Commencement 2007

Photo: Alan Berner © Seattle Times

Tomorrow is Commencement Day at the University of Washington. The campus and adjoining areas will be thronged with excited graduates in caps and gowns, surrounded by proud, beaming families.

One advantage of living only a short stroll from the campus is catching sight of the happy young men and women who graduate each year, and their even happier parents. Commencement at any college is an annual reminder that so many kids are great, and that it's ridiculous to dismiss entire generations as a bunch of slackers. In the 1920's, Gertrude Stein told Ernest Hemingway that he and his friends were all a "Lost Generation." She was wrong then, and pessimists are wrong today.

Today, the Seattle Times featured the story of one of those 2007 UW graduates. Leoule Goshu is a bright young man with an even brighter future. He graduates with a double major in communications and the comparative history of ideas. He is dedicated to helping those whose voices too often count for too little in our society. He has been a leader in the campus ACLU. As part of his undergraduate work, he spent four months in New Orleans helping promote a health clinic for residents devastated by Hurricane Katrina, as well as study in South Africa. He will enter Harvard University next fall, on a full ride scholarship, working for his Master's degree in Urban Planning. He plans to go on and obtain his doctorate.

Goshu appears to be a typical example of the most successful and promising of the new UW graduates. Except that he is not "typical." Goshu is black. And he is gay. And he was homeless. He and his folks, who immigrated from Ethiopia, do not speak to each other, nor will his parents watch their son graduate.

Living as a college student in a shelter, Goshu served as a mentor and a role model to homeless teens, showing them they didn't have to spend their lives on the streets. As a UW student, he helped organize and direct campus programs and activities for gay and lesbian students. As a young black male, on a largely white and Asian campus, his life obviously broke through numerous stereotypes in the eyes of his classmates.

Statistically, polite kids from "nice," upper middle class families tend to be more successful in school than "problem" kids from disturbed families and minority backgrounds. Goshu's college career shows that statistics do not predict any young life with certainty. He came to the University of Washington with at least three strikes against him. But he's hit a home run. Each of those strikes, rather than spelling defeat, added richness to his college experience, and purpose to his future life. "I want homeless people, gays and immigrants to represent themselves and not have elite people representing them," the Times article quotes him as saying. "I really want to change minds."

Goshu may be an unusual graduate. But every one of the some 10,600 UW students receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees tomorrow is a unique individual who has made a number of wise and fortunate choices. Each has learned to focus energies and attention in an increasingly competitive student environment, permitting him or her to reach this happy day in life. For some it has been easier, for some more difficult. I know none of them, and yet I'm proud of them all. It's a cliche, but the truth, that in all their diversity and variety, their talents and skills and knowledge, they are our future as a civilization. I wish them the best.

"Gaudeamus igitur!" as the old college drinking song goes. "Let us therefore rejoice!"