Claire Madden

Deputy Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, presiding Dean, presiding Director, members of the University Executive and Academic Board, staff, family, friends and graduates, welcome.

I would also like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the land which the UTS campus stands, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Adding to the congratulations that have gone before me, I would also like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the 173 graduates who have done so much hidden work behind the scenes over the past number of years to be able to stand on this stage today and receive their degree.

Study at this level is exciting, stretching, satisfying, but at times it’s also just plain painful. Do any graduates agree with that? It takes courage, perseverance and tenacity to reach this point of receiving a completed degree. And I’ve found that in this busy and hyper-connoted world that we now live in, we can so easily cram our lives with so much technology and we can cram out the space so that we sometimes forget to pause, reflect and actually celebrate these great achievements. So, to each and every one of our graduates today, congratulations.

I sat in this hall for my graduation ceremony in 2005; mind you, it didn’t look so beautiful and fancy as what it does now. While I never knew what the journey would be from that point, it has been a richly rewarding, exhilarating and unfolding adventure. There have been opportunities that have blown me away and there have been challenges which have tried to stop me in my tracks. There have been surprising paths and conversations which have re-routed my steps and my direction along the way, and no doubt it will be an exhilarating adventure for each of our graduates here today too.

In this current season, I find myself running my own business in the field of social research, with a lot of my work focusing on researching ad helping educators, managers and business leaders to understand how to best engage the emerging generations. Generation Z are those born between 1995 and 2009 and are the youngest generation entering today’s workforce. Many of our graduates today might indeed be part of that generation; if not, they will also be working with that generation.

Gen Z are redefining work, community, careers and even punctuation and grammar used in texting, for example. Lauren, born in the year 2000, told me about texting rules. She said [of] texting rules: ‘You cannot send a sentence with a full-stop at the end because you look mad. Or, K. for OK because you look angry, like, I’m done with you. A dot is like, “Don’t talk to me. I got my point across, but I don’t want to reply because I dotted you.”’ Now, did you know that? Simple punctuation and grammar to one generation can mean something totally different to another.

Beyond learning about full-stops, I also asked Gen Z what would matter to them in their career and what they expect work to be like. Some of the resounding themes I heard could be summed up with Jack’s comment, ‘Well, as long as it’s something I enjoy,’ or Sophie, who said, ‘I want to make a difference in the world because that’s what matters to me the most.’ Like no doubt many of you in this room, those I interviewed impressed upon me that they are deeply motivated to make a difference in the world – to be contributors who love collaborating, who care about each other and care about the world they live in, and who want to actually make the world a better place.

On the flip side, I also hear a lot of feedback about this cohort from managers, employers and co-workers, and some of the resounding comments from them are things like, ‘Oh, this generation, they’re so entitled. Oh, they want it all now. Oh, they don’t want to have to work hard for anything. Oh, they don’t like conflict. Oh, they need so much positive feedback.’ So, how do we reconcile this perspectives and what mark do we want to make on the world? What is it that, as UTS graduates, we want to be known for?

To make a mark outside the ordinary, we need to pause for a moment, reflect and not become so well adjusted to the culture of today that we fit in without even thinking. People may say Gen Z or whatever generation are coming through are entitled, apathetic, they don’t want to work hard. But what if, as the graduates of UTS, regardless of what generation we’re from, we were known for something different?

There are five UTS values – five hallmarks that we have no doubt been impacted by in our time at UTS and we can all take with us into the future. The first is to discover. Perhaps that’s the antidote to entitlement and the presumption that comes with that. You see, the greatest breakthroughs in society and technology and in business could actually be sitting in this room today.

Albert Einstein said, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world.’ With the spirit of imagination, creativity and openness, let’s be people who discover solutions, untapped possibilities, new ways of living, or, as Steve Jobs said, ‘Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.’

The second value is that of ‘engage’. Perhaps that’s an antidote to the emptiness that a lot of people in society today experience. One researcher has termed the phrase ‘absence presence’. It’s the concept that now as we straddle managing our physical world at the same time as managing a virtual world, we can be physically present right here in this room right now or in a conversation with someone but we can be emotionally absent as perhaps we’re actually thinking about the Instagram likes we might be getting on our graduation photo or the emails that might be coming through or whatever might be distracting us in a virtual world.

