some of the finest given. I thought, well, maybe I can learn something from that. Usually the speech involved some old person like me trying to summarize, you know, why I'm so wonderful and to impart to someone like you all that acquired wisdom that I have, and then inspiring you to go forth, to follow your dream, to not be afraid to fail, to be passionate, to be kind, to work hard. I'm not going to do that either.

I can think of two reasons why I was selected to be the graduation speaker today. First, as you've already heard, my grandmother Ellen McQuaid graduated from Trinity in the class of 1912. When I first started to get involved with Trinity, President McGuire gave me a copy of the 1912 yearbook, and I was able to see my grandmother, long since dead now, as a young girl. Of course I knew her when she was a mother of four and a grandmother of eighteen, including me, and it was interesting to see this woman as a young girl. Linda spoke a little bit about her accomplishments as class president and an athlete and everything else. She was a wonderful grandmother, I'd say. So they might have chosen me to be your speaker because of my grandmother. The second reason is because of all those nursing scholarships I give. The nurses are obviously some of them are happy, and hopefully they'll get a job and that'll make them even happier. But I don't think that either my philanthropy or my grandmother qualifies me to be your speaker today, but here I am.

I'd like to give a special shout-out to the nursing students. And I really have to admit I feel troubled by the nursing students who aren't Conway scholars. I'd like to think long-term how I'm going to do something about that, because I don't think there's that much difference between the Conway scholar and not a Conway scholar. So in order to become a nurse, you have to pass the NCLEX exam—nursing clinical licensure exam. You have to pass it. I love this exam. It questions prospective nurses on their knowledge and their skills. If you pass the exam you can become a nurse. If you don't pass, you cannot become a nurse. It's simple: you pass, you can become a nurse and get a job; if you don't pass, you can't become a nurse. Nationally, about 85 to 90 percent of the students after studying for two to four years pass the test. Last year, Trinity had 29 students take the test. All 29 passed—100 percent.

So congratulations to them. I will say, as a little tiny aside, when I heard that all 29 passed, I said, this test can't be that tough. So I went online and I said, I'm going to take the NCLEX test. Well, do you want to study for that? I said, no, no, I don't need to study. I'm a smart guy, and I've got 3,000 nurses on scholarship. I made a lot of money, I know what I'm doing. I've been in the hospital a few times, I can pass this test. So I really—you can go online too, and before you laugh too much at me, I strongly recommend that those of you who think you can do better, you go online after this speech is over. They have a practice exam of 20 questions, all multiple choice, and there were four choices. I thought, well, half the choices won't make any sense at all, I can throw them out, and then of the other half I'll just guess. Sometimes I'll get them right, sometimes I'll get them wrong. The monkey score—the person picking at random, knowing absolutely nothing—would get five questions out of 20 right. I, being a genius, got a six. So I strongly recommend those of you who are nurses to study hard, because it's not that easy to become a nurse and to pass. I actually take a lot of comfort from that. I think if some dummy like me without studying was able to go in and pass the nursing clinical exam, maybe that'd be a horrible thing. So I congratulate those people who passed, 29 out of 29. I have new respect for all of you. That's about the last thing I'm going to say in commenting about me, because now I want to talk about you.

I have three main thoughts. You are fortunate, you are unique, and you can make a difference. First, you're fortunate. As I said earlier, you've got a degree from Trinity. President McGuire spoke about it. Hopefully you've learned that the value of your education is a lot more than what you've learned here; it's even a lot more than the ability to get a job. It's how to learn, how to listen, how to live. You probably know, and if you don't you should know, that Trinity when it was established in 1897 was established by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. The special thing about these sisters was that their mission was and is to make known the goodness of God. If you think about it, that's kind of a spectacular mission statement—to make known the goodness of God. That is what the Sisters of Notre Dame do, and I think that goodness of God is on display here today with all of you. So what's your mission? What are you going to do with your good fortune and your degree?

In addition to being fortunate, you're also unique. You're different than everyone else. No one has your emotions, your drive, your compassion, your history, your genes, your good qualities, your bad qualities, your sense of humor, and your special place in time and in the universe. However, as unique as you are—and everybody is unique—you're not the center of the universe. A lot of times everybody thinks they're the center of the universe: I'm here, I got my friends, my God, my job, whatever. You're not the center of the universe. I'm reminded of a story about Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein was the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He won the Nobel Prize. He was the one who talked about E equals MC squared—energy equals mass times the speed of light squared—showing how much energy could come when you split an atom or something like that. He developed new conceptual models of the universe. Really, he was the most famous person on the planet without any question. He was more famous than the Pope, the president, and Taylor Swift combined. He was the most famous person on the planet. He had bushy gray hair and he was kind of very distinguished, and obviously he won the Nobel Prize and he was a genius at everything he did. So this is a story told about him. Einstein is on a train, and the conductor comes through the car asking people for their tickets: tickets, please. He comes to Einstein, and Einstein can't find his ticket. He's looking through his pants pocket, he's looking through his jacket pocket—no ticket. The conductor says, don't worry, Dr. Einstein, we know who you are and we know you have a ticket. And the conductor moves on. Einstein's so frustrated he can't find his ticket, and he continues looking for it—down on the floor, crawling around, looking in the seat pocket in front of him, looking in his back baggage. The conductor comes by again and says, Dr. Einstein, don't worry about the ticket, we know who you are. And Einstein says, I know who I am too, but I don't know where I'm going. If you think about that, if Einstein didn't know where he was going, how can the rest of us? So you're unique, but do you know where you're going?

