 Thanks for braving the rain with us today please everybody have a seat it is great to see you all out here it's great to be in person again how about that amazing community high school jazz band we're so happy to have them here I'm Michael Barr I'm the Joan and Sanford Wildein of the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy it was a pleasure to see many of you this morning at the big house and it is my honor to welcome you all here this afternoon on behalf of the entire Ford School community for our 2022 in person commencement ceremony it just feels so great to be with you here today in fact I'm thinking if you guys don't mind I might grab a selfie you got to do it I hope you take the moments too we built this temporary structure we're enjoying today in partnership with the School of Public Health and with the School for Environment and Sustainability and I'm grateful to all of our colleagues there for partnering with us on this effort I'm going to start by just briefly introducing the folks up here with me on stage first our keynote speaker Mr. Julian brave noise cap Julian we're really honored to have you here and we look forward to your remarks next please welcome Regent of the University of Michigan Paul Brown Paul Brown thank you so much for being here today long-time University of Michigan leader and my predecessor Dean of the Ford School Prova Susan Collins welcome and thank you a number of our faculty colleagues are here at stage left is John Chichari John directs our wiser diplomacy center and our international policy center and he'll be reading the names of our amazing graduates as they cross the stage next to John is Ford School professor David Thatcher here to do the honors of hooding one of our wonderful PhD students professor Catherine Dominguez who directs our PhD program professor professor Betsy Stevenson who has been elected by a graduating students to deliver the faculty address our at terrific associate Dean Luke Schaefer and our other terrific associate Dean Celeste Watkins Hayes moving over to this side we have assistant professor Charlotte Kavey representing our undergraduate program and associate professor Kevin Sting on behalf of the graduate program committee and finally your colleagues elected by their classmates to provide the student commencement address are soon to be Ford School MPP graduate Crystal Olalde Garcia and BA graduate Gerald Sill we're gathered here in this beautiful venue to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of 181 outstanding students smart resilient public-minded people who will be leading our communities for the next half century graduates congratulations you did it I get the honor of telling your family and friends a little bit about you the Ford School at the University of Michigan is a community dedicated to the public good that's the core of our mission statement we inspire and prepare diverse leaders grounded in service conduct transformational research and collaborate on evidence-based policymaking to take on our communities and our world's most pressing challenges you know that's what we do our school is named for one of the University of Michigan's most distinguished graduates the 38th president of the United States Gerald Ford we're proud of his legacy of principled leadership and courage our curriculum starts with a shared understanding and belief in the facts today's graduates have learned to analyze complicated data sets to think analytically to evaluate costs and benefits they know their stuff we stress communication skills and so they've learned to speak and write clearly and persuasively we've helped our students to learn about leadership and our graduates have learned to listen and to talk and to think critically ethically and compassionately these amazing students have persevered through so many challenges these last hard years we're celebrating today two students who have earned PhDs one in public policy and sociology and the other in public policy and political science each is doing groundbreaking work on how to improve policing integrating the theory and knowledge from their disciplines and the tools and lens of public policy we celebrate 102 students who have earned master's degrees in public affairs and public policy they hail from 12 different countries and speak 19 different languages it's a strong supportive group through two years of the pandemic campus discord strife they lifted each other up they've supported and cared for each other for most their first year at the Ford school was fully remote and yet with grit and creativity they found ways to connect over zoom in parks and study groups as professional students preparing for careers of impact they've been motivated and intentional they focused on caring for communities who need it the most and they've been agile this class has learned how to navigate classes workshops job interviews all using technologies I at least had never heard of before the pandemic so I'm just amazingly impressed with what they've been able to do and now they've completed internships or capstones with organizations across all sectors and levels of government the nonprofit sector and the for profit sector and looking ahead their landing jobs that will help them change the world we're celebrating today 77 students who have earned a bachelor's of art in public policy give yourself a hand they had not made it to the end of their sophomore year when the pandemic hit they spent junior year taking courses over zoom many scattered around the country but we felt the character already that fall in the form of a hand turkey campaign in Betsy Stevenson's class and that spring in the form of great wild hall rubber ducky campaign so some of you know what I mean and the others will learn later in the reception back in person this year they were thrilled to be with us but they also had to weather adjustments learning for example that they really couldn't go to class anymore in their pajamas but with tremendous hard and resilience they jump back right in finishing strong and improving our community they celebrated together this month with a well publicized bar crawl which was absolutely not not named after me our grads are now headed to work at top jobs in the public and private sectors several would go on to graduate programs in law education and policy and a large number of them are moving to DC where I'll know they'll have a lot of fun together taken together the classes of 2022 are resilient they care about each other and about the world graduates let me send you off with five