Alan Alda GP’15
{commencement speaker}
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oted actor, writer, and director, Alan Alda was Suffield’s 2015 Commencement speaker. One of his granddaughters was a member of the graduating class. Alan’s distinguished career includes dozens of credits on stage, screen, and television. He is best-known for his long-running portrayal of Hawkeye Pierce in the hit television series M*A*S*H and his portrayal of Arnold Vinick on The West Wing. Alan has received 31 Emmy Award nominations, two Tony Award nominations, and an Oscar and BAFTA nomination for his role in The Aviator. His three books have been New York Times bestsellers. Alan has a passion for science and education. He hosted the award winning series Scientific American Frontiers on PBS for 11 years and for more than two decades he has worked to help broaden the understanding of science. He helped found the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, where he is a visiting professor, helping develop innovative programs that enable scientists to communicate more effectively with the public. He originated The Flame Challenge, an international competition where scientists compete to explain complex concepts so that 11-year-olds can understand them. Below are excerpts from Alan’s speech at Suffield.
One of the things I admire about Suffield is its motto: Esse quam videri. “To be rather than to seem.” For instance, to be a good person, rather than just to be seen as a good person. It’s a motto that asks you a serious question: Do you do or just look like you do? From what I’ve seen, Suffield is a school that not only asks you that question—it gives you a chance to answer it. My granddaughter Livvie is graduating today, and under the auspices of the school she has been to Africa three times. Two of those times to help an orphanage improve its water supply and build on its ability to care for its children. They didn’t just seem to be concerned about children thousands of miles away, they went there and met them, danced with them, laughed with them…and then came home and raised money to dig a well for them. Livvie wrote her family, as many of her classmates did, asking for support in this real effort to help real people they had met and bonded with. Livvie wrote us and said: As you all know, I’m very passionate about the experience I had in Ghana this past summer. I’m sure you guys have heard and seen pictures of fundraisers that Suffield has hosted to raise money for the orphanage. Next week we are doing the biggest fundraiser yet, with a goal of $60,000 in order to build a well when we go there this summer. It’s really important to me, and I appreciate all the support! It was the best fundraising letter I ever got. I saw the genuine excitement in the telethons produced on the web and in the photos from the trips to Ghana. This personal connection to the lives of other people is just one of the lessons you’ve learned here, but a lesson like this is one that will sustain you all your life. I hope you keep this momentum going—doing good and not just seeming to do good, as you move on from here. And keep in mind, it’s good to have a sense of time. Don’t stop because you don’t get results right away. And don’t stop trying because success seems far away. Every day, for instance, we see in the news that racism is still a painful reality—that simple human justice is still on the far horizon. For us to make it all the way to that horizon, we need a kind of impatient patience. A purposeful restlessness that knows that although things take time, things will happen in time only with constant effort. It’s easy to forget this because we live in a world that moves so fast. Sometimes we get energized by a story that moves us, but then another story comes along and suddenly the wind is pushing us in another direction. I’ve learned the value of sticking to it when I know I’m on to something. It’s a kind of impatient patience. The kind that doesn’t settle for the way things are, but keeps looking, as long as it takes, for ways to make them better. It includes a healthy respect for time. Things do take time. I’m a little afraid that we’re losing our sense of that. A couple of days ago, I was at another of my grandchildren’s graduation from Carnegie-Mellon University, and I told his class a story. I think it’s a really interesting story. And I’d like to tell it to you.
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