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Commencement
Address Thank you, Chancellor Byyny! President Hoffman, members of the platform party, faculty colleagues, graduates and their families, friends. I am honored to have this opportunity to take part in such an important occasion in your lives! When I was invited to give this address by the powerful people sitting behind me, I was carefully instructed that I should speak for 6 or 7 minutes. I am astonished that anyone would ask me to give such an address, for everyone knows that we professors can only talk in 50 minute units! The good news is that I will behave unnaturally and try to be brief. First let me make a personal comment. One year ago, the commencement speaker was our colleague, Eric Cornell, who, together with Carl Wieman, received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics. As many of you know, Eric is now recovering from a debilitating illness. On Sunday, Eric will celebrate his 43rd birthday. I hope you will join me in wishing him well. Today, I want to discuss the importance of setting lofty, carefully reasoned goals in life, and the ensuing necessity of enduring and learning from failure. To illustrate this coupling, I would like to tell you a story of a courageous, creative man and an equally daring University. Chancellor Byyny introduced me as a Distinguished Professor. A perk that comes with this position is the opportunity to name the professorship after someone who played a significant role in the history of the University of Colorado. I chose Professor Edward U. Condon. The hiring of Ed Condon represented a high water mark for our University. Condon's character and the principles that led CU to hire him provide a valuable lesson that remains valid today. Ed Condon was a brilliant theoretical physicist, one who laid down many of the foundations of quantum physics. He led research on radar during the Second World War. After the war, he courageously pressed the case that nuclear weapons should be controlled by a civilian agency, not by the military. This view was by no means universally accepted. His logic, however, convinced President Truman to establish the civilian Atomic Energy Commission to control nuclear weapons. This activism made Condon a prime target of the burgeoning anti-communist activities of Congress. Based upon hearsay and innuendo, the House Un-American Activities Committee branded Condon the "weakest link in our atomic security" system. As a result, Condon's security clearance was revoked, and he was forced to resign his government job. Subsequent employment was made difficult by threats to cancel governmental contracts to any company or university that hired Condon. No specific allegations were ever made, but there was a stream of "he had a friend who had a friend who was alleged to be a communist sympathizer" guilt by innuendo messages. At this time the University of Colorado was not a major research university. However, seeing an opportunity, the Regents of the University of Colorado offered Condon a faculty position. In one bold move, we gained the most prestigious, accomplished member of our faculty, a scholar dedicated to developing young people (me among them) and devoted passionately to the public understanding of science. What happened? As time went on, this persecution was recognized to be a witch hunt, Condon's security clearance was restored, and his principal congressional tormentor was imprisoned. The wisdom of this courageous step by CU became apparent to all. What is the lesson? Both Ed Condon and the leadership of our University took courageous stands based on principle, and in the end the stands were completely vindicated. Condon's appointment was a key step in the process of transforming CU into a nationally recognized academic institution! We must always nurture such courage, and be prepared to ignore "conventional" wisdom when we believe in the correctness of our actions! Only in this way can we succeed at attaining lofty goals. Sometimes, however, success may not follow, so let me turn briefly to the vital role of failure. We have all heard the phrase to the effect that "Failure is not an option." This is false!! I submit that failure is not just an option, but it is a requirement for a life devoted to lofty goals. Failure is no stranger to a successful scientist. Our work may appear logical and direct, but NO!! My own research is a comedy of errors in which one thing after another goes wrong, but through creativity, persistence, enthusiasm and, yes, luck, we persevere and find a path to success. The absence of failure is a sure sign that our goals are too modest. The necessity of setting seemingly unattainable objectives applies far beyond science. The "nearly impossible" must be the yardstick against which we measure the value of our actions! And we must both expect and learn from the multiple failures that lie on the pathway to success! Finally, this is the last graduation ceremony during the tenure of Chancellor Richard Byyny. He has provided outstanding leadership over eight years, with an unwavering dedication to the pursuit of academic excellence and to the provision of the highest quality educational experience for all students. I know that I speak for the entire faculty when I say the we have benefited greatly from your gentle but firm leadership, and we will miss you enormously, Dick!! May you fare well! Thank you, and let's get on with the fun of graduation! Commencement Address "Becoming a Citizen of the World" This is a wonderful occasion! Graduates, you have done a great job in earning your degrees, and I'm honored to be part of the ceremony that celebrates your achievements. For me as a historian, today's excitement and pageantry feel like the day in 1558 when thousands of people lined the streets of London