Johns Hopkins University graduates got a treat during commencement ceremonies last week when one of the degree recipients broke into song.
During the university-wide graduation ceremonies at Homewood Field on May 24, legendary singer and songwriter Stevie Wonder received an honorary doctorate degree, and Hopkins president Ronald J. Daniels invited him onstage afterwards to perform.
“It is with the greatest of hope and aspiration that I look to our extraordinary graduate here today, Doctor Stevie Wonder,” Daniels began. “We have a piano, we have a microphone. Do you think there’s any chance? Because we would love to hear from you.”
Wonder responded by playing a medley of his hits, including “The Secret Life of Plants,” “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”
“I was thinking coming up here, that we have a lot of differences that people talk about, and there are those who will say that we’re too different to make the connection,” he told the audience of more than 10,000. “But truly, music has made the connection since the beginning of time. Sound. So use your voice, your spirit, to let the sound of unity, of coming together for the meaning of ending all wars forever, all over this world that we live in.”
One day before, the 74-year-old musician had been a commencement speaker for Hopkins’ conservatory of music, the Peabody Institute. He performed for the graduates then, too, singing part of “Sir Duke,” his tribute to jazz composer Duke Ellington:
Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands
But just because a record has a groove
Don’t make it in the groove
But you can tell right away at Letter A
When the people start to move
They can feel it all over.
They can feel it all over people
They can feel it all over
They can feel it all over people
Dancer Misty Copeland had addressed Peabody undergraduates earlier in the day, and both she and Wonder received the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music and Dance in America. Wonder also performed for Hopkins guests at Evergreen, one of its museums, on Saturday night.
Other honorary doctorate degree recipients at Hopkins’ university-wide ceremonies were: vocalist Renee Fleming; architect and artist Maya Lin; investor and philanthropist William H. “Bill” Miller III; Utah Senator Mitt Romney; political scientist Janice Stein. In all, Hopkins awarded approximately 11,000 degrees, certificates and diplomas this month, including nearly 1,700 undergraduate degrees.
Pulling off surprises
During Daniels’ tenure as president, Hopkins has had a history of pulling off commencement surprises. In 2020, when the university was forced to have an online graduation because of the pandemic, its ceremony began with a virtual stage curtain opening to reveal actor and longtime professor John Astin channeling the television character he played for years, Gomez Addams of “The Addams Family.” Last year, the keynote speaker wasn’t announced in advance, and it turned out to be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Romney gave the keynote speech this year, and his talk was interrupted by anti-war protesters shouting and honking horns, and sirens blaring outside Homewood Field.
“It would be too bad if we didn’t have a demonstration, wouldn’t it be?” he asked. “I think that’s the Good Humor truck. Does anyone want a stick of ice cream?”
After a pause, Romney told the graduates that money and titles aren’t everything.
“If you define yourself by your career, by how much money you make, by what job you get, by your title, you’ll be defining yourself by something that’s subject to luck and not in your control, and so you can be gravely disappointed,” he said.
“I would suggest that instead of defining yourself by your career, that you choose to define yourself by things that are entirely in your control – your love for your family, your friendships, your faith, your service to others…Treat your career like the game it is, hoping to win, but don’t make it the currency of your life. The real currency of life is the people you love and the friends you have.”
Romney also gave graduates a warning about the future: “Artificial Intelligence is here. The most destructive technology since the atom bomb has been unleashed – just in time for you to enter the work force. And because its capabilities double every 18 months, within the next decade, it will be 100 times more powerful than it is today.”
‘Pandemic puppy craze’
Daniels, who lives on the Homewood campus, brought his Boston terrier Barney up to the podium to say goodbye to the graduates he may have met while the president was walking him around campus.
Although he usually seeks to deliver “Big Messages of Great and Enduring Import” at graduation, Daniels said, this year he decided to “eschew my tradition and to go small,” starting with a story about falling prey to the “pandemic puppy craze.”
He explained that he and his wife, Joanne Rosen, had long contemplated getting a dog. Daniels said he believed they needed a “big, dopey dog,” whereas Rosen “felt that we should not take on more dog than we could reasonably handle.”
And so, “we did what all good Hopkins couples do,” he said. “We debated, we marshaled evidence, we made elaborate pro and con lists.” Ultimately, they got a small dog, which Daniels said turned out to be the right decision.
He explained that walking Barney around campus has been valuable because Barney is a people magnet and their strolls gave him a chance to interact with students in ways he hadn’t before. From the spontaneous encounters he had with those drawn to Barney, Daniels said, he learned a lot about Hopkins students and life on campus — “before you realized I was on the other end of the leash.”
As Barney savored the attention, Daniels said, “I got to savor the conversations, the small moments of paying close attention to the details of your lives…The lesson I learned from you time and time again, from all of you, was how these seemingly small interactions made us so profoundly human to one another, in ways that I might have missed if I had not been Barney’s human. I was able to see you in your element, in the midst of your day. And I saw time and time again that this class is made up of some truly remarkable people, each with your own moments of joy and laughter, of triumph and accomplishment, and, yes, even a sense of disappointment and dashed expectations.”
‘Go small’
Daniels said he hopes graduates will heed what he calls his Barney Rule: “Go small” and make connections with people along the way.
“Ask your barista about the book they are reading by the author you’ve never heard of,” he said. “Strike up a conversation with the person you see every day waiting for the same train – you might have more in common than your schedule.
“If you are headed to grad school, go to the office hours of the professor you disagree with the most. Tell them why; then listen to their rebuttal. Answer your date’s questions honestly no matter what your dating app profile said.”
And just maybe: “Get a dog,” he said. “Take it for a walk, and see who you meet. The benefits accruing to you will be great, but the benefits to the communities of which you are part will be even greater. Because once you go small you notice, and even come to know, the details of someone else’s existence.
“Once you connect, if only for a moment at opposite ends of the leash of a small dog, you never again see the other person as just a face in the crowd. You see them as a person in full, with daily tasks, loves, ambitions, responsibilities, fears, anxieties and passions so very much like yours.”
At the end of his remarks, Daniels carried Barney to the podium and helped him wave farewell to the graduates.
“Since all Barney knows of most of you is shoes and shins, I want him to see you today in your glorious, amazing totality,” Daniels said. “Take a good look at them and say goodbye, Barney…Barney and I say, Godspeed!”
Party school
At one point in his speech, Daniels referred to Hopkins as “a different kind of party school” — one where students responded to the loosening of COVID-19 strictures by “going to classes, having small parties and even going to extra lab sessions just to meet people…It is Hopkins, after all.”
It may have been the first time since the university was founded in 1876 that a senior member of the administration has uttered the words “Hopkins’ and ‘party school’ in the same breath. That hasn’t been its reputation. But at least this much is certain: Hopkins was the only school whose 2024 graduates were serenaded (twice) by Doctor Stevie Wonder.
Stevie Wonder performed for graduates twice last week, once at the Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall on Mount Vernon Place and again at Homewood Field.
Wonder also performed on May 22 at Johns Hopkins University’s Evergreen Museum & Library.
