[Context: This is a farewell of sorts, since I’m stepping down as Dean of Darden this summer, and returning to the faculty. I started this speech wearing the traditional mortarboard hat. When I got to the part of talking about the baseball cap, I ad-libbed, saying, “Someone said, you can’t wear that hat at a UVA graduation.” I replied, “Well, yes I can: I’m the Dean.” As the speech progressed, I put on one hat or the other, to underline the properties of each.]

Part of my job this afternoon is to set a tone for the proceedings—and ideally for your lives going forward. They call this a “commencement” after all. It is a beginning of your career after Darden.

In American slang, we talk about wearing hats as a metaphor for shouldering responsibilities or expressing a point of view. We might say, “wearing my hat as a parent,” or “wearing my hat as a soccer coach,” or “wearing my hat as the CFO,” as a lead-in to an opinion or analytic insight. Typically, one uses this metaphor to validate the authority or expertise for the statement to follow. Today is a good day to reflect on the hats or points of view you acquired at Darden.

I processed into this ceremony wearing the traditional mortarboard. This particular hat was given to me by my mother, Marjorie Williamson Bruner. She wore it at her graduation as a newly-minted Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Chicago in 1933. And she wore it over several decades of graduations as a professor of English. She was a woman of great depth and considerable gumption: in addition to English, she could read several languages. She could play two musical instruments. She earned a Ph.D. in a day when professional work was not something that women did. She taught thousands of students how to write and speak better. She was married to my father for 51 years; she bore and raised five sons, all of whom went on to do their best work. And she still found time to serve on the local public school board for the better part of two decades. So when I wear this hat, I feel embraced by the spirit of a scholar who was in the world. It is this theme that I wish to underscore in my final send-off for Darden graduates, the theme of the scholar in the world.

This is a hat styled after the headgear of medieval scholars. It is thoroughly impractical and never worn outside of occasions such as this. It is ornate, formal, and traditional. It stands for schooling, visions, concepts, theories, ideas, curiosity, and critical thinking. It links us back to the Renaissance, when the Western world awoke from 1000 years of poverty superstition, anarchy, and barbarism. Wearing this hat is one way of reminding ourselves that, as John Dewey said, the barbarian is just a generation away and that education is the first bulwark against the barbarian. Universities and scholarship played a crucial role in the rebirth of civilization through critical thinking, debate, evidence-based research, and publication of ideas. From that standpoint, putting on this hat periodically is very satisfying.

But I’ll understand if you choose not to wear this hat to work. For there is an alternative that represents some compelling values. The American baseball cap fits better, shades the eyes better, and suits the current sensibility. It is ubiquitous in the United States, and indeed, around the world. It stands for practicality, simplicity, informality, comfort, and above all, action. As Thomas Edison said, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” The baseball cap is about execution.

Most of you probably own a baseball cap. And most of you will probably leave behind your mortarboard as you leave Darden today. Keeping one hat and leaving the other is a troubling metaphor to me. Will you keep the action-taking and leave the discipline of ideas and critical thinking?

Let that not be so. Take both hats with you, at least in spirit: a hat of thinking, and a hat of doing. Never leave either one behind. The managerial world is full of action that is thoughtless: the “Ready, Fire, Aim” kind of action-for-its-own-sake. Remember the mortarboard as a symbol of the need to think before you speak and act.

The mortarboard is a reminder to you that:

  • You will do better asking questions than answering them. Indeed, you can actually manage a company the way my colleagues lead case discussions, by asking questions.
  • You will do better by learning rather than knowing.
  • You will do better making meaning rather than simply taking the meanings provided by others.
  • You will do better by challenging assumptions rather than passively accepting them.
  • You will do better reading intentionally rather than surfing aimlessly.

You cannot be a person of effective action without also being an athlete of the mind. Train yourself relentlessly. UVA’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, was an exemplar of this.

The baseball cap is a reminder to you that:

  • The world needs your recommendations for action-taking.
  • The world needs you to run toward, not away from, society’s problems.
  • The world needs your robust moral voice—robust is the operative word.
  • The world needs you to lead.

You need both hats to survive and prosper in the world you face. Together, these hats make a great partnership. They will shield you from all kinds of business weather and will comfort you in the face of adversities. Hang on to both hats!

Good luck to you this day and forever more!

Thank you.