LEWISTON, Maine — Newly named Dr. Robert De Niro had a message for the new graduates of Bates College on Sunday — “Stay in school.”
De Niro, along with journalist Gwen Ifill and molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler, was awarded an honorary doctorate during the 146th commencement at Bates.
On Sunday, 463 students became graduates in front of a crowd of more than 5,000 on a picturesque day.
De Niro, 68, who was given a doctorate of fine arts, elicited laughter from the crowd during his speech.
“With all due respect to Gwen Ifill and Bonnie Bassler, I think this is the most important piece of advice you’ll get today: become a movie star,” said De Niro to a roar of laughter. “Now, you might be tempted by other careers, other interests, other commitments. There might be pressure on you to change the world, but you want to find the strength to resist.
“When I started, I wasn’t a movie star, and it sucked,” he continued. “The moment I became a movie star, things started to get better.”
De Niro said that being awarded a doctorate “cheapens it a little,” but said his mother would’ve been proud.
“My mother would be so proud to see her son, who never graduated high school, standing up here, receiving this honorary doctorate of fine arts. She would’ve been more proud of it if it was [from] Harvard,” he said. The crowd erupted with laughter with a few boos mixed in.
In the midst of jokes from the Academy Award-winning actor, came a few words of wisdom from his life experience.
“Trying to improve society isn’t a cliche, it’s a worthy goal,” said De Niro. “Thinking about and doing the right thing is a cliche, but so what? It’s also the worthiest of goals.
“If you’re an actor, always be true to your character. If you’re not an actor, always have character and always be true to yourself,” he said.
The speech that got the most reaction from the audience wasn’t from a movie star or a television journalist, but a molecular biologist.
The charismatic Bassler, a professor at Princeton University, gave a speech that wowed not only the audience, but De Niro, Ifill and Bates interim President Nancy Cable.
Bassler’s speech, which also brought laughter from the crowd, encouraged the graduates not to worry about failure. She also noted that every one of the graduates could make a difference.
“I do remember thinking, ‘What a bunch of baloney,’” Bassler said as she recalled the speakers at her commencement at University of California Davis in 1984. “That speech was to rally the special people among the graduates. The smart people. The going-somewhere people. The confident people. Not me.
“I had been living for 22 years with a very, very loud internal critic telling me, ‘You don’t measure up.’ I knew other people were either smart, pretty, gifted, talented or remarkable. But I was normal,” she said. “Now look at me. I’m on a stage with Gwen Ifill and Robert De Niro! You want to know what? It’s because I’ve done something.”
Bassler told the crowd to “just say yes” and not be afraid.
“I never thought that the long shadow would be cast by the molecular biologist,” said Ifill, speaking last of the three.
Ifill, a television newscaster and author, kept her speech brief. Her message to the graduates was to “look up.”
“We’re all looking down. We’re all looking down as we walk, as we talk, as we text,” she said. “How many of you are tweeting this right now? Look up! Pay attention up here.
“While I was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, I was late for a meeting at the White House and I was looking down, texting the words ‘I’m on my way,’” said Ifill. “I misjudged the curb and I fell flat on my face in the street. I would’ve been fine if I had only looked up.”
Ifill said it’s easier to look down. It takes effort to look up.
“If you look up, you’ll realize you have a responsibility to build a set of steps for those following behind you to walk up,” she said. “If you look behind, you will see a Bates degree is the beginning of your life’s education, not the end.”
Like Ifill and Bassler, De Niro also emphasized the importance of taking risks.
“Keep an open mind, welcome new experiences and new ideas. Don’t be afraid to try things. Don’t be afraid to fail,” said De Niro. “I always say, if you don’t go, you’ll never know.
“Congratulations to the Class of 2012. And congratulations to myself,” he said.
The UMaine System refuses to recognize anyone for any of its commencements who doesn’t have some tie to Maine. This precludes the interesting speakers at Colby and Bates, for example, which, even if controversial like Tony Blair, provide priceless publicity for the schools. Greater public universities, with more enlightened Trustees, see the world differently. Pathetic.
I don’t think it pathetic to show MAINE graduates who are mostly from MAINE that they can make a difference by showcasing someone with MAINE ties as opposed to schools that are looking for a big name that has no ties to either Maine or the college/university. I do find it a little disappointing to read that 463 graduates were recognized yet all the pics are of a high school dropout. Pathetic
faaawgedaboudet….
