POTSDAM — The old Marine didn't sugarcoat it.
"The world is a mess, graduates, but the solution is at hand," said J. Richard Munro. "It's in the minds beneath those mortarboard caps and the hearts that beat beneath those robes."
The former Time Warner chairman and CEO, a Bluff Island summer resident and former trustee at St. Lawrence University, Canton, was the keynote speaker Sunday at SUNY Potsdam's commencement, where approximately 615 received bachelor's degrees.
Mr. Munro's harsh and pointed criticism of the country's sluggish economy and overseas fighting drew a standing ovation from the graduates and more than a thousand relatives and friends in Maxcy Hall gym.
"To hang the best face on it, stability is elusive and peace seems more a dream than a possibility," he said. "The good news is that the era of illusions has come to an end. We've run out of excuses for pretending that somehow, some way, someday, the world is going to right itself, that all we have to do is sit back and wait until some inventor or candidate or political prophet rides to our rescue."
Some graduates had an unsettling feeling about the uncertain future.
"I'm still looking for a job, like most graduates," said Wolod-ymyr "Wally" Pryjmak, a Rochester chemistry major. "A lot of the older people are saying it's as bad as the recession in the '70s. I just want to get a full-time job with benefits so I can start paying off my loans."
Paying student loans provided comedic relief for student body President Kaitlyn M. Beachner, who told the crowd that she received $5 from each person she named in her speech. She dropped names throughout — including that of Potsdam President John F. Schwaller — before wrapping up by listing enough to field a baseball team.
"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my first loan payment," she said.
Geology major Anne Bruno, summa cum laude, was recognized as the university's academic honoree.
"We all worked incredibly hard to get to this point and should be proud of this moment," she said. "When it comes to the future, it will be exciting, scary, unpredictable or all three at the same time."
Literature and writing major Colin M. DeHond, Saranac Lake, is putting off graduate school, which Ms. Bruno called the snooze button on the alarm clock of life.
"I'm taking a year off," said Mr. DeHond, magna cum laude. "I'm going to grad school, just not sure where."
It was the college's 174th commencement ceremony. Mr. Munro received a doctor of human letters honorary degree. Virginia Cayey, a 1960 SUNY Potsdam graduate and retired music teacher living in Colton, received the college's distinguished service award.
The college awarded almost 270 master's degrees Saturday.
