Mickey Gunter

May 1994

First, I want to assure all of you that my talk will be under 15 minutes. I suspect many of you want to get on with less formal graduation celebrations.

In my brief talk I want to provide a little more detail of who I was then - my high school days - and now - college professor days, some challenges for you on the current state of our society (based mainly on my experience as a scientist), and - most importantly - my thoughts on how you can lead a rewarding and fun life!

Mr. Mitchell introduced me based on some information I sent him in response to his question, "What have you done since high school?" I want to spend a few minutes telling you who I was during high school so you will realize that I am one of you, only several years older, and not some stuffy college professor from some distant state (even though I do have this funny robe on).

I refer to this piece of paper, which is my high school transcript. I graduated with a 3.0 grade point, which sounded OK to me because I am used to a 4.0 scale, so that would be a B. But it was on scale of 6.0 - which means I graduated with a D average (that's D as in dunce), but that's also OK, because it took me 5 years to accomplish that! It might have helped if I had not missed 145 days of school in those 5 years!

On a less quantitative side, we were ranked on our personal traits: for instance, my motivation was ranked "purposeless," my initiative "seldom initiated," and concern for others was "indifferent." This is probably why the guidance counselor advised me "it would be a waste of everybody's time for me to go to college!" Well, like many people, I don't listen very well!

Since this is a commencement speech, something should be mentioned about the significant things you can accomplish in life - the most important one is to "help others lead a better, happier life." However, a close second is that you should have fun!

I had fun in high school! Let's define fun as what provides amusement or enjoyment. Unfortunately, I did this at the expense of others, mainly my parents.

Fun then was blowing off M-80s in garbage cans in school <explain the process>, riding motorcycles on their rear wheels, cruising around Dickerson's all night long - it used to stay open a lot later than now - looking for some meanness to get into - like throwing eggs on a teacher's house, etc. You might get the idea these things do not meet the criteria for the most significant accomplishment you can do, that is to "help others lead a better, happier life." And that sort of fun is not rewarded by society, but punished!

The most important point of the address is that you need to redefine your fun so society will reward you for it. I worked as a carpenter and motorcycle mechanic until I turned 21. This seemed like fun for awhile, but it soon lost its glamour for me. Let's define work as the labor, task, or duty that affords one his or her accustomed means of livelihood. I was tired of working and thought there should be more to life - that is, life and a job should be more rewarding, so college seemed like a good idea.

Once in college, the rewards came from just learning, with the ultimate benefit a job. Well, it's hard to call what I do a job, because a job implies work. I spend 70-80 hours a week doing what I do (teaching and research) but only spend 1-2 hours a week really working - mainly when students want to whine about their grades. When you like what you get paid to do, life is very rewarding and fun!

The only drawback to this lifestyle, as my wife points out, is that it is difficult to balance the rest of your life with your career. I have never been a good balancer, not in high school getting into too much meanness or now. In fact, many would now call me a workaholic. But I believe this passion to pursue something to the utmost is critical to success.

The reason I am here is to try to bestow some wisdom upon you graduates as to how to have a more rewarding life. This is as simple as telling you to "find something you really like to do that society values." If you do this well, society will reward you, and you can spend your life getting paid to do your hobby and never having to work - sounds simple. But there is one major problem for most of you - what to do? Many of you probably have no idea what to do - what career choices to make. Others may have ideas, but they will probably change as you age. When I was your age living in McLeansboro I never dreamed I would be doing what I do now, or to have been given the opportunities I have.

Clearly, I lean strongly to the idea that a college education is critical for success in today's society. However, you need some life experiences to help you determine what interests you and to motivate you to succeed in college and your chosen career. For instance, much of my motivation to go to college came from working as a carpenter and mechanic. Although I did not dislike those jobs, they were just that - jobs. I looked forward to breaks, lunch, quitting time, weekends, and vacations (except we never had vacations - there were just times when we did not work and did not get paid). In my last two positions before the University of Idaho, even though I earned paid vacation days, I never took all of them because I liked what I did.

Currently, I have the entire summer off (which means I don't get paid), but I still spend a lot of time in my office or lab, not to mention some weekends and many nights, but what else am I going to do - watch reruns of Rosanne or play golf all day? Society will never reward you for doing that!

