Commencement 2003: Caps, Gowns and Quips

“Go forth unafraid,” was the forthright advice of funny man Bill Geist to the University of Cincinnati’s graduating class of 2003.  And the humorist, author and CBS correspondent left them laughing as he laced his commencement keynote with self-deprecating reflections of his own college career and Midwest upbringing.

Geist claimed that he hadn’t been a great college student, but that his student days had a few highlights:  “I met my wife during my second senior year.”  Later, he boasted, of a straight-A aunt “who only got one ‘B’ in college.”  He paused and wryly added, “…and so did I!”  Because of his own self-proclaimed academic shortcomings, Geist used his keynote address to lobby for more awards for the average student, including one for “the biggest bill at the Internet Term Paper Company….It’s where I got my speech.”

The best-selling author of five humor books, Geist also poked fun at his Midwest upbringing in a small town in flat-landscaped, central Illinois.  “I barely knew what a fish was,” he recalled.  “The Catholics ate spam on Friday…We didn’t have pasta.  We had spaghetti….When I later went back for a high school reunion, I found out that our foreign exchange student was from America…from Hawaii.”  Even after moving to New York City much later, he said he couldn’t eat sushi for the longest time.  “It’s like sneaking up on a cow with a fork,” he joked.

New Yorkers who have never been west of New Jersey find him provincial, but Geist said he doesn’t mind because the Midwest background he shares with the UC community holds many advantages.  He listed the strengths the students would carry with them:    “You’re grounded.  You’re realists.  You have good ‘B.S.’ detectors.  You ask questions.”

He encouraged the students to continue asking questions and to also read, recognize biases, think, reflect, be independent thinkers and exercise the critical-thinking skills they’ve acquired at college.  For example, he said, one critical question he kept asking himself today was “Why am I wearing a black muumuu?”

He added more seriously, “You’ve learned a lot.  Keep it up.  On the plane ride here, I learned that trees may cause pollution; cows’ breath damages the ozone and the salads at McDonalds have more fat than the Big Macs.  What was true yesterday is completely false today.  Believe nothing of what you hear and less than half of what you see.”

And though he regularly contributes to CBS Sunday Morning, The CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes II, Geist wryly chided the panic-inducing news headlines that tell us “these are fearsome times.”  In relation to the current fear over monkey pox (which is caused by infectious contact with prairie dogs), Geist said he recently heard a news warning admonishing, “Don’t play with dead, mutilated prairie dogs lying by the side of the road.”  He paused, then deadpanned, “They really know how to spoil a good time.”

He indeed wished good times upon UC’s students, advising that “fun is a good reason to take a job.”  He reported that he entered the field of journalism even though his parents, owners of a small-town paper during the Depression, discouraged him.  Geist reminisced that maybe he became a journalist – first as a combat photographer in Vietnam and later as a reporter with The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times – because his parents had made the job look like so much fun.  To this day he recalls his father’s favorite headline from their family’s paper.  It involved two nearby Illinois towns, one called Normal and the other called Oblong.  The headline:  Oblong Woman Marries Normal Man.

So while Geist said it took many years for the world to discover his genius, he’s been having fun along the way.  And he encouraged students to do the same as they moved without fear into the world.   “Go forth unafraid,” he repeated.  “Move where you want.  Do what you want.  Try.  Fail.  Try again.  Don’t be timid.” 

See more photos from Commencement 2003.

Read more on UC's commencement at http://www.uc.edu/commencement.

Meet members of the Class of 2003.