Daniel Stephen Sullivan, A.B. Architecture '07
May 21, 2007

Dean Fraker, Chairwoman Comerio, Faculty, Parents, Honored Guests, Fellow Students;  I’m very honored to speak on behalf of the undergraduate class of 2007. Let me start by saying that when I first told a friend of mine that I was speaking at commencement, he said “at The Greek?” and I said “yeah.” And he said, “wow, you know JFK spoke at The Greek” And I thought, “Oh Man, me and JFK?” But luckily for me it turns out that JFK actually spoke at Memorial Stadium just down the road (so I promise to edit Wikipedia to reflect that when I get home tonight).

We live in a complex society today. This is not the generation of our parents. Back then it was clear that war was bad, and that we needed peace, and that freedoms of speech and religion and separation of church and state were clearly defined. Well I guess part of that clarity comes from hindsight.

Nonetheless we are currently involved in some of the most cataclysmic changes ever experienced. Our government has become a spy into our personal lives, we go to war to save the products of consumption; we value the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals. Really, I generally listen to NPR, and most often I want to turn the radio off and wait to laugh about the news on “Wait Wait Don’t Tell me.” It’s easier that way. Because if I had to process everything that I heard in the news and saw on the street, I’m not sure I could continue the search for reasons not to be jaded.

But I’ll tell you I found one of those reasons in studying design. Now I’m an Architecture student and very much so of that mind set and so I should express that bias up front, but in terms of design I really speak about all disciplines within the College of Environmental Design. There is something about design that gives us hope. I mean, we’re designing the future. There’s something great about the notion that you can actually create things not yet considered. That you can plan for circumstances not yet in effect. That is what design is about. Creation. Every act of design is an act of creation.

Often people think of Architects, Landscape Architects and City Planners as simply that. But what is it really that we are creating? We create private spaces, and social spaces, and places for civil organization, and also devices for civic calming. So what we’re really designing here is the social and political landscape.

As Environmental Designers, we have a rigorous academic program in addition to our studio program. I had to study English, Calculus, Physics, Materials Science, Structures, and Theory, all in addition to studio (and I’ll come back to studio later). I mean why would someone need to take so many classes just to learn to design pretty buildings and attractive outdoor spaces?

Well because we are actually engaged in the study of something so much more than just what lies within a building’s walls, a courtyard or within a city’s limits. We are engaged in the design of the human experience. We acknowledge that no decision that we make can be considered outside of the context of the greater societal, political and environmental system in which it exists. We are constantly in consideration of the network of those issues that exists surrounding our sites, our cities, and humanity as our client.

But what of this planet as our client? There is NO argument within the scientific community that global warming is caused by humans. And you don’t have to ask Al Gore, just ask the thousands of scientists that have come to that consensus. The fact that FOX news suggests that there’s a debate on the topic doesn’t make it the truth.

We are responsible for the melting ice sheets, we are responsible for the spare the air days, we are responsible for the snow leopard’s extinction. Our consumption dictates every acre of the rainforest that is burned, every species that is extinct and every child that suffers with asthma needlessly. Our drive to the gas station is an act of creation—or perhaps even of desecration.

And again, there are times that I turn off the Discovery Channel, not wanting to see the devastation, not wanting to see another story of polluted groundwater in developing nations…

But we can change this pattern of destruction and injustice. And the people on this stage, as they head off to design school, law school, and into the world of work are just the ones to do it.

My father had a bumper sticker on his car when I was a little kid, and it said, “if you want peace, work for justice.” Well, there is clearly a need for peace in this world, and no lack of injustice. Our president wants to build a fence between the US and Mexico. A fence! We have schools that can’t teach evolution. Poor neighborhoods are still filled with Blacks and Latinos. I still can’t marry my partner. It is not over. We are still fighting for racial, political, environmental justice. We are still fighting.

And that is why I design. That is why I create. That is why I slept under my workstation in studio for 3 years. I mean, you do know, this, right? You all paid for cute apartments on the Southside, but your kids actually slept on the floor—in the same clothes for days sometimes—and ate microwave dinners from Romona’s and drank gallon upon gallon of coffee from Caffe Strada. In any case, you don’t commit to that path unless you really believe that that you can make a difference. That what you do means something.

That is why I look at everything that I do as an act of creation. I seek to inspire people through my designs; I seek to create equality through my designs.

And here, you are looking at the creators of the new American Reconstruction. And man, are you lucky. I’ve seen these people in action. I have to tell you, I know most of these people by name and many of them by their snoring patterns. See when you’ve gone through design school with people, you really learn a lot about their motivations and values.

I have to say that I feel safe knowing that these are the people that will craft my future. They are the Masterminds, the Technocrats, the Bureaucrats, and the Visionaries that will craft the next new world. They are the Urbanists, the Formalists and the Algotechturalists that will create the new aesthetics. And they are the Environmentalists that will say “No, Mr. President, science speaks louder than special interest.” They are our defense against regimes of oppression, and our safeguards against apathy. They are the legacy of Berkeley’s revolutionary history.

So I feel that since I opened talking about JFK’s appearance at Berkeley, I should end with a quote from him from 1962 that he might have been surprised to find so pertinent today:

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation…tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the class of 2007. Thank you.