Twenty-one years ago as a 19 year-old carpenter in McLeansboro, the thought that I would go to work without being paid or not take paid vacation days would have been absurd! Anyone who would do that must be nuts!

But let's face it, you are going to have to do something in life to earn a living. You are not going to win the lottery, so you may as well find something you like to do - this is America, and we have that privilege and opportunity!

I imagine most of you think you have to be smart to go college, which implies you should have done well in high school. So, for all of you who are graduating in only 4 years, you are already ahead of me when I was your age. You don't have to be a genius to succeed in college. You must pick a subject you like, spend lots of time studying - that will take 70-80 hours a week - and motivate yourself to complete your degree. In other words, you must be a serious student.

Many people talk of the sacrifices made to go to college. I never sacrificed anything (although my parents sacrificed some money - hopefully, they now view it as an investment). Life gets better in college. You get to meet new people, have new experiences, travel, learn many new things, and - most importantly - make a new start. I had a part-time job while working on my BS degree, and along with the scholarships and help from home, my standard of living increased while I was in college. Even as a PhD student with no help from home, my standard of living was far above what it would have been if I had not gone to college.

Many life experiences come from traveling. I want to give you a few examples of them. As a side note, I overheard an adult speaking with a teenager while standing in line at an airport in Virginia. The adult said to the teenager, "Enjoy your life now, because soon the drudgery of life will begin." He was implying, of course, to the day when the teenager would have to start working for a living. But the main goal of my talk is how you can avoid that drudgery of life by having a rewarding career.

The next story is a real travel log that starts with a controversial subject - cultural diversity, which is a major issue across America and on university campuses. One goal of cultural diversity goes like this: The more we understand other cultures, the better we Americans will get along with each other. I must admit I have my reservations about many of the motives behind cultural diversity. However, there is one aspect of cultural diversity which I think is critical, and that is how good we Americans have it compared to the rest of the world and how lucky we are to live in this country. If this was any other country, I would still be living in McLeansboro as a carpenter because I could not have been able to change my direction in life after my high school failures.

This is the third time I have been asked to give the commencement address. The other two times I had to turn it down because I was living in Switzerland for the months of May and June. If there is another country in the world with a higher standard of living than The United States, it's Switzerland. I receive a higher salary there than at the University of Idaho, get to use all of their equipment for my research, and they hire me an assistant. For all of this, I do not have to do anything except conduct my own research (my hobby - studying the properties of minerals with X-rays and light).

To gain an appreciation of how well we Americans have it, and a few other people like the Swiss have it, I think requires you to travel to those less fortunate places - that is, to become more aware of cultural diversity. TV can take us there, but there is no substitute for actually going there. The best example I have is a train ride behind the former Iron Curtain. We were traveling by train from Switzerland to Hungary where I was to give a talk. We had to change trains in Vienna, Austria. The train we boarded was stopping in Budapest, Hungary but continuing on to its final destination of Bucharest, Romania.

It was dinner time and we assumed the train would have the usual first class dining car of the Swiss trains. However, much to our dismay, the train had no dining car, or even any food service at all. So here we were on a five-hour train ride with only some bread and water that I had in my backpack, riding in our first class, private (but very dirty) train room. We starting doing what most privileged people (almost all Americas) do - whining. Then the thought hit us that we were on a train full of refugees from Romania who were being kicked out of western Europe and sent back to the poverty, riots, and social unrest in Romania. Our minor suffering, which would end soon, is incomparable to the lifetime of suffering these people have gone through. Of course, this same story could be told about Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, or countless other places on earth.

Another personal realization occurred while I was being given a tour of the mineral collection at the Museum of Natural History in Budapest. The curator told me that they used to have the third largest mineral collection in the world. He then handed me a blob of brass with some melted minerals mixed in. He said this used to be a microscope and some of their minerals. During the 1956 Russian invasion, a tank shell fell short of its mark, the TV station, and hit the museum. He laughed and said "it's not a good idea to live next to a TV station in communist countries. " That event, and the train ride, are two things which convinced me how lucky we are to live in the United States.

