 Thank you very much, Joe. The MPP and MPA class of 2017 elected Bilal Baidoon to speak on their behalf. Bilal earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Michigan with high honors. The son of Lebanese immigrants and a first-generation college student himself, Bilal has done volunteer work for years to broaden access for others, giving presentations on financial aid and the college admissions process to young people in his hometown of Dearborn, Michigan. Here at the Ford School, Bilal was the first recipient of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Fellowship, a prestigious award established to honor our namesake president and his lifetime of leadership and service. Bilal has been a nonprofit board fellow and a case competition champion. He completed his internship last summer with the Clinton Foundation, producing country reports, economic analyses and briefing memos in support of the Foundation's global initiatives. Bilal, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the podium. They picked me to go last because they know how concise my memos are, so. I wanna start by congratulating my parents. This will be their second degree from the University of Michigan as well as mine. And a special heartfelt thank you to Dean Collins. It's been a privilege to be a part of the Ford School family under your direction. And of course, a warm spring welcome to all of you. To the families and especially to the parents. Thank you for creating my dear friends and my soon-to-be colleagues. And I'm deeply sorry we didn't go to law school, but there's just the way it is. And finally, to the hiring managers across the country, who I hope are joining us via live stream. My name is Bilal Beydoun. And I could start on June 1st. Look at that. But most importantly, the reason why we're here, the Ford School of Public Policy, class of 2017, otherwise known as my fellow graduates. It's great to see you for the first time this semester. And if I'm being honest, you've aged. And that's saying a lot because I saw you the week after the election, but in any case. Now, the remaining weeks of last November were trying times for me and perhaps for you as well. But on January the 8th, when we came back from our holiday break, I sat in class and before the lecture even started, the professor had projected a quote onto the screen that really struck me. And here's what it said. It said, if your entire understanding of the United States would be different, if 90,000 people voted differently, then you have the opportunity to reconsider your understanding of the United States. Prior to reading that, I never really thought the word reconsider was especially empowering. I mostly used it to email professors who didn't accept late assignments. I don't know. But there's something truly profound and bold and yes, empowering about subjecting your views to further scrutiny after adopting them as your own. The opportunity to reconsider your understanding. For me, this idea captures the essence of being a policy student, especially in 2017. This is what we're trained to do and this is the unique power we now hold. The ability to cut through popular narratives, distill them using rigorous analysis and ultimately reshape them for the public's benefit. To take what we do know about the world and use it to discern what we do not know. To constantly, even if begrudgingly, be willing to reconsider. This doesn't just apply to the United States and its elections, but to any one of the over 20 countries represented in the Ford student body from China to Georgia to Chile and to the global community more broadly. Today, there's no shortage of narratives to consider and reconsider. How do we address global climate change? What's the best way to resettle refugee populations? What is driving the political polarization that everybody's talking about? Is Ohio State University actually accredited? I don't know, welcome to Ann Arbor. I didn't come to a place like the Ford School for someone to give me the answers because some of them don't yet exist, but rather than feel helpless in the flurry of questions, I now feel hopeful that I know where to start, that I know which tool to use and for some of us that tool is calculus, not for me. Sorry. But there are other tools. For those of you who aren't familiar with the world of policy schools, the Ford School is truly cutting edge and experimental when it comes to pushing its students to challenge orthodoxy. So for example, some of you might not know that the Ford School offers a full 14 week long course on fly fishing. It's called the Politics of Public Policy with Recall. I highly recommend it. These past two years, we were so fortunate to seize the opportunity to retreat from the world and reconsider that which we hold true, but not everything requires a critical second or third look and not all that is reconsidered will produce different conclusions. I walked onto this campus believing that immigrants, like my parents, enrich and elevate this country and I'll never stop believing that, regardless of what anyone says. But I must say a lot of what I reconsidered in graduate school resulted from the friendships I forged with these incredible people. Class of 2017, you represent the best of us and the best in us. You pushed me and challenged me even when I wasn't there, which was fairly often. I don't need to tell you about the challenges all around us, only that people around the world, most of whom you'll never know, are relying on you. But I could think of no other group more worthy of that responsibility. Thank you for your love and encouragement and go blue.