{"id":12862,"date":"2023-08-08T08:12:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=12862"},"modified":"2023-08-04T16:10:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T20:10:50","slug":"advice-from-wynton-marsalis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2023\/08\/08\/advice-from-wynton-marsalis\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice From Wynton Marsalis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Seated, as commencement speaker Wynton Marsalis observed, \u201cin a cocoon of feeling and surrounded by your people,\u201d 687 graduating members of the Class of 2023 received their bachelor of arts degrees May 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jazz trumpet legend Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, director of the Jazz Studies Program at the Juilliard School, and president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, made six simple requests of the graduates \u2014 actions they can \u201ceasily realize with minimal fuss every day of your lives, without wasting time, energy, words, or money.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Be present. \u201cExperience things as they happen. Life is more interesting when you allow it to set your banquet table. Don\u2019t get involved in curating your life. Let your phone do that for you. Be present and let the intensity of your participation shape your feeling, not the act of you observing your participation in your own experience.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>Be where you are. \u201cThe paths to knowledge are as varied as there are individuals in this world. We cannot be on all roads at once. When we wish to experience all things at all times we end up with nothing \u2026 revel in the general spirit that defines this place. Wherever you may find yourself, take the organic lesson in community building that you have learned here.\u201d<\/li><li>You might not be on time, but be in time. \u201cThe present is your safest and only practical choice. Be in time and you will be flexible enough to define yourself and your experience more broadly than your age, hairstyle, clothing, or favorite popular video, app, or platform. Be in time and you will maintain your equilibrium when the next war or financial crash or mass act of violence occurs. Be in time and you will come to see the value of singing, dancing, cooking, storytelling, playing, laughing, and many other tactile human interactions that are not in our clich\u00e9d vision of a technological future. Be in time, because the people all around you are the real technological marvels, and how we interact with each other is the most fascinating study on this earth. Be in time and you will never underestimate the impact of your disposition in any tough situation that you may encounter.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>Be yourself and be fabulous. \u201cI am reminded of the great trumpeter and sage raconteur Dizzy Gillespie, who had a request for me\u2026. In 1980, when I was 18 or so, I asked Dizzy, \u2018How can I find my own personal sound?\u2019 and he said, \u2018You have to love yourself.\u2019\u201d<\/li><li>Be grateful. \u201cI don\u2019t want you to let a day go by that you don\u2019t bow your head and acknowledge all that you have been given and acknowledge all that you give, and also all the blessings that you have received.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>Be cool about it all.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition to the cool \u2014 and sage \u2014 Marsalis, who received an honorary doctor of arts degree, Colgate conferred honorary degrees upon four other distinguished individuals: Joseph J. Castiglione \u201968, Boston Red Sox Radio broadcaster; Ilya Kaminsky, poet, editor, and professor of creative writing at Princeton University; Mary Ann Moran \u201977, University of Georgia Foundation distinguished professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia; and Mark S. Siegel \u201973, founder and president of ReMY Investors &amp; Consultants, Inc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Class valedictorian Caleb Levy \u201923 of Kingston, Jamaica, graduated summa cum laude with high honors in physics. The salutatorian, molecular biology major Matthew Sampson \u201923 of Fairport, N.Y., also graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In addition to those earning bachelor\u2019s degrees, six graduate students earned the degree of master of arts in teaching with distinction and one, a master of arts with distinction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cTo be where you are now, to have persevered through all that you have, is a singular mark of achievement, a mark of strength and courage,\u201d President Brian W. Casey told the class. \u201cYou are to be recognized and admired for such perseverance and work. You were the class that history touched, now a class entering a changed world. You are ready now, ready for that changed world \u2014 even if, at this very moment, winds are blowing and you are cold, you might not feel that way. You are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jazz trumpet legend Wynton Marsalis  offered advice to the Class of 2023 as Colgate&#8217;s commencement speaker. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":13039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[568,1756,409,1708,84,1709],"coauthors":[202],"class_list":["post-12862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scene","tag-advice","tag-class-of-2023","tag-commencement","tag-jazz","tag-music","tag-trumpet"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-3ls","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/08\/052123_commencement_AMD_0001265.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12862"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13064,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions\/13064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12862"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}