Today Ohio State Univeristy winter quarter graduates learned how “The Greatest Gift an Education Gives is Perspective,” and how it applies to private, public and international affairs.

Historian Geoffrey Parker, the Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at Ohio State University, delivered the winter quarter commencement address to about 1,400 graduates.

Parker said he felt inspired when he found that expression in “Convicted in the Womb,” the autobiography of Carl Upchurch.

Upchurch did not find out perspective was the greatest gift of education in school but in prison.

“He got his GED in one prison and he graduated while in another. He strives to show us that education can provide the structure, as well as perspective, to keep them out of prison,” said Parker.

Parker spoke of the year 1953 and how achievements of Americans produced a general sense of well being.

“Not only was this Ohio’s 150th birthday, but this year also saw the first frozen TV dinners, the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure, the first non-stop transcontinental flight, and the first IBM Computer (Model 741, Memory 4 KB), and with it the first “virtual” computer simulation,” Parker said.

Although 1953 marked great achievements, the year was also disfigured with many problems, including segregation.

“Fifty years on, in 2003, as Ohio celebrates its Bicentennial, we have at least made some progress on those issues,” he said.

Parker also quoted Fred Siegel.

“In the 1950’s, a good deal of what had seemed (a few years earlier to be) science fiction became everyday life,” he said.

Looking over his shoulder now, Parker spoke of today.

“But still all is not well. Above all, the problem of poverty is far worse, not far better, than it was 50 years ago,” he said.

“If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and your own bed to sleep in – then you are richer than 75 percent of the world’s population. And if you have a high school diploma, you’re in the top 1%,” Parker said.

After Parker quoted General William Tecumseh Sherman, the Yankee general during the Civil War who was famous for his march to the sea, on how war is hell, Parker pointed out this is where the new graduates come in.

“In our Bicentennial world of restricted opportunities and rewards, our system will inevitably operate to the benefit of the strongest and the best-organized groups of citizens; and you, with the professional expertise that we have tried to give you here, will be among the most powerful of these groups,” Parker said.

Parker told the graduates they will face many hard decisions in the following years, but that the admirable commitment to excellence and the skills graduates have today will help them.

“As you make those hard decisions, look beyond your own personal welfare, and beyond the advantage of your own professional and social group, to the well-being of the whole world in which we all must live,” Parker said.

Parker encouraged the graduates to follow the example of Carl Upchurch.

“Invest an irrationally large amount of effort to help others, even though it apparently offers no benefit to you, because eventually, cumulatively, it will reduce inequity and so enhance our collective chances of survival,” Parker said

Parker then told the graduates the ceremony marks a good-bye and a welcome in one.

Parker did not leave before OSU Pesident Karen Holbrook presented him with a medal for all of his achievements.

“Hopefully he’ll put it on his desk,” she said.

Parker, an expert on European and military history, holds a joint appointment at the Mershon Center, Ohio State’s center for interdisciplinary study of international security and public policy.