Remarks

Welcome, Class of 2025 students, families, and guests, and thank you for being here today. I'm David Tolchinsky, dean of The Media School.

On behalf of the faculty and staff of The Media School, including several who are here today, I'd like to congratulate our students who are graduating.

Tomorrow, you'll all be together at Memorial Stadium in your caps and gowns. When the time comes and the procession begins, what I want you to focus on and remember are the doors.

Opening the doors, walking through them, and discovering what lies beyond them.

I think about doors a lot. My father was a psychoanalyst, and when I was growing up, he saw patients at our home. His home office was supposed to be our living room, but when we moved into the house he claimed it and had two thick, perpetually locked double doors installed over what was supposed to be an airy, open archway. I rarely went beyond those doors — even after he retired, they remained locked. But I entered them through my creative work, writing multiple plays and screenplays about characters' fascinations with what was going on behind locked doors.

Many films involve characters opening doors that should not be opened. Think of "The Haunting of Hill House," "The Shining," "The Chronicles of Narnia," and even "Legally Blonde." Is it really a story unless there's a character who walks through an unexpected or previously forbidden door?

When I teach screenwriting classes, I tell my students that as the writer, you should be trying to pry open doors that resist being open — it is beyond those doors where the answer to your story lies.

The same is true for your career. You should be opening unexpected doors that lead to unexpected opportunities.

For most of you, the first time you truly pried open a door to reveal what lied behind it was four – or – so years ago when you enrolled at IU. Sure, you'd experienced new beginnings and made choices during your childhood, but most likely your parents were pointing out the doors, telling you what was behind them, and even opening them for you.

But enrolling at IU was a decision you owned and a door you opened yourself.

And what did you find on the other side? More doors.

What should I major in? Should I join student media – and which outlet? Should I accept this internship? Spend a semester abroad? Join an honors program? Even smaller decisions like: Is this a story or project I should pursue? Should I take this class?

If you walked through a lot of doors, then you should be sitting here today with the satisfaction of knowing that you took advantage of everything this world-class university had to offer you. And that has made you into the person you are today.

So here you are, four years later, standing in front of another mysterious door.

You may or may not know what's next for you, whether it's your first full-time job or graduate school. But whatever it is, it's just that - what's next. It is not your career. Your career is all the doors you choose to walk through for the next several decades.

For me, that meant studying music in college and film in graduate school and then entering academia, first teaching sound design in Portland, Oregon, then leading filmmaking programs at Northwestern, and now dean-ing at The Media School at IU — all the while opening other doors to compose music, curate art exhibits, and create films — including horror films and documentaries.

Recent college grad Dave would never have imagined becoming Media School Dean Dave. And I would bet that's true of most people my age. Because we didn't know what was beyond all those doors until we opened them.

It can be hard to look at your career as a non-linear series of choices when you're 22 or so. You just spent four years intensely preparing for your first job. Whether you're a reporter, a copywriter, a game developer, or a producer, you have developed niche media skills that will set you up for success in that job, many of them focused on technology that's cutting-edge in today's media landscape.

But more importantly, you have also developed these skills:

• To evolve and learn for life
• To evaluate critically
• To act ethically
• To create something meaningful

Your ability to evolve and learn for life is what will prepare you to walk through those doors — either by choice or necessity — to turn the page and experience the joy of a varied and full life and career.

Your ability to evaluate critically will enable you to see those doors for what they are. Because sometimes doors don't look like doors.

Your ability to act ethically will help you choose.

And your ability to create something meaningful — maybe that's not about you walking through doors, but rather, leaving something of value behind for the next person who walks through it.

I hope you've also developed the ability to fail and to learn from that failure. Don't be afraid to fail early and often. Failing means you're trying something new and embracing experimentation. Great failures often lead to great achievements and a clarity about what's important to you, and that takes time and patience.

What's important to you should include the people sitting next to you and around you, the people you've become friends with in these last four years. Because those are the people who will help you when you do fail and are feeling blue or just feeling like the world is a dark place. It's your friends who will offer you perspective. A new path. A job. An ear. A couch to sleep on. A creative community. Or will help you overcome heartbreak.

And yes, fall in love, get your heart broken, and fall in love again.

And be comfortable being by yourself, just listening to the wind or the birds or watching a sunset. There's so much beauty around us, sometimes we forget. So much beauty but also pain, so absolutely seek therapy when you need it.

You have opened so many doors for yourself by graduating from Indiana University. You owe it to yourself to find out what's beyond them. I can't wait to hear all about it so please stay in touch. With no irony whatsoever my door is always open.

Congratulations, class of 2025.

__________

How thrilling to see and recognize our graduates here today. And thanks to our speaker Logan Vaught. Before concluding this celebration, I’d like to offer some parting thoughts.

As you choose which doors to walk through and progress through your career, you will change in many ways. Your job, your location, your friends, and your opinions will all evolve throughout your life. But you are always the same person, rooted in a set of core, unchanging values.

What do you stand for? If you boiled your identity down to only a few bullet points, what would it be? Use this list to gut check any big life decisions.

As The Media School navigates a changing world and we evolve as well, our list of values is one of the most powerful tools we have. They are clearly defined in our strategic plan:

• Bridging history, theory, and practice
• Ethics and integrity
• Creativity and innovation
• Inclusive excellence
• Collaboration and interdisciplinarity
• Global and local impact
• Future-ready and adaptable

Diversity of community and ideas, and freedom of inquiry and expression are underpinnings of all these values.

This is how we stay true to who we are as individuals and who we are as an organization while evolving to meet the demands of a changing industry. It allows us to be intentional in our development, rather than just chasing the newest shiny thing.

I hope your list includes kindness and empathy. As you make your way through life, kindness and empathy should be core to all that you do. I know a lot of people who’ve been very successful in life. Maybe 1% are those that bullied themselves into that position. The rest? Have defined their lives by kindness and empathy.

Our future is in good hands. Congratulations again. We’re so proud of you.