Morial addresses College grads

The New Orleans mayor offered graduates advice at Monday's ceremony. Every year, at every school's graduation ceremony, the departing students are offered words of advice by mentors and peers. They are told to pursue their dreams, to hold their heads high and to help those in need. But despite the wisdom inherent in these suggestions, there may be one piece of advice -- shared by student speaker and graduating senior Josh Styne -- that every graduating member of the College of Arts and Sciences' Class of 1999 will follow: "See Star Wars!" Styne and New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial were the featured speakers at Sunday evening's ceremony, celebrating the accomplishments of the largest of the four undergraduate schools. As the approximately 1,100 graduating members of this year's class marched together during Sunday's graduation ceremony on Franklin Field, friends and family members cheered and waved enthusiastically from the stands. The ceremony's speakers offered the graduates their congratulations and shared advice, memories and hopes for the future with both the graduates and their families and friends in attendance. "This class, the last of this millennium, has established a strong claim to being the best of this millennium," College Dean Richard Beeman said. "I hope you'll nurture within yourselves the open, optimistic and good-natured characters that will keep you young, active, inquisitive and joyful for all your lives," Beeman added. Morial, the ceremony's keynote speaker, also praised the graduates' accomplishments and spoke of their brilliant futures. "As you prepare to embrace the new millennium, you are the brightest, the most prepared, the most technically apt of the thousands of college students who will finish school this year," Morial said, reminding the students to use their collective "brain power" in helping society. Morial told the graduates that while they should display their skills to the world, they must also offer their care and compassion -- no matter what career path they may chose to follow. "Let your minds be stretched and let your hearts be stretched, because both, if they are stretched, can never go back to their original dimensions," Morial said. Morial is the second consecutive big city mayor to speak at the College graduation. Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell, a 1965 College alumnus, addressed the College graduates last year. Morial is a 1980 College alumnus who has attracted attention during his term for his outspoken attack on gun violence. He and the city of New Orleans recently filed a lawsuit against handgun makers, attempting to hold them financially responsible for the consequences of handgun violence. And Styne, a member of the Mask and Wig Club and Sphinx Senior Honor Society, shared with the graduating class his "keys to happiness" -- passion, persistence and gratitude. "They're not ordinary keys, they can't be duplicated by any locksmith. Yet the keys to happiness are in my wallet. Give me five minutes of your time and I'll give you a copy of these keys," Styne said. Reminiscing about the class's four years at Penn, Styne shared several of his favorite memories -- including relaxing on College Green, hanging out at Smokey Joe's, celebrating Hey Day and tearing down the goal posts after Penn's football team clinched a share of the Ivy League title in November. "Our youth and our inexperience, my fellow classmates, do grant us a certain wisdom: the knowledge that life will be beautiful if we carry in our wallets, always, the keys to happiness," Styne said.

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