After four students from the Army ROTC solemnly walked flags down the court to the stage where robed professors and speakers waited to address the crowd gathered in the bleachers of McArthur Court on June 17, figures in robes and mortar boards flooded in for their commencement. As they took their seats, the crowd cheered and the University Brass Choir played.
About half of the folding chairs reserved for graduates remained empty though, because each school holds its own ceremony. The
main commencement is dedicated for
doctoral students.
During the annual ceremony, University and political figures spoke to the students and their loved ones in attendance about life – its opportunities, trials, beauty and responsibility. After the speeches, University President Dave Frohnmayer, with the power vested in him by the state of Oregon, conferred the students degrees and sent them off into the sunny afternoon
as alumni.
In his commencement address, Jack McGowan tracked his journey from a tough, working-class neighborhood in New York City to the
position of executive director for the non-for-profit group Stop Oregon Litter and
Vandalism (SOLV).
In his native community, high school graduation marked the transition not to college, but into the workforce, McGowan said, so after graduating he got a job as an errand boy on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. While there, he dreamed of one day being approached by a high-powered broker who would invite him to lunch and offer a position with a firm. This eventually happened, and McGowan worked his way through the ranks with
his eye trained on wealth and power.
But life had a different plan for him.
With the political upheavals of the 1960s, McGowan experienced a personal upheaval, reevaluating his life and goals and finally leaving the business for good and making his way to Oregon.
After arriving in Oregon, Mcgowan became involved with SOLV, where he has worked to develop a program that brings more than 6,000 volunteers every weekend to scour the state’s coastline cleaning up garbage.
In addition to the coastline project, McGowan said he led a group of Oregonians to New York City in the days following Sept. 11 – selling out every flight from Portland to New York for three consecutive days in a project called “Oregon Loves New York.” McGowan said he grew up less than one mile from the World Trade Center and that the attacks left him depressed, sullen and withdrawn. He saw the project as a way to overcome his grief.
“I jumped at the chance not to mourn, but to do something,” McGowan said. “We – all of us – could look terrorism in the face and not blink.”
He said his work helps to break down the political barriers that define the American landscape.
“Everybody in this room can make a million dollars by sowing the seeds of mistrust. Just ask columnist and so called author Ann
Coulter,” he said before being interrupted by a prolonged and thunderous round of applause.
He ended with an allegory of two seas in Palestine, one is fresh and full of life because rivers flow through it and another is stale and dead because water flows only in and not out. He said that hoarding income ends only in death and that vitality comes from those that give.
“Put your ear to the wall of your heart and listen,” McGowan said.
“We will endure, we must endure,” he said. “We can’t afford the alternative.”
After McGowan finished speaking and the crowd finished clapping, the University’s graduating doctoral students received their hoods and the envelopes that
represent their diplomas.
After the presentation of several awards, former ASUO President Adam Walsh spoke, calling his speech “impossible to sum up the collective experience the University provides.”
Walsh also spoke of the budget cuts that have plagued the University since the state legislature began them in 1990.
“The University reflects the environment in
which it exists,” Walsh said. “There are flaws in
any environment.”
Walsh said because graduates receive only an envelope during the commencement ceremonies, diplomas will arrive in the mail within a few weeks.
“At least until the end of the month, I’m tipping my mail carrier,” Walsh said.
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