I believe you can put a price on Blair’s publicity, 50 large. Now go home and get your shine box.
Bates is a quality undergraduate college. It doesn’t even have graduate schools, which makes receiving an honorary, unearned doctorate akin to being passed a counterfeit. It’s still a good place to be, not Harvard for sure, but they should take more than fifty Maine kids per year.
At least the UM system is more selective than is Thomas College, which recently had the illustrious governor of Maine address its graduates. Anybody who has ever sat through the torture of hearing this man speak knows what I mean.
You talkin’ to me?
cuppakauphy may have a point. Why not celebrate one or more of the seven appointees to the UME System exposed by the investigative report in the BDN a few weeks ago? Talk about possible role models for the new graduates. Persons hired without searches or hired despite search com. preferences for others or the guy with only a high school diploma hired by the System as a big salary. I doubt that Colby and Bates do this.
De Niro said it was ‘too soon’ for a white First Lady.
Great choice for a graduation speaker.
No he seriously didn’t.
NO he seriously did!
Tongue in cheek. Big deal. Yawn.
I don’t know much about Robert De Niro so don’t freak out on me… but if he said that then I guess i’m confused considering all the First Lady’s have been ‘white’ until the Obama’s?
Unless I slept through all my history classes, which is a very strong possibility. =)
Bob DeNiro has had a pretty good career in Hollywood, but his recent public comments demonstrate that he has been drinking the leftist Kool-aid, practically the only drink you can get in L.A.
(Politico 5/4): “Robert De Niro told NBC’s David Gregory he thinks Obama has “done a good job,” but bemoaned the “shenanigans” and “divisiveness” and “silliness” that have defined recent American politics. In this week’s “Meet the Press” PRESS Pass conversation, Gregory asked De Niro, an Obama supporter in 2008, whether the actor as inspired and hopeful as he was back then. “You know, it’s very easy to criticize people,” said De Niro. “I think he’s done a good job. He’s done other things that maybe he should have been a little stronger about, people will complain. But it’s not easy to be president of the United States.”
Simply said, Obama is a disaster. Anyone can see that, unless they are looking only with their left eye. DeNiro seems to think Obama has not been divisive enough, but is willing to give him a pass because, after all, it is a tough job. Left unsaid is that this amateur is perhaps the least qualified person ever to serve as a U.S. President.
Gwen Ifill has proved time and again that she cannot restrain her leftist bias. Her performance moderating this year’s Republican presidential candidates was a disgrace.
Yet Bates chose these two to illuminate their graduates on important aspects of life at this crucial milestone. Academia leans hard left, so this is no surprize, but it does not speak well of the state of higher education, which preaches tolerance on its high altar of “diversity” yet cannot understand nor tolerate conservative perspectives.
The cost of a college degree is proving to be entirely not worth the benefit. Such ill-considered decisions to invite leftists to campus only underscores that fact.
Way off subject!
Why bring politics into it?The honorary Degree was in “Fine Arts” !Politics isin’t an Art, its Science of Deception!That’s why its called Political Science.
Ask yourself this question: what qualifies DeNiro, or any other entertainer, to shoot his/her/its mouth off on Meet the Press?
What a great day at Bates! Congrats to my friends and everyone in the Class of 2012!
I was at the commencement. It was a beautiful afternoon in Lewiston,
and the crowd was wowed by not one but three fantastic speeches. Going
in, I doubt that any of us expected that the molecular biologist would
be the one to get the “standing-0.” However, I do think De Niro put it
best, as any Batesie would, it was a great day to be a bobcat!
Congratulations to the Bates Class of 2012 and to all grads at all
levels across Maine.
The fact that Bates doesn’t have graduate programs hardly diminishes the honorary degrees it bestows at Commencement. Compare its three speakers with the corporate Republican Owen Wells who spoke at Orono in the morning and the extraordinarily pedantic engineer who spoke in the afternoon. They needed the approval of the UMaine Board of Trustees, packed with fellow conservative Republicans who would never approve anyone to the left of Susan Collins (whose brother, thanks to Gov. Baldacci, is now Vice Chair of the Board). The nonsense repeated here that most American colleges and universities are bastions of left-wing ideology is just that: nonsense. Poll the faculty of, say, colleges of engineering, of business, and of agriculture at UMaine and elsewhere, and you’ll likely find an overwhelming number of conservative Republicans.
kk