Watch Lynda Barry’s Graduation Speech; Give a Shout Out to the Teachers Who Changed Your Life

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts’ most recent grads are lucky ducks to have had a speak­er as engag­ing as car­toon­ist and edu­ca­tor Lyn­da Bar­ry deliv­er­ing their commencement’s keynote address.

Speak­er Bar­ry was also made an Hon­orary Doc­tor of Fine Arts, an award that occa­sioned the ill-fit­ting tam seen in the video above, as well as a new title—Doctor Nursey—conferred by pre-kinder­garten­ers with whom she works at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin. (Pre­vi­ous alias­es include Pro­fes­sor Chew­bac­ca and Pro­fes­sor Old Skull)

Bar­ry kept things live­ly by mix­ing in some tried and true mate­r­i­al from oth­er pub­lic appear­ances, includ­ing her Fil­ipino grandmother’s belief in the aswang, a poem set to music (here “Cot­ton Song” by Harlem Renais­sance poet, Jean Toomer) and the sto­ry of the col­lab­o­ra­tive car­toon, “Chick­en Attack by Jack.”

This last anec­dote con­tains a strong indict­ment of con­tem­po­rary society’s screen addic­tion, and it is heart­en­ing to see the graduates—members of the last gen­er­a­tion to pre-date the Internet—listening so atten­tive­ly, no one tex­ting or tweet­ing as the cam­era pans the crowd.

When Bar­ry exhort­ed them to shout out the names of their three most inspir­ing teach­ers on the count of three, most did!

For me, this was the most thrilling moment, though I also appre­ci­at­ed the advice on the best time to sched­ule oral surgery, and a bliss­ful untruth about Ever­green State Col­lege’s appli­ca­tion process cir­ca the mid-70s.

Not your typ­i­cal com­mence­ment speech… those lucky, lucky ducks!

Read­ers, we invite you to get in the spir­it and cel­e­brate the Class of 2015 by “shout­ing” the names of your most inspi­ra­tional teach­ers in the com­ment sec­tion below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lyn­da Barry’s Won­der­ful­ly Illus­trat­ed Syl­labus & Home­work Assign­ments from Her UW-Madi­son Class, “The Unthink­able Mind”

Join Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Bar­ry for a Uni­ver­si­ty-Lev­el Course on Doo­dling and Neu­ro­science

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth is Nev­er Hav­ing to Spend Time with A‑Holes

Robert De Niro Tells Grad­u­at­ing NYU Arts Grads, “You Made It… And You’re F*cked”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Con­grat­u­la­tions, grad­u­ates, espe­cial­ly the mem­bers of NYC’s most fresh­ly forged the­ater com­pa­ny, Ras­cal Arts. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday