graduate here today – congratulations!
As well, a special welcome and deepest gratitude to my predecessor,
President Emeritus John Hennessy, who will be able to watch the
Commencement seated for the first time in 17 years. John, we are
all beyond grateful for your extraordinary leadership of
Stanford.
And now, I would like to extend a most special welcome to all those
who are receiving degrees today: seniors and graduate students from
all of the schools at Stanford.
Today, we shall award 1,659 bachelor’s degrees; 2,402 master’s
degrees; and 1,021 doctoral degrees.
For those earning a bachelor’s degree:
- 273 are graduating with departmental honors and 276 with
university distinction
- 86 have satisfied the requirements of more than one major and
27 are graduating with dual bachelor’s degrees
- 363 have completed minors
- 168 are graduating with both a bachelor’s and a master’s
degree
Stanford is committed to enrolling a student body that includes
students from all around the world. In terms of international
students earning degrees today:
- 76 members of the undergraduate class hail from 33
countries
- At the graduate level, 76 countries are represented by 1,019
awardees of master’s and doctoral degrees
I’ve come to learn that this tradition of reading the statistics of
our graduating students long precedes big data being such a big
deal and metrics being a mantra. It’s a tradition I am proud to
continue because these numbers bring to life the extraordinary
impact our university has, and will have, on the world by educating
future citizens and leaders.
Another tradition, perhaps by coincidence, is that Stanford’s
Commencement often falls on Father’s Day, as it does today. That
gives us the opportunity to think of the special roles fathers play
in our lives.
I was reminded of this
earlier this year when I, along with
others here at Stanford, was invited by U.S. Poet Laureate Robert
Pinsky to participate in his Favorite Poem Project.
I chose to read “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, the first
African-American Poet Laureate – a poem that is an homage to
his late father.
An excerpt reads:
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
The poem reminds us of the importance of expressing our
appreciation when we have the chance to do so, of not
delaying.
And so, I’d like us to take this opportunity now to say Happy
Father’s Day and thank you to all the fathers – and father figures
– who are here with us.
Better still, to extend our appreciation, we will invoke yet
another very special Stanford Commencement tradition.
As you all know, there are a number of people who have made your
time at Stanford possible. Many are in the stands today or watching
the ceremony from around the world via livestream – people who have
supported, challenged and encouraged you through the years.
They include parents and grandparents; spouses and children;
siblings, aunts and uncles; mentors and friends; everyone who has
played a role in helping you get to Stanford, or in helping you
once you got here.
Graduating students, I now invite you to please rise. Please think
of all those who have supported you on your journey. Turn to you
family and friends if they are in the stands, or to those watching
from around the world.
Join me in saying to them, “Thank you!”
Introduction
of Commencement speaker
Today, I have the great honor of introducing our Commencement
speaker: Justice of the California Supreme Court Mariano-Florentino
Cuéllar.
Justice Cuéllar began serving on the California Supreme Court in
January 2015, when he was nominated by Gov. Jerry Brown and
confirmed unanimously by the California Commission on Judicial
Appointments.
Justice Cuéllar’s story is one of borders, but also one of
boundless horizons.
He was born in Matamoros, Mexico, a city within walking distance of
the United States.
As a boy, he and his brother, Maximo, traveled each day by bus and
then by foot to attend school in Brownsville, Texas. As he traveled
from community to community and country to country, he took in the
sights and sounds, including how they changed – from the look of
each city to the size of the roads, to what the people were
doing.
The contrasts he observed inspired curiosity about the influence of
governance on culture and on society. He also developed an
appreciation for architecture, the beauty of historic buildings and
the utility of modern ones.
Those moments of curiosity and contemplation led to intellectual
inquiries and professional pursuits well beyond his early life on
the border. To this day, those experiences are at the heart of his
passion for working on problems involving law, public policy and
education.
Justice Cuéllar and his brother were raised by parents who were
both educators. The Cuéllar family eventually immigrated to the
United States. They moved to another border city in California’s
Imperial Valley, where Justice Cuéllar graduated from Calexico High
School.
He went on to earn his undergraduate degree
magna cum
laude from Harvard in 1993. He then earned his law
degree from Yale in 1997. And, he saved the best for last when he
earned his PhD in political science right here at Stanford in
2001.
Stanford deeply appreciated Justice Cuéllar’s exceptional
scholarship, leadership and empathy. The university invited him to
join our faculty in 2001. Until 2015, he was the Stanley Morrison
Professor of Law and professor, by courtesy, of political science.
Between 2004 and 2015, Justice Cuéllar also held leadership
positions at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International
Studies.
As institute director, he supervised 12 centers and programs
addressing international affairs, governance and development, food
security and the environment, and health policy. Justice Cuéllar
has earned a reputation for possessing great integrity, for
respecting a diversity of viewpoints to build consensus, for
brilliance and for grace.
For these reasons, President Obama appointed him as Special
Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy. While
on leave from Stanford to work at the White House, Justice
Cuéllar’s projects included negotiating bipartisan support to enact
legislation: to reduce disparities in drug sentencing; to give the
FDA authority to protect children and youth from tobacco; to reform
the FDA’s food safety authority for the first time in 70 years; and
to repeal the military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy.
When I reflect on all of Justice Cuéllar’s accomplishments and
service on numerous commissions and boards, I am in awe of his
dedication to public service. One of Justice Cuéllar’s former
Stanford colleagues, who was an appointee under President Ronald
Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, said of Justice Cuéllar,
“What he’s interested in is practical solutions. He and I could
serve in the same administration.”
In his own words, Justice Cuéllar has described his passion for his
work by saying, “The world is as messy and complicated as it is
beautiful and full of possibility.” And, “My hope is to empower
people to do great things.”
Please join me in warmly welcoming Stanford’s 126th Commencement
speaker, Justice of the California Supreme Court Mariano-Florentino
Cuéllar.
Closing
remarks
Graduates of Stanford University, Class of 2017, on behalf of the
Stanford family, congratulations! What a joy for all of us to be
here today to honor you and to celebrate you.
Commencement. A beginning. A starting point. As though for years
you’ve been preparing for lift-off, and today is your launch
date.
You are a very special class for many reasons. The Wacky Walk this
year certainly displayed some of them. You are also very special
because you share your day of Commencement with another historic
launch.
On this very day, in 1983, NASA successfully launched the STS-7
space shuttle mission. Aboard the space shuttle was a Stanford
alumna, Sally Ride.
Thirty-four years ago, today, Sally became the first American
female astronaut to fly in space and to orbit the Earth.
Given such a wonderful coincidence, I thought we might look to
Sally’s trajectory for inspiration, as we celebrate this
spectacular moment in your trajectory.
Sally’s story is one of preparation, launch, orbit and landing!
Let’s take a look at each one in turn.
Stanford days
Like yours, a big part of Sally’s preparation started right here at
Stanford.
Sally received four degrees from Stanford – 2 undergraduate and 2
graduate – in English and in physics. She originally wanted to be a
professional tennis player, not an astronaut. She would later joke,
“What kept me from being a professional tennis player was my
forehand.”
During her doctoral degree, Sally saw an ad in the
Stanford Daily inviting women to apply for
NASA’s astronaut program. While women, including women of color,
were pivotal to the space program’s success, the astronaut corps
had yet to include a woman. Our aspiring tennis player turned
astrophysicist applied and was accepted.
Launch
When the space shuttle launched and headed toward orbit, Sally
could be heard through the radio saying, “This sure is fun.”
That moment required a lot more than just 500,000 gallons of fuel
and a combined maximum thrust of 1.2 million pounds. Sally had
completely devoted herself to being an excellent student throughout
her undergraduate and graduate studies here on campus. She had
already been a member of the astronaut corps for more than 5 years.
And, she enjoyed the support of her family and friends, her
professors and mentors, and thousands of NASA personnel, including
her crew.
