NewsRelease

Adelman gives his commencement address a final review.

UNCG SPEAKER URGES GRADUATES
TO FOLLOW THE WORDS OF SHAKESPEARE

GREENSBORO - Are the words from a 1500s playwright still relevant to 2001 college graduates?
        Without a doubt, said Dr. Kenneth Adelman, who with his wife operates an executive training program called Movers and Shakespeares.
        Just listen to the Bard’s advice that Adelman gave the 1,500 graduates from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro during commencement Sunday morning.
        “Laugh yourselves into stitches, Fight ‘til the last gasp and Follow your spirit,” Adelman said. “His plays constitute my passion these days, since I find every philosophical idea, funny thought or insight into human nature expressed more crisply and beautifully by Shakespeare.”
        Adelman, the former arms control and disarmament director during the Reagan Administration, once worked for the man called the Great Communicator. But even Reagan, who Adelman called his hero, takes a back seat to the Greatest Communicator – William Shakespeare.
        Adelman uses Shakespeare’s work to teach, motivate and train for two main reasons - Shakespeare has the keenest awareness of what makes people tick of anyone ever and he tells the greatest stories ever told.
        Using Shakespeare’s words, Adelman and four UNCG theatre graduates added a twist to the standard commencement speech. The graduates - Josh Tyson of Greenville, Michel Kamtman of Winston-Salem, Nadia Charguia and Chris Chalk of Greensboro – read the lines from such works as “Henry V” and “Hamlet” while Adelman revealed the Bard’s wisdom for life.
        “Ah, this learning,” graduate Tyson read. “What a thing it is! There will be much throwing about of brains.”
        Shakespeare, Adelman said, understood how exciting it was at UNCG when you discovered something new and interesting. Although, he said talking directly to the parents, when the students came home for breaks, it seemed they were more couch potatoes than actively seeking learning.
        To which Tyson continued to read: “What is a child, if the chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed?”
        “Have more than thou showest,” then read theatre graduate Kamtman. “Speak less than thou knowest!”
        Shakespeare’s advice on how to survive the first month of a new job, Adelman said.
        “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy, rich, nor gaudy for the apparel oft proclaims the man,” read Charguia.
        Adelman’s translation: Shakespeare’s advice for how to dress for success.
        And it you fall out of grace with your boss, follow this advice from “Julius Caesar”.
        “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now,” Chalk read.
        And if that doesn’t work.
        “How dost thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe!”
        Adelman also advised the graduates to keep their honor unblemished and values solid as they work in their companies, organizations or go on to graduate school. Shakespeare, he said, placed honor above material possessions and reminded those in positions of power to respect those lower on the rungs of success.
        “By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, nor care I who doth feed upon my cost. It yearns me not if men my garments wear. Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.”
        As he was closing, Adelman also poked a little fun at his own role as a graduation speaker, citing a line from “Macbeth.”
        “Nothing became him in life so much as the leaving of it.”
        Adelman was among three honorary degree recipients, along with Time Magazine Correspondent and Author Bonnie Angelo and retired Greensboro physician Dr. Jean Brooks.
 
 

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