Demand more, graduates told

By Barney Breen-Portnoy

Published: May 17, 2008

On a picturesque Saturday morning, a sea of soon-to-be University of Virginia graduates, along with family members and friends, gathered on the Lawn in front of Old Cabell Hall for Valedictory Exercises.

The event, which kicked off graduation weekend, was highlighted by a speech from entrepreneur and philanthropist Sheila Johnson, who urged graduates to recognize the high stakes of global economic competition and to strive to become leaders in a globalized society where economic boundaries are becoming more important than geographic barriers.

“No generation in my lifetime is more ready for the challenge of the global marketplace than yours is,” Johnson said. “The things that terrified my generation — the speed of change, the uncertainty of a volatile, shifting marketplace, the insidious nature of terrorism — are all things you have grown up with. These are things you have not only survived but stared down without blinking.”

Johnson co-founded Black Entertainment Television and is now the chief executive officer of Salamander Hospitality. She is the first woman to have an ownership stake in three professional sports teams — the Washington Mystics, Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals.

Johnson is also a global ambassador for CARE, an anti-poverty organization.

In 2006, Johnson pledged $5 million to the Curry School of Education to establish the Sheila C. Johnson Center for Human

Services, which supports the Curry School’s outreach efforts that serve more than 7,500 people annually.

Although she did not specify which candidate she is supporting in this year’s U.S. presidential campaign, Johnson effusively praised Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the speech he gave in March on race relations, calling it a seminal moment in the history of American oratory.

“The man had the guts to do something that political experts for 100 years have been telling candidates they should never do,” Johnson said. “He took complicated issue, arguably the most inflammatory and divisive one in the history of this country, and called it for what it is — complicated. After so many years of dumbing down issues, here was a candidate who trusted us and had enough confidence in us to not pander to our most basic emotions but to appeal to our collective intellect.”

In that same vein, Johnson told graduates to ask for more from both politicians and the media.

“I want you to demand more from our politicians, who give us halftime speeches, overwrought patriotism and simplistic all-or-nothing policies,” she said. “I want you to demand more from the media, with its pack journalism, tabloid headlines and obsession with smokescreen issues.”

Before Johnson spoke, the Class of 2008 presented UVa President John T. Casteen III with a $174,650 check, the sum of the class giving campaign. Approximately 56 percent of the senior class donated. Students could specify which university program they wanted their donation to go to, and more than 170 programs will benefit.

“This will make a tangible difference in the lives of students who come after you,” Casteen told the graduating class.

Class President Christine Devlin closed Valedictory Exercises with a reflection on her four years at the university. “At UVa, I’ve learned how to stay in the fast lane, not just on Route 29 and Interstate 64, but also in the rush hour that is the 21st century world,” she said.

Saturday’s event was a prelude to today’s Academic Procession and Final Exercises, which start at 10 a.m. on the Lawn.

Around 5,250 UVa graduate and undergraduate students will graduate today. More than 20,000 chairs have been set up on the Lawn to accommodate graduates and guests.

“I’m both excited and apprehensive about graduation,” said Laura Lammers, a fourth-year from Colorado. “I can’t wait to get my diploma.”

Hunter R. Rawlings III, a visiting classics professor at UVa and a professor of classics and history, as well as president emeritus, at Cornell University, will give the commencement address.

Diplomas will be conferred at various sites following Rawlings’ address.

Bars on the Corner will open early — at least one as early as 6 a.m. — to accommodate people seeking pre-graduation hydration.