Like Sally, I know all of you can appreciate a moment of tremendous
joy made possible by dedication, countless hours of study and a
great crew. Graduates, this weekend is your moment to
celebrate! And we all know what an extraordinary effort you
have put into making this day possible.
I won’t try to quantify the number of pages you have read, papers
you have turned in, problem sets you have solved or the amount of
caffeine you’ve ingested! We know that the support offered by your
family and friends, and the gratitude you feel for them, is also
beyond measure. And, I ask that you make sure your crew knows it,
too.
On behalf of the university, I want you to know we all swell with
pride for you. Because today, on the day of your launch from
Stanford into a vast openness of possibility and opportunity, you
too are defying gravity and beginning to
soar.
Orbit
Once in orbit, Sally Ride got her first view of the Earth. She
noted the beauty of the Himalayas that seemed to be reaching up to
touch her. She was struck by the sight of rivers in the moonlight
and fires along the coasts of the African continent. She reflected,
“It’s so clear from that perspective how fragile our existence is.”
Most astronauts, when they see the Earth from space express much
the same awe as Sally. They are moved by the Earth’s beauty and
humbled by the precariousness of our lives.
Graduates, to whatever heights you aspire whether through
expressing creativity, committing to service, building a family,
advancing knowledge, driving innovation, leading organizations –
give yourself space, step out of the fray, appreciate and be
humbled by the beauty of life, and the delicate connections between
your life and the lives of others.
Now seems an especially important time in history for humility. Our
world today faces many challenges that require great perspective
and perseverance. We face still-untreatable diseases, unprecedented
environmental degradation, political turmoil, socioeconomic
injustices and so much more. Times of tension or retrenchment,
which threaten to devolve into antagonism, provide us a renewed
opportunity to offer empathy and to build community.
In order to achieve these, I hope you will choose to sincerely seek
to understand others, rather than to quickly judge and criticize. I
hope you will choose to respectfully listen to contrary views and
challenge accepted notions. I hope you will choose to be creative,
curious and humbled by the potential of our global
interconnectedness.
May you continue to embody Stanford’s pursuit of excellence to
benefit all of humanity in your endeavors. And, may you fulfill the
vision of our founders, who asked of all Stanford students, that
you be true to the best you know.
Landing
After orbiting the earth 95 times and traveling more than 2 million
miles in six days, Sally Ride and the crew of the STS-7 were
scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But, bad
weather forced a change of plans. The crew was required to orbit
the Earth two additional times, and the landing was diverted to a
location 3,000 miles away.
Now, as you have learned from your time on the Farm, California
often has great weather, and that day was no exception. The STS-7
crew touched down safely 6 hours south of here at the Edwards Air
Force Base, which meant Sally Ride landed in her home state.
Graduates, the unexpected often provides new insights and
opportunities. Remain receptive to surprises and be prepared to
adapt as circumstances change. After all, as the saying goes:
“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you
wanted.”
So, be open to unexpected experiences; there is a good chance one
of them may transform your life. At one point, Sally Ride wanted
more than anything to be a tennis pro. But, the forehands of fate
had different plans.
That apparent setback gave her the space to fall in love with
physics to discover that she wanted even more to be an astronaut
and to fulfill that dream. She also went on to make history and to
inspire generations of girls to pursue the STEM fields. And, she
reinforced the idea that Stanford is a great place for women to
study science. In fact, since Sally, Stanford has produced more
female astronauts than any other college or university in the
country.
As Sally’s story illustrates, sometimes, our paths become more
purposeful and gain more meaning through our experiences of detour
and disappointment. Remember, what seems like a setback might be a
better path, or an even better way home.
Class of 2017, thank you for trusting Stanford University with your
education. Because you will always be members of the Stanford
family and because California can be counted on for great weather,
as you set forth on your own exciting journey, however near or far
the winds of freedom carry you, remember – Palm Drive will be here
and always clear for your landing.
Congratulations, Class of 2017!
