Cosby sends graduates off laughing

”Be careful how you look at [older people who have no college education] because they still know more than you,” Cosby said. ”They also know you. One of the toughest things in your life will be to accept what people think you ought to be because they can see you better than you want to be seen. They see your potential for genius, but you won’t want to go there because it may mean too much work.”

He added that he hoped that the graduates would surmount that hesitation and be able to look back on their lives and feel that they made a difference. ”You don’t need to change the world, but you do need to look carefully and study it, because you are a part of it. And you can change yourself.”

After being introduced by Rice President Malcolm Gillis, Cosby, donning a Rice baseball cap, immediately shed his academic regalia, exposing a Rice T-shirt — a gesture that garnered appreciative applause on the humid, 90-degree morning.

He noted the strange mystique associated with a diploma: ”I was making $4 million a year the year I graduated from the University of Massachusetts with an Ed.D. from the school of education. I got my paper and walked down the ramp and my mother … jumped in my lap and kissed me and said, ‘Now you have something to fall back on!”’

But he cautioned the graduates not to be affected by that mystique; they shouldn’t allow their egos to become inflated just because they have a college education. He explained that when he was a student at Temple University, he took a philosophy class in which the students would spend hours debating questions about life. One day they spent four hours discussing whether the glass was half-empty or half-full. Riding the subway home, he said he was energized by the scholarly debate and, surveying his fellow working-class travelers, felt superior to these people who ”don’t know anything and don’t want to know anything.”

At home, his grandmother, who had only a third-grade education, grilled Cosby about his day, wondering what they discussed, what he had learned and what college was all about. Cosby balked: ”How was I going to explain college to a person with a third-grade education?”
He tried general, evasive answers, but with her continued prodding, Cosby relented, telling her of the day’s lofty discussion: Was the glass half-empty or half-full?

Her response humbled his academic mind: ”It depends on whether you are pouring or you are drinking.”

”You have to watch these old people,” Cosby warned the graduates. ”That sheepskin will not protect you; they still know more than you know.”

Before the commencement ceremony, Cosby was awarded the first Rice University Award for Distinguished Service to Education. The award was created in his honor to recognize his commitment to education and, in years to come, will be presented to others who have made similar contributions.