Third and finally, you can also make a difference. The opportunities to make a difference can be small or big. I find they happen frequently. We tend to think there's some seminal moment in your life that will make all the difference. It doesn't work like that. Every day there's plenty of opportunities to make a difference, and you don't have to be a superhero to do it. But what you do when the time comes to make the difference will define who you are. Let me give you some recent examples of people—some familiar to you, some not—who are making a difference. One is a writer at the Washington Post. His name is John Kelly. I don't know if any people actually read a newspaper anymore, but he writes a column in the Metro section of the Washington Post two or three times a week. He's been trying to raise money for various charities lately. He writes about ordinary things. This week he wrote an article about buying a new car and an article about dog tags on a grave in Arlington Cemetery. He's done things on sports teams and DC landmarks and everything else. He's been doing this for 30 years. This man writes a column on John Kelly's Washington. Some might say it's a very ordinary thing, but I think it's extraordinary what he's done. All the information he's imparted and stories he's told about people, making us a better place and better people, has made a big difference.

Another story this week in the Post about a young man by the name of Raquan Brown. Maybe some of you have heard of him. He's a 17-year-old straight A student at Benjamin Banneker Academy in the District. He's a star football player. We've got a Banneker graduate here? Stand up! Alright. Anyway, this young man, 17 years of age, student body president, star football player, being recruited by all these colleges to go. Both his stepfather and a teammate of his on his football team were shot and killed. Because of the impact of these tragedies, this young man started a clothing company, and in honor he donates 20 percent of the proceeds that this company makes to be used to purchase guns and get them off the streets. Talk about making a difference.

Let me give you another example. This one is about someone more famous: Pope Francis. You probably saw this in the paper just recently, although on TV. Francis is going through a line, shaking hands with everybody. He comes to this one lady, shakes her hand, and she won't let go. He tries to move on to the next person, and the woman is hanging onto him, won't let him go. Finally he slaps her hand, she lets go, and he moves on. Story over? Not really. The next day, Francis says: 'So many times we lose our patience. Me too. And I apologize for yesterday's bad example.' Someone else making a difference in a normal, everyday thing. Today nobody apologizes; they have an excuse, not really an apology. That was Francis with an apology.

Another example: a doctor at Johns Hopkins won the Nobel Prize, like Einstein did. His name was Greg Semenza. It was a great honor. He was really a regular kind of person, you kind of think normal. But he didn't bask in the glow of winning the Nobel Prize. What he did was pay tribute to his high school biology teacher. Her name was Rose Nelson. He said she inspired him and others to pursue careers in scientific research by teaching about the scientists and the scientific process. The difference maker here is Rose Nelson, not Greg Semenza, the man who won the Nobel Prize.

A final example of someone who has made a difference is the president of Trinity University, Pat McGuire. Pat was a 1974 graduate of Trinity, and in 1989 she became the president of Trinity—30 years she's been the president. I think that deserves a round of applause. At the time she became president, the full-time enrollment at Trinity had fallen to 300 people. I've heard stories that Trinity was on the verge of closing, but the sisters of Notre Dame and Pat McGuire wouldn't let Trinity close. 'We're not closing Trinity,' they said. Today, the enrollment is over 2,000 at Trinity. Congratulations to Trinity. Today Trinity educates more DC public high school graduates than any other private university in the United States. It's ranked number three on the list of most affordable women's colleges in the United States. I know some of you wish you were even more affordable, but that's okay. I think of the difference that Pat McGuire has made. There'd be no Trinity without that and without the Sisters of Notre Dame.

All those people are examples of people who made a difference. Now you probably would say: Einstein said 'I know who I am,' and you also say, 'I know who I am not. I'm not a Washington Post writer, I'm not a high school football star, I'm not the Pope, I'm not a high school biology teacher, and I'm not a university president.' What do all those people have in common? Those five examples I gave you—not much, except they're all unique, one of a kind, just like the rest of us. Yes, they're good human beings and they have reasonable or perhaps considerable intelligence, but in many ways they have little in common. Two women, three men; one PhD, one still in high school; ages ranging from 17 to 83; one black, three white, one Hispanic. What they have in common is that they all made a difference. You can too.

In my life, I wish that I had made more of a difference when I was young. Like many of you, I worried about the things I did, and as I've gotten older I regret the things I didn't do. Mostly I should have stood up for people who can't stand up for themselves more than I did. Sometimes when I could have made a difference, I didn't. I'm trying to make up for lost time. When I look around the world, I see how much better it could be. I think: doesn't God see this problem? Fill in the blank: the opioid crisis, cancer, homelessness, climate change, or more personal problems: your job, your health, your family, your debts, whatever. And you say, well, why doesn't God do anything about it? God is thinking: of course I see the problem, I'm God. And God is also thinking: why don't you do something about it? What are you Trinity graduates going to do to make the world a better place? Thank you.