Editor’s note: Following are excerpts from Etta Pisano’s prepared remarks for the commencement ceremony, held Dec. 18 in the Smith Center. Pisano is director of UNC’s Biomedical Research Imaging Center, Kenan professor of radiology and biomedical engineering in the School of Medicine and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.  

Pisano

First, let me remind all of you graduates, your families and your friends of just how really lucky you are to have spent the last few years at this amazing institution, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As Charles Kuralt put it in his stirring bicentennial address, “What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. Or the crisp October nights or the memory of dogwoods blooming ... No, our love for this place is based on the fact that it is, as it was meant to be, the university of the people.”

UNC is indeed a very special place. All of you graduates here today and the families and friends who supported you through your education may not have been Tar Heels born, but you are now and always will be Tar Heels bred. You are now magically connected to this beautiful campus, this southern part of heaven, UNC. Cherish these last few years here. Remember the hours you’ve spent pondering the big issues with your professors and classmates, the Halloweens on Franklin Street, the lazy afternoons on McCorkle Place, impromptu concerts at the Pit, this year’s national basketball championship. These events, so many of them suffused with so much meaning over so short a time, occur but just once in a lifetime. (Maybe more often than that for the national championship!)

In preparation for this talk, I’ve been reading about your generation, what some are calling Generation Y, Echo Boomers, or the Millennium Generation, what makes you special, how you will change the world. There are 60 million of you, a baby boomlet born to the Baby Boomers. You’ve lived through the dot-com bust, 9/11, the tsunami, Iraq, Columbine, Katrina. You’re more wired and tech savvy than any generation ever. Through WiFi and instant messaging, you’re interconnected 24/7. And, you are interested in a better balance between work and family than many of your workaholic parents had. This is a burning issue to your generation.

Well, I say, bravo! Hooray! If the world changes to allow more balance because of your efforts, it will be a better place for all of us. Go for it! Push the envelope. Use your numbers and spirit to make our workplaces more family-friendly. Things have already changed a bit for the better in my world, medicine, with the new, shorter, get ready for a shock, only 80-hour work week. (That sure beats the 120-hour work week common when I was an intern!) . . .

Some of you may doubt that any Kenan professor who has been asked to give the commencement address could be a kindred spirit in this struggle for balance between work and family. In fact, you may be regarding those of us up on this stage as hopelessly out of touch with what you face in the years ahead. Well, you’re wrong.

When I was interviewing for my residency position and relayed my own hopes for an academic career, one prominent older-generation radiologist replied, “Don’t you want to have children?” I guess he thought I needed to be married to my job to succeed in my chosen field. I’ve heard another old-fashioned leader claim that the best faculty members “don’t have families.” Well, balderdash!

The current generation of leaders, all of those on this podium, have struggled with these issues. For example, Bill Roper, dean of the UNC School of Medicine, tells a story about his departure for work one day as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Just as Bill was getting into his car, his young son called out, “Thanks for visiting us, daddy.”

This was a wake-up call for him. He reordered his priorities and spent more time with his family. James Moeser, as a young academic administrator, made time to play sports and attend Suzuki violin lessons with his kids. Bob Golden, vice dean of the UNC School of Medicine, father of four and husband to a UNC Lineberger cancer researcher, takes his turn at home when the kids are sick and has been a trailing spouse. With leaders like these, and more women in the boardrooms of America, your generation is destined to succeed in improving work-family balance for all of us.

In fact, there are already many experts on work-home balance all around us, the wise women in our lives who have been pulling it off all along. I’ve surveyed some of them, what I call my wise woman network. Here are their top four tips.

Tip number one: The enemy of the good enough is the perfect.

Everything is not equally important. Strive for great things but understand that life is not perfect. Balance is achieved over time, not all at one moment in time, not in all spheres at once. My Christmas decorations are not up yet. My house could never be photographed for House Beautiful. My cooking is not even close to gourmet. And all of that is OK with me and my family. It is fine according to our family priorities. My family is happy and productive living in our somewhat messy house.

As Noelle Granger, UNC professor of cell and developmental biology, mother of two, wife of a practicing ob-gyn, says, “I don’t tend to see it as a balancing act so much as juggling — how many balls can you keep in the air and for how long? The truth is that you really can’t keep them all in the air all the time, so you just keep selected ones or even just one airborne at any one time. Balancing comes into play in not letting anything vaporize.”

In other words, prioritize.

Dianne Mattingly, nurse, single mom of two daughters and UNC Lineberger research associate, says, “I think in order to balance one’s life and career you need to know what your dreams are, and prioritize them. Pick your battles well, especially with those you live with. And in times of conflict or indecisiveness, ask yourself what really matters.”

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Every hour, every day cannot be balanced. Work for there to be balance over time based on your own priorities.

That leads me to tip number two: Reflect. Listen to your inner self. Have passion for what you do.

Elodia Cole, UNC alum, biomedical engineer and my lab’s manager extraordinaire, says, “Be inspired. Be an inspiration. Successful people live each day of their lives purposefully and in doing so inspire others around them to do the same.”

This is the secret to my own success. My mom died suddenly of cancer at age 44, leaving my dad with seven kids. I was the oldest at 15. I decided then and there that I would become a doctor for women and dedicate my life to finding ways of preventing the deaths of young women from cancer. I thought that would be as an ob-gyn researcher, but I could not function well enough after midnight, when babies are apt to be born, so I opted for women’s imaging and working on ways to improve breast cancer detection. More American women in their forties die from breast cancer than any other cause. To this day, I decide what projects to do in my lab by answering two questions: “If we’re successful, could our results help women? Could this project possibly help save some lives?”

And, take heart, graduates, you don’t have to know today what you will do to achieve your goals, what gives you passion. Take inspiration from the life of Mary Brown. After raising her three daughters and a midlife divorce, she returned to school, graduated from college, and while working for me as a research manager, she earned her master’s degree in public health here at UNC. Mary now works for a contract research organization and lives near her daughters and grandchildren in New York while managing medical research projects. ...

Tip number three: No man (or woman) is an island. We’re all in this together. Find good partners and friends. Develop a great social network.

For me, my husband has been my strongest supporter. What a star I married in Jan Kylstra. He has been a loving partner in raising our four children while practicing as a busy eye surgeon. My dad has also always been there for me. How lucky I’ve been to have two such strong men supporting me.

These sorts of relationships are common for people who’ve successfully managed career and family responsibilities. Fran Collichio, UNC Lineberger cancer doctor and mother of two, says, “The success I have largely comes from the support I have received from my husband, Bob” (an administrator in the UNC department of radiology). I met him before my third year of medical school. ...

Carolyn Sartor, another UNC Lineberger cancer doctor and mom of a small son, says that her husband, Nick, also a UNC physician, is the “single most important factor in” her “happiness, success and balance.” He helps her focus on the important things in life, supports everything she does and enjoys her successes.

But, wise women know that their support network extends beyond those with whom they live. Co-workers, friends, relatives and neighbors are there to help, too. Learn to ask for and accept help from your network. That’s what friends are for.

And this brings me to the most important and paradoxical tip for leading a balanced life. Tip number four: Serve your community. Volunteer. As Margaret Mead put it, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I know I have gained infinitely more from my volunteer work with the Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools than I have ever invested. ...

So, give something back to the people of your community and the state of North Carolina. Your family and neighbors helped you reach this day through their moral and financial support. Be generous in return. Use your UNC degree for the good of all of us.

So, graduates, you are truly our best and our brightest. Use your amazing talents to make this world a better place for all of us. We expect really great things from all of you. Figure out what those great things are, and go do them!