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Distinguished colleagues, family and friends, graduands:

Graduands, within a very short time we will be calling you graduates, and in an even shorter time we will be referring to you as alumni. Congratulations in advance on that rapid transmogrification. It is possible you will feel suddenly overcome by relief when it is all over, but I doubt it. Graduation is undoubtedly a moment of finality, but when you stand up and walk out of the hall you will—rest assured—be the same person who walked in and sat down. When you leave you will do so surrounded by the familiar faces of friends, family, teachers and mentors; and let’s face it, many of you will be continuing on in some sort of close relationship with Queen’s, perhaps as a candidate for a further degree, perhaps as an employee, or perhaps as a volunteer.

But we will henceforth have a different name for you. You will be an alum. And what will that signal about you? Well, at one level, it will state the glaringly obvious, namely that you are a graduate of this university. But the origins of the word tell us more. Alumnus is the Latin word for a foster child—so the term acknowledges the formative and supportive role which the university has temporarily played for you. But that is not where it ends. The word comes from the verb “to nourish,” or alere. What your new title proclaims then, is that in some sense the university has served as a parent to you, it has fostered you, your talents and aspirations, and that you have been, and more importantly continue to be, nourished by the relationship.

I’ve started this rather perilous chain of metaphors because at a recent event I found myself sitting next to one of our distinguished graduates—an individual at the apex of his career and possessed of an evidently very deep love for the university, keen to express his gratitude for what his time at Queen’s empowered him to do. “I believe in the truth of what my grandfather believed,” he told me, “and that is that a university education is what you’re left with when you’ve forgotten all the specific things you were taught in class.”

You will understand, I’m sure, that this was a somewhat disconcerting thing for a university principal to hear. But after very little reflection I could see his point, which was not that “the specific things you were taught in class” were unimportant or worth forgetting, but that what remained after they had been digested—a way of thinking, of approaching issues, of assembling and assessing evidence, of making an argument, of interacting with others, of understanding yourself in relation to the world—was the essence and point of university study, that which continues as a source of nourishment to the end of your life.

That is an important thing to bear in mind as you move out into the world and into your careers. It’s a cliché but also true, that technological change is accelerating, and its disruptive effect on our society is everywhere to be seen. The most visible current manifestation of this right now is of course generative artificial intelligence; and this university—like almost all human institutions—is struggling to address what the American sociologist William Fielding Ogburn in 1922 dubbed “cultural lag,” the “maladjustment” that occurs when the speed of technological change or of material culture outstrips non-material culture—our values, laws and social formations, in other words.

Ogburn viewed the period of “maladjustment” as temporary, as values, laws and social formations adapted themselves to technological change, and I dare say it is true that societies will in due course come to reckon with generative AI, as they did with earlier disruptive technologies—such as printing or, more ominously, nuclear weapons. That last point is an important one, however, because in some cases the “cultural lag” is a dangerous interval in which technology stands unconstrained by humane and positive societal values, material culture as yet not properly balanced or corrected by non-material imperatives in our culture.

I’m sure you will agree that it is not in the interests of humanity and of life on this planet more broadly that we should uncritically embrace all technological change, that our destiny should be simply to accommodate ourselves to every invention, every successive disruption in our material culture and circumstances. But what is our insurance against that kind of a future?

Einstein famously regretted recommending to the American President that an atomic bomb should be built. He called that the “one great mistake in my life,” and profoundly lamented the way in which the invention of the bomb had irrevocably transformed the human condition. In 1946 he observed that while nuclear technology had the potential to be hugely destructive, its destructiveness could not be realized without human failure occurring at the level of morals and ethics—what he called problems “in the hearts of men.”

A very significant consolation, though, is that that is only half the story: while much that is to be found “in the hearts of men” can be problematic, much that is positive—like love, generosity, kindness, empathy and compassion—can also be found there. So logic tells us that there is always available an antidote to the harmful use of technology and the headlong rush of material culture, and that is the cultivation and assertion of humane values and principles.

So we come back to the idea of nourishment and to the question of what a university education leaves you with, long after the lessons of the day have been digested and changes in the world have rendered today’s information obsolete. Those things I mentioned—a balanced and circumspect way of thinking, of approaching issues critically, of assembling and reasonably assessing evidence, of making an argument, of interacting respectfully and supportively with others, of understanding yourself in relation to your culture and to the world—are in fact the tools by which in the years ahead you can all address the “cultural lag,” keeping yourselves and humanity firmly on a constructive course, notwithstanding the bewildering changes that swirl around you. I want to say they are the only tools you can count on because, if properly nurtured and practiced by you, they will remain with you for the rest of your lives, making you active agents in your future, rather than passive observers of that future.

Your Queen’s education, whatever your specific field, has given you the power to maintain and deepen your personhood and to cultivate yourself as a human being, but that will not occur without determination and intentionality. I’d like to leave you with a plea always to have a mind for this aspect of your Queen’s education, for those approaches, perspectives and methods that have been nourished and cultivated in you during your time here. My companion at the event I described did not put it this way, but he might as well have done so. What should remain with you, long after the details of your studies are forgotten, are the defining attributes of a cultivated human being: interest in the world and a modest and respectful approach to it, skill at analysis and the evaluation of evidence, empathy for other individuals and perspectives different from your own, and above all, the capacity to imagine and always work towards the greater good. These things will continue to nourish you and be your greatest assets in a future that today, no less than in every other age, cannot be predicted.