Speaking for the Students
Rob Painter will send the students on their way at graduation
By Nancy Oates
On his first day of kindergarten, Rob Painter wrapped his arms around the banister at home and tearfully refused to go. Sixteen years later, as he was pondering what to say to his Duke classmates as student speaker on commencement day, that image returned.
"I didn't want to embark on the next phase of my destiny," Painter said. "My speech is about wanting to run to the statue of Benjamin Duke on East Campus Quad on the morning of graduation and cling to it in hopes I can't be torn away."
Painter, a theater studies major and member of DUI (that's Duke University Improv, for the uninitiated), will take the stage for his final undergraduate performance on Commencement Day as his class' student speaker. He's cut his talk to under 10 minutes now and promises it will be infused with levity and may be irreverent in spots.
Performance has long been his niche at Duke, he said. Painter spoke to his high school graduating class as well, and petitioned to speak at commencement because he "communes well with large groups of people," he said.
"I welcomed the opportunity to wax introspective on my career here and try to quantify it. It was a nostalgic exercise," not characterized by events as much as a sense of fulfillment and purpose. The Duke experience has been a gift, he said, that he and his classmates have to translate into a wider realm to benefit others.
"If I could quantify what I love about this place, I could replicate it in the outside world," he said.
Painter came to Duke with a vague uneasiness. Family members of every generation, all the way back to his great-grandfather, were Duke alumni. But Painter had grown up in Chapel Hill, and Duke didn't seem far enough from home to be an adventure.
"It was eight miles away; that's not much of an odyssey," he said.
Once he got to Duke, though, he found it to be "an isolated Utopia." Interpersonal relationships became more intense and valuable, and people who had come from all over the world influenced one another with an exotic infusion of culture.
"In my speech, I liken Duke to a scholarly 'Gilligan's Island,' " he said. "Unfortunately, the rescue boat comes to whisk us all away."
By the end of summer, that boat will ferry Painter to New York, where he plans to pursue an acting career. He's not sure what permutation that will take, but he doesn't fret over it. His performances with DUI - “ he estimates that he has done about 120 over his four years at Duke - “ have left him comfortable working without a script. As with any profession, he said, there are many routes to take.
All of his buddies will be moving someplace else, Painter said, and so will he. Graduation may catapult him into the real world, but he expects it will be like stepping on stage for his first big show with DUI at Page Auditorium. The jolt of fear soon turned to a thrill of success. His commencement speech will encourage his classmates to loosen their grip on Duke, to contemplate what propels them to leave and what awaits them beyond campus.
"We're all leaving together “- that's the way we came, together - “ and there's comfort in that," he said. Commencement Day will be memorable not only because of its ritual but because it offers the chance to be together as a class one more time. After that, they must all let go of the banister and meet their separate destinies.
"The class of 2005 will still be out there," he said, "just a little more loosely configured."