to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Or maybe a better comparison is the mood in Uganda on the day its national soccer team beat Kenya's! But we are here in Boulder, Colorado on May 7, 2004, and I say: Congratulations to all the graduates and the families who have given so much to make this possible! As you leave CU-Boulder, graduates, you will necessarily become citizens of the world. I want to take this occasion to explore what that means. You have come of age at a time when the United States is the dominant international power, in economic, political, and military terms. Yet we are also part of an international community. As the future leaders of our country, you will have to make hard decisions about what our role in that global community should be. You already have a jump start in becoming citizens of the world because you are graduates of CU-Boulder. For one thing, you studied in a state with strong international connections. Colorado's population is exceptionally diverse, with people coming from all over the world. Colorado is also international in economic terms. Last year, foreign companies invested billions of dollars in Colorado, and our farmers and businesses exported products to hundreds of countries around the globe. In addition, you are graduating from an outstanding university famous for its international emphasis. More than a quarter of today's graduating class studied at foreign universities for a semester or a year. Other students did internships or research abroad. That's terrific! We have over 1500 foreign students and scholars at CU, contributing their diverse experiences to ours. Thank you for coming to Boulder. Moreover, CU strongly supports research that has an international impact. For instance, while we were in Uganda last year, my husband Dick worked in a lab that is studying Sleeping Sickness. While Sleeping Sickness may sound like a problem that strikes students during boring lectures (!), it is actually a terrible parasitic disease. It kills hundreds of thousands of people and animals every year, with devastating human and economic consequences for central Africa. Dick has recently learned that he and his Ugandan research partner have received a grant that will bring $600,000 in foreign money to their labs here in Boulder and in Uganda. That will help the economies of both countries and let them develop an inexpensive and effective vaccine against Sleeping Sickness. Yes, indeed, research done at CU-Boulder can have a huge impact on the lives of millions of people. Why does it matter whether Americans are citizens of the world? Who cares anyway? In individual terms, you graduates should care because having a global perspective will open up a better life for you personally. I hope that many of you will have a chance to live in a foreign county at some point. You will gain a new outlook on the world and a new understanding of yourself and your life at home. It will also advance your career. Knowing another language and culture will help you get interesting jobs in this country, and it may help you rise to the top of your field. Some of the big American companies, like Hewlett-Packard, now require overseas experience for promotion to their upper executive positions. Speaking more generally, we all need to care about the United States' role in the world. The security and prosperity of our country and the well-being of the global community depend upon our ability to work effectively with others. Our country is based on noble ideals that we hope will someday become realities for people of all nations. As Americans we believe in democracy and political participation. We think people should be free to speak their minds and to worship as they choose. We value compassion, and we believe that everyone has the right to equal opportunities and fair treatment by the law. These are wonderful principles, and we must make sure they are reflected in the United States' actions overseas. Graduates, use your leadership position to insist that we practice what we preach, so that people around the world will understand through our actions what it means to live in accordance with these admirable beliefs. Another reason we need to be world citizens is that the United States has vital economic relations with other countries, through business investments and foreign aid. But our per capita contributions to the development of poor nations—in agriculture, education, and health—lag far behind what is given by the Scandinavian countries, Canada, and Japan. As I witnessed first-hand in Uganda, American participation in international development wins us friends by improving the lives of the less fortunate. I'm delighted that so many of you graduates plan to work in fields that help others. We will all benefit from your activity, for a world of adequately nourished, well educated, and healthy people is a world in which Americans and everyone else can live safely and in peace. In today's complex and fragmented world, no nation can risk standing alone. Even a wealthy and powerful country like the United States can only attain its ultimate goals if it cooperates with others. In economic terms, the bottom line is that we have to maintain friendly relations with other countries because we rely on international trade. In political terms too, I believe that the best way to achieve our own national security and long-term global stability is by acting in partnership with other countries. Together we can build a world that offers peace, prosperity, and justice to all its citizens. Graduates, you have worked hard and with great success at CU-Boulder. The future will be in your hands. We are counting on you to use what you have learned here, and the degrees we are celebrating today, to help build that better world. Congratulations!
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