Robert F.X. Sillerman, Chancellor, Southampton Graduate Campus
Address to Graduates
Commencement, May 23, 1999

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On this glorious day of individual accomplishment (where the weather is parenthetical and no amount of rain can dampen your spirits), let us reflect on a trend in society that is putting the individual in conflict with the human need for a sense of community.

It is not a particularly enlightening observation to note that technology in general, and the digital world in particular, have made it possible to conduct a perfectly "productive" life without any personal interaction. Rather than going to the library where one encounters fellow students, professors, library staff and others, one can now go to the computer. Rather than going to the bookstore, and talking with book lovers and booksellers one can go to the computer. Rather than going to the bank, the record store, the clothes shop, even the auction house, and on and on, one can find isolated and technologically aided way to accomplish virtually anything. Indeed, with the convergence of technology and science, you can even make a baby without a partner. All true and technically "successful", transactions. Yet though they might be technically successful are they at all satisfying? I suspect not completely.

There seems to be something in all of us that needs human contact, that craves communal experience, that wants group validation. That needs the "campus" in some form well beyond when formal education has ended. Sure you can watch a basketball game on television alone, but isn't it better when viewed with a group of like minded friends? And isn't it better still when witnessed (sometimes even at an inconvenient and expensive location) with 15,000 other screaming fans? You can listen to the latest Dave Matthews CD and have the highest quality audio experience, yet that palls in comparison to the energy of a live performance-- even with lesser absolute quality of sound. The Super Bowl, Saturday Night Live, ER, the final episode of Seinfeld, all could be taped, but you would rather not. Even if you were watching alone, the experience would be made better by knowing others were seeing what you were when you were. And the next day, there is pure pleasure in recounting your common experience.

So, as technology permits greater and greater individualism, and indeed enhances personal productivity, it is also putting us on a crash course with human nature. The ability to achieve things alone can also create a sense of isolation without our even knowing it.

I point this out, on your greatest day of individual accomplishment for two reasons. First, as a plea to ask you to remember that as successful as you become individually, it is what you do as a part of a community that will form your memories, inform your character and renew your soul. Isn't that indeed why you sit here today, as part of this eager buoyant group rather than waiting for your diploma to come in the mail or printing it out on a DeskJet printer? And, finally, as a warning. It's too easy to be narrow-minded and become jaded, isolated and ultimately prejudiced when you're not exposed to a broad cross-section of individual thinkers. All the people at any concert, auction or sporting event certainly have interests in common, but I assure you they have many, many other differences. And the exposure to those differences (exposure that you won't get if you only live your life digitally - isolated from the gloriously mismatched masses) is what makes life whole, keeps us sane and keeps us truly one.

I am reminded of the story of the wave, frolicking in the ocean having a wonderful day. His happiness is interrupted by loud sounds and suddenly he sees the waves in front of him, crashing onto the shore. In agitation he seeks comfort. He turns to the wave behind him, who is still smiling happy. Perplexed, the first wave points out what lies in front of them, and screams "What's wrong with you? Can't you see what's happening to the waves in front of us? Don't you see what's obviously going to happen to every wave?" The second wave says to the first, "And don't you realize you're not just a wave? You're part of the ocean."

Be a successful and cheerful wave. But never, ever ignore the larger ocean that surrounds you. You'll have more fun, achieve more fulfillment, be more satisfied, and above all, be a better person for it.