Let's return to your career choice and correlate it to our society's future needs. Your generation faces a unique set of challenges and problems. You will be the first generation that does not continue growth in America (I mean building more dams, developing wilderness areas, building more chemical refineries, etc.) but instead you are faced with controlling the problems created by those who prospered before you.

The vogue problems of the day deal with the environment. I am sure you all are aware of global warming and the assumed destruction of our environment. However, I propose to you that many of these accepted ideas are myths. Large sums of money are currently being spent to solve these nonexistent problems. Many people are profiting from these problems to the overall detriment of our society. The challenge for your generation is to learn to live within the given resources the earth has to offer and to realize that every human action has an effect on the earth. Just recycling your cans will not solve all the world's problems.

You must also accept a certain level of risk. By this, I refer to health risks from environmental toxins and carcinogens.

I became aware of these myths by studying the asbestos issue. Asbestos is a mineral used mainly for fireproofing and insulation and is very similar to fiberglass, except asbestos is a mineral and thus occurs naturally. Several diseases, most notably lung cancer, have been linked to asbestos exposure in the work place. But many workers also smoked, so it is very hard to determine a direct link of the cause of cancer. However, the scientific community is in total agreement that low-level exposure to asbestos, like what is found in some public schools, is not harmful. In fact, because asbestos occurs naturally, it is in the atmosphere and we breath approximately 4,000 fibers per day. Yet lawsuits have been decided based on the one-fiber theory which states "one asbestos fiber can lead to death." We spend (waste!) $3 billion a year to remove asbestos from public schools.

Radon gas entering our basements and causing lung cancer, dioxins in the air from chemical incineration causing birth defects, TV & radio waves causing leukemia, lead in water causing learning disabilities in children, PCBs, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides -the list of toxins and carcinogens go on forever. What you must realize is that, like asbestos, high dosages are a problem, but small amounts probably are not. In fact, many natural foods contain large amounts of known carcinogens, many times greater than the FDA would allow in processed foods.

Human psychology takes over with risks, and common sense is left behind. There are people in this room who will never get on an airplane but think nothing of riding in a car, while deaths from commercial airliners are only 100-200 per year and car fatalities are over 40,000. Also, many of us are afraid of snakes, yet commonly no one dies from snake bites in America on a yearly basis. The difference is that we do not like risks that are imposed upon us, but we are very willing to place high risks on ourselves <give example>, but let someone expose us to an immeasurable amount of a carcinogen and we're upset!

Most Americans believe in the greenhouse effect and global warming, but I have never met an unbiased scientist who believes the earth is actually warming. I'm sure you learned about it in school, but just in case you missed that day, a quick review. The theory goes like this. When we burn fossil fuels, we add CO2 to the environment. The CO2 blocks infrared radiation (that is heat) from leaving the earth and the earth warms. But, humans exhale CO2, and a simple calculation based upon the world population shows humans exhale almost as much CO2 yearly as is produced by burning petroleum products - the problem, then, is worsened by over population. In fact, almost all of our problems are caused by overpopulation. Science, then, tells us the problem, but science cannot solve the problem. It is a social issue. This is one of your many challenges.

Another challenge close to home - flooding. A flood plain is defined as "the area next to a river that floods." Yet we have developed our flood plains and those who live there want the government to "fix" the river, that is to keep it from flooding, but that is impossible. In fact, attempts to control flooding usually make it worse. Again, the solution is simple from a scientific viewpoint but very difficult to solve because of financial concerns.

I have talked about a few challenges that face our society, but there are an infinite number of these that really have fairly simple solutions, at least from a scientific viewpoint. However, there are other areas beside science in which people can pursue careers to solve these problems: medicine, engineering, education, the media, law, and politics, to name a few. Your generation must rise to the occasion and meet these challenges placed upon you.

In closing, I encourage you to pursue an advanced education in a field that interests you. Believe me - and I should know - you don't have be rich, a genius, or to have been a whiz-kid in high school to be successful in college. All you have to do is select something that really interests you, enjoy learning it, and help solve some of our society's problems making everyones' lives better. And finally, if you think education is too expensive or too hard, try living without it!

Congratulations, and good luck with your (our) future!