Mary S. Coleman

Transcription

Mary Sue Coleman: Congratulations to the class of 2013. This is your biggest day at Michigan and you deserve the big house to celebrate your accomplishment. Just as extraordinary as your achievement as scholars is the love and support you receive over the years from your families, for the parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters who are with us today, we say, �Thank you� for sharing your students with us because they have made us a better university. I have tremendous confidence in the potential of this class to be leaders, who will move us forward as a community, a state, and a nation. There will be no shortage of challenges. You�ll need to draw upon the skills you�ve developed in the classroom, the laboratory and beyond. You�ll need to be creative and you�ll need to be flexible. Most important, you must remain open-minded about the possibilities before you. You know that you enter the next stage of your lives with a unique commodity, a degree from the University of Michigan that tells the world you understand the importance and value of critical thinking, creativity and problem solving. Your degree also grants you a lifetime membership in a powerful global organization, the largest alumni body in the world. You now share a common bond with journalist, the likes of Robin Wright and Susan Orlean, public servants such as Dale Kildee, and Valerie Jarrett, and innovators who are transforming our world like our speaker today, Dick Costolo. Michigan graduates make a difference. One of the most remarkable graduates of this university was Raoul Wallenberg, a member of the class of 1935. He absolutely loved being a Michigan student, loved the campus, his friends and everything about Ann Arbor. In his final weeks on campus, he felt the melancholy that I suspect some of you have experienced today. Part of him wanted to stay forever, but he knew that the world was waiting, saying, �I'm not doing anything very useful here.� He would go on to become one of the great humanitarians of the 20th century. As a diplomat in war-torn Europe, he repeatedly risked his life to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. He rescued some 100,000 people, the capacity of this stadium from the Nazi death camps and then he disappeared at the hands of his enemies and we are still seeking answers about his fate. Raoul Wallenberg was and is a hero of the highest order. His selfless work is a blueprint for the leadership and determination we expect of Michigan graduates, that means graduates like Zachary Petroni. Zach is a senior in the Ford School of Public Policy. He�s an honor student who is deeply engaged in global environmental issues. He�s traveled to Cambodia, Kenya, and Washington to expand his knowledge. In Africa, he's seen the human cost of well intended efforts to protect land and wildlife. He wants to better understand the connections between human rights and environmental conservation. He�s following the advice of one of today�s honorary degree recipients, Jeffrey Sachs, who tells graduates, "Take a chance. Go to a poor country. Go to a village. Learn about life as it is lived by billions of people on the planet.� The University of Michigan is going to help Zach with his goals because he best exemplifies the commitment to human rights embodied by Raoul Wallenberg. Zach is the inaugural recipient of the University�s new Wallenberg Fellowship. This is an award we present to a graduating senior and we�ll support a year of Zach�s work in Kenya. He leaves in a few short weeks. Today, Zach wears the peacock tassel, a peacock blue tassel of a Ford School graduate. I imagine he�s a little hard to pick out there on the field, but he is deserving of our applause and our best wishes, so Zach, congratulations. Graduates of the University of Michigan have walked on the moon, won Pulitzer Prizes, graced the stages of Broadway and occupied the Oval Office. I'm confident that you will continue to break barriers, make headlines, drawing on the knowledge, creativity and insight you gained from your professors and your classmates. Generation after generation, alumni push into the world to make a difference and are motivated, not discouraged, by roadblocks. Consider Lyman Johnson. He was the son of the South and the grandson of four slaves. He was a teacher at the only high school for black students in Louisville, Kentucky when in 1949, he decided to return to school himself and pursue a doctorate. On applying to the University of Kentucky, he was told that he could find a separate but equal education up the road at the all black Kentucky State College. Lyman Johnson sued to be admitted to the University of Kentucky. �I have no apology for being a Negro," he said. "I stand by my rights as an American citizen.� When the courts agreed with him, he broke the color barrier in his state and became the first African-American to attend a university that had been founded 84 years earlier. His successful work to desegregate higher education in Kentucky came of full five years before the Brown versus Board of Education ruling that ordered all of our nation�s schools integrated. Walter Bergman was a white man, the son of Swedish immigrants, who like Lyman Johnson, became a teacher. In 1961, exactly 52 years ago today, he joined a handful of individuals to become Freedom Riders determined to test the integration of busing in the South. At a rest stop in Anniston, Alabama, Walter Bergman�s bus was attacked by a group of white men. He was knocked to the ground, brutally beaten and repeatedly kicked in the head. He was 61 years old at the time, the oldest of the riders. His injuries left him permanently paralyzed and he spent the rest of his life, which stretched to 100 years, using a wheelchair, but he did not remain idle. Years later he forced the FBI to admit it knew of the attacks in advance and took no action to stop the assault or protect the Freedom Riders. Rather, Ku Klux Klan men were given a 15-minute head start before the police were called. We do not know if Lyman Johnson and Walter Bergman ever crossed paths or if they ever compared their stories of struggle and sacrifice. What we do know is that they were both alumni of this great university and we should be forever inspired by their courage, their leadership and their commitment to changing the world. Graduates, like your fellow alumnus, Walter Bergman, you will take risks. You will make a difference with your advocacy, your inventions, your initiative because these are the trademarks of leaders. Like Lyman Johnson, you will create change for the better. You will work on behalf of your neighbors and you will do it with dignity and integrity. And like Zach Petroni, Josh Buoy, Katy DelBene, Denard Robinson, and all of your classmates in the class of 2013, you will do this and more as a graduate of the University of Michigan. Saying goodbye can be difficult. You may feel a bit like Raoul Wallenberg when he said, �I feel so at home in my little Ann Arbor that I'm beginning to sink down roots here and have a hard time imagining my leaving it.� Saying farewell brings with it not only the potential of new experiences elsewhere, it also brings the promise of reunion and the joy of returning. The University of Michigan, the Diag, the Cube, they will always be with you. I sincerely hope that you come back to Ann Arbor to feel the thrill of remembrance and share with us your story of changing the world. For today, goodbye, for tomorrow good luck and forever go blue!