Office of the Chancellor > Speeches, Columns and Letters > Winter Commencement

Winter Commencement Remarks of Chancellor G. P. "Bud" Peterson
December 22, 2006

Welcome
Graduates, members of the Board of Regents, members of the faculty and staff, parents, distinguished guests, family and friends, I am pleased to welcome you to the December 2006 commencement at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Just another sunny day in Boulder!!

I know today’s graduates join me in extending a special welcome to their families and friends whose love and support have helped to make this day possible.

Also here with us today are many members of the faculty who have guided and mentored these students, and shared with them their time, knowledge and expertise to help each student reach this important milestone. Would the faculty please stand and be recognized!!

Address to Graduates
Today more than 2,000 of you are graduating from this outstanding university with a vast array of awards, accomplishments, and notable achievements.

This year, CU-Boulder was again ranked among the top universities in the nation and the world, placing 34th among public universities in U.S. News & World Report's 2007 Best Colleges edition, and 34th among all universities in the world in a survey conducted by the Institute for Higher Education in Shanghai, China.

Several of our faculty were selected as fellows in prestigious national academies, and a number of others were recognized for their achievements by national and international organizations.

Many of our research and scholarly accomplishments also gained national and international recognition, in areas as diverse as the insertion of a multi-million dollar instrument on the Hubble space telescope; the evaluation of safe listening levels for ipods and other digital media; the development of a novel “gene chip” that will help scientists to quickly identify specific strains of flu viruses, including the avian flu; and the Takács Quartet's recording of Beethoven's late quartets was awarded the disc of the year at the first ever BBC Music Magazine awards.

Our students continue to bring honor and recognition to our university through their impressive list of accomplishments, both inside and outside the classroom. Last spring, students from the University of Colorado at Boulder won five national scholarships, marking the first time a Colorado university has been home to winners of all five of the most prestigious and highly competitive national scholarships in the same year. These include the Truman, Udall, Goldwater, and National Security Education programs—along with a first-time winner for the Gates Foundation scholarship program. And for the third year in a row, a team of students was named among the winners in the prestigious Mathematical Contest in Modeling.

Our jazz big band and its lead trumpeter won two more Down Beat Magazine music awards, bringing our total to 13 given to the CU-Boulder College of Music's jazz studies program in the last five years, more than any other school in the Rocky Mountain region.

The ski team was crowned the 2006 NCAA champions. The men's cross country team won its third national championship, while the women’s team earned a second straight runner-up finish in the NCAA national cross country championships.

It’s been a good year, one that has passed very quickly—much like your time here at CU-Boulder. Many of you are now preparing to embark on new adventures beyond the Boulder campus, armed with the skills and knowledge you have gained in the classrooms, the laboratories, the campus and the community that comprises this great university.

You are beginning an exciting and transformational time in your life, one in which you can grow, meet new people, explore new things, and find yourself. There will be many new experiences for you to explore and many new challenges to face, but with these challenges come opportunities, opportunities to truly make a difference and shape the world around you—the possibilities are endless.

Both individually and collectively, you have tremendous abilities and power to impact those around you, the organizations in which you choose to work, and the future of our rapidly evolving global society.

You have already demonstrated your creative, cooperative and philanthropic spirit here at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Specifically, you and your classmates had the foresight to put in place a capital construction fee that provided the funding for a number of new buildings on campus.

This past semester we opened two of these, the new Wolf Law building and the new ATLAS building, a technology-enhanced teaching and learning center that will benefit the entire campus and the community for years to come.

In addition, we have started the renovation and expansion of Koelbel Hall, the building that when completed will house the Leeds School of Business, and soon we will start construction of the Visual Arts Complex. None of this would have been possible without your generous support—support that will impact the lives of countless students that will follow. All of us here at CU-Boulder thank you for this.

So today, you are leaving this university having learned many valuable lessons. But as you depart you are leaving behind a living legacy for CU students who will follow in your footsteps.

In closing, as Adlai Stevenson said, “When you leave here, don't forget why you came.” I can only hope that your time here has been as enjoyable, as productive, and as valuable as you imagined when you first envisioned yourself as a student here at CU-Boulder.

On behalf of the entire university community, I want to thank you for coming here to be a part of this great university and I hope that you will continue the relationship you have started here and stay connected.

These past few days have been challenging, and I want to close with a special thanks to all the faculty and staff who have assisted in so many ways to ensure the safety of our students and to make it possible for the more than 2,000 of you to graduate on time here today. We had countless members of the faculty and staff who have spent the night here on our campus to ensure that this could happen. In addition, I want to thank all the students of CU who showed character, resolve and good humor in taking care of each other and working with our staff to deal with the difficult situations resulting from the blizzard. Thank you!

Congratulations again, and best wishes to all of you.

Professor Alexander Cruz Introduction
At this time I am pleased to introduce our commencement speaker, Professor Alexander Cruz.

Professor Cruz is on the faculty of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology. He joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 1973 and has developed an active research program in ecology, evolution, behavior and conservation biology. He earned his bachelor's degree from the City University of New York and completed his doctoral degree in 1973 at the University of Florida.

Professor Cruz is a University of Colorado Presidential Teaching Scholar and consistently receives the highest instructor ratings from his students. His teaching honors include the Briggs Mentoring Award, the Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Award, the Boulder Campus Advising Award and the Equity And Excellence Award.

He has been a mentor to 36 graduate students, and remarkably more than 300 undergraduate students, living what so many of us talk about—bringing our research into the undergraduate experience.

Professor Cruz's primary research focuses on the ecology and behavior of birds, for which he is nationally and internationally recognized. The National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Geographic Society, along with many others, have supported his research.

Professor Cruz is known as an ideal teacher, mentor, researcher and scholar, and this year he received CU-Boulder's highest faculty recognition for teaching and research, the Hazel Barnes Prize. It is my great pleasure to introduce to you Professor Alexander Cruz.