All of this is impacting us as humans, it’s impacting our society, it’s impacting our wellbeing. Chris, born in in 1998, said to me, ‘We are connected, yet lonely.’ Or Andrew, born in 1996, said, ‘It appears well on the outside but we’re longing for emotional connection.’ It appears that the 2.7 hours a day that young people are spending on social media is connecting us broadly, but perhaps at the cost of engaging deeply. Matt, born in the year 2000, said, ‘We’re losing the ability to have a conversation face to face.’ 

Now, I want to just see how we go at something here all together. I want you to turn to someone next to you and I’m going to – I know there’s a lot of people here with accounting degrees and all things like that, so this is very simple if you’ve got an accounting degree; you just need to be able to count to four for this one, so I think all of us in this room could do this one.

I want you to turn to the person next to you and when I say the number one, I want you to be looking at that person and put your left palm out like this. So number one, left palm out like this. At two, when I say two, you put your pointer finger in your right hand to the ceiling. On three, you put your finger in your friend’s palm and they’ll put their finger in your palm. Alright? It will sort of look like this, but your finger will be in their palm and their finger will be in your palm. And on four, you take your finger out but you catch their finger. Okay? So, I’m going to say four; you’ve just got to get your finger out of their hand and just gotta catch their finger, okay?

So, this is an all-in group challenge. This is not just for the few, this is for all of us, so everyone turn to someone around you and we’re going to just see how we go at the one, two, three, four, even if we didn’t graduate with a finance degree today. Okay, so, find a friend, find someone around you and I’m going to say some numbers and we can do this all together. Okay, are we ready?

Okay, one – put your left palm out like this facing your friend. Two, your pointer finger to the ceiling. Three, your finger goes in their palm and their finger will be in your palm. Four!

Okay. That was a good practise round. I think we need to do that two more times. Are you ready? One! Two! Three! Four!

Okay, final round. Ready? One! Two! Three! Four!

Very good, and what that quick little activity shows us is if I told you to get out your phones and scroll Instagram or play your favourite app on here, there would have been nowhere near the new connections made, the engagement in the room, the laughter, the connection that happens as we engage as people together, face to face.

I was recently speaking to some business leaders in the real estate industry and they told me about the thing of ghosting. They said it’s when a new employee who’s just been employed comes for day one; however, when day two comes, the new employee is nowhere to be seen. They’ve just done a disappearance act; they’ve decided not to come to work again and they haven’t called, they haven’t said why, they’ve just disappeared.

While we may be able to unfollow people on social media, a tip for your future employment is to avoid doing it in real life with your new bosses. Engagement really is something that will change everyone’s jobs from here on. If we can engage with people face to face, it will make a great difference.

The third is to empower, perhaps the antidote to the me, me, me self-focused generation that we perhaps are known for. Empowering is about others, whether it be your boss, your co-workers, your subordinates, a family, business, a start-up, people coming together and giving their enthusiasm, their energy, their commitment to a greater cause than themselves creates a momentum that leads to positive change. Not worrying about the number of likes we’ve got today, whether that be in the virtual or physical world, not worrying if we get all the credit, but an attitude of serving others will see remarkable doors open.

The fourth value is to deliver. Perhaps this is the antidote to apathy. People who are innovative, creative, problem solvers and committed to the outcomes. We’re living in an incredibly exciting era, unprecedented opportunity to have real-world impact, to be entrepreneurial, innovate and collaborate, and make lasting change.

The fifth value is to sustain, perhaps an antidote to the lack of resilience that we hear a lot about now. You see, we’re living in a society where a long-term commitment is now a two-year phone plan. We purchase with Afterpay, we have apps for everything at our fingertips and our lives have become increasingly convenient and comfortable. Perhaps this is what’s leading to the decline in resilience that we hear about with the emerging generations.

Oliver, born in 2002, told me, ‘I think our attention span is extremely short and anything that catches our eye distracts us. I think it might be a bit difficult when we get jobs.’ Oliver, I think you might be onto something, but what if we were known as people who knew how to stick at things, especially when the going gets tough? Who can persevere, even when the solutions aren’t immediate?

Einstein also said, ‘It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.’  So, in an era of rapid technological advancements, we need to reflect on what underpins a healthy, functional society. We need people who live by values, people of virtuous character, not just those who are living in a virtual world. People who wrestle with ethical questions on a deep level.

As you leave today with a degree under your arm, I wonder if we can stop scrolling the lives of others long enough to consider what impact we might be able to have as instead we serve the lives of others? Be people who are committed to discover, engage, empower, deliver and sustain, who actively shape the society we live in for the better for the generations to come.

Imagine if that is what we are remembered for.

Thank you very much.