words of advice and by words I mean longish paragraphs number one work hard really really hard anything worth doing requires hard work number two don't be a jerk that might seem like one of the norms we've lost in our society but it's not be kind to your colleagues number three empower yourself you can do anything don't talk yourself down talk yourself up we're facing enormous challenges and I believe and you know that you can make the difference number four find your passion that passion will help drive you to do great things and number five let me talk about more at length number five this one's about love let me start with this you need to love your team you can't get anything being done alone but you don't have to you need to find or build a good team then support each other if you give deeply they'll give back to you in ways that you cannot have imagined I've loved my faculty and staff team at the Ford school and I hope and trust you have as well graduates will you join me in thanking our faculty and staff let me make a broader point about love too now I know our school is known for our quantitative chops but for this I'm going to turn to the humanities to poetry I checked it out with the university lawyers and they said it was okay after all we do have a great writing center at the Ford school a poet whose work I return to often is the great Seamus Haney in his poem the aerodrome he recalls being a young child in northern Ireland during World War two standing with his mother outside a busy airfield where American airmen were preparing for the liberation of Europe and it's a bit of a complicated story but let me just say he feels a child's uncertainty and then he feels the warm tight grasp of his mother's hand and this is what Haney writes if self is a location so is love bearings taken markings cardinal points options obstinacy's dug heels and distance here and there and now and then a stance graduates I know when you look back on your years at the Ford school you'll remember how brutally hard the pandemic has been you'll also remember we hope statistics microeconomics values and ethics how to write a policy memo but I hope that you'll also more than anything when you look back on these years at the Ford school you'll remember the love the love of your families of origin and your families of choice who got you here the love you found and made among your classmates the problems and solutions that you've come to care about with your whole heart over these past couple of hard years it's been love I think that's gotten us through and so wherever your career and you let your life will take you never be afraid to bring that love with you to center yourself in that love we all know love is the key to a happy life but it's also the secret ingredient to leadership to having an impact in the world as Haney wrote if self is a location so is love take your bearings orient yourself around the people and the work and the causes that you love take a stance classes of 2022 we're so proud of you we love you and go blue now it is my great pleasure and honor to introduce University of Michigan region and my good friend Paul Brown we've done everything together from building a fund for entrepreneurs to reeling in some big fish and he has a few words for the classes of 2022 welcome Regent Brown it's not easy to follow a road scholar or a dean for that matter thank you graduates on behalf of my colleagues on the board of Regents I'm delighted to join you in this time of celebration today we come together to celebrate all of you your dedication your determination and your dreams achieved as you graduate from the top ranked public university in the nation as Regents we are inspired by your many scholarly achievements and I am honored to share in this moment with you and with your family and friends who also are justifiably proud of your accomplishments thank you parents and friends they deserve it but on this day when we conferred an honorary degree on Maria Shriver I think it's apropos that remember the words of her uncle President John F Kennedy that he uttered on the steps of the Union no not when he correctly referred to his alma mater as the Michigan of the East or when he stated and this is word for word I come here tonight to go to bed but I also come here tonight to ask you to join in that effort not making that up no the words I want you to think about are this university is not maintained by its alumni by the state merely to help its graduates have an economic advantage in the struggle of life there is certainly a greater purpose and I'm sure you recognize it I come here tonight asking your support for this country over the next decade so I we ask for you challenge you to support this school this state this country in some way that calls to your passion today you join one of the largest and most influential alumni networks in the world we hope that you like thousands of Michigan grads before you will return to campus often to visit wherever you go remember that we are extremely proud of each and every one of you and wish you the very best so truly congratulations class of two thousand twenty two good luck and go blue thank you Regent Brown we're also honored to be joined by University of Michigan Provost and former Ford School Dean Susan Collins Provost Collins is a highly distinguished macro economist has been named president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and she will finish up her impressive tenure at the university in just a short few days I'm so glad to have her join us to speak to our graduates before she heads to Boston to fill this important position Susan welcome Michael thank you so much I and I'm also just delighted to congratulate you on your nomination to serve as vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve congratulations wow what a tremendous pleasure to be here as provost representing the university at this graduation ceremony it is just a personal delight for me as well as a faculty member at the Ford School it is wonderful just wonderful to be able to congratulate the class of twenty twenty two you did it and we're so proud of you Ford School embodies things that we think are best about the University of Michigan a diverse community intellectual rigor creative thinking collaboration impact deep and lasting friendships in your years here you've contributed to each of these in many ways and as you go forward to careers that will help shape the world we have confidence every confidence that you will draw on these resources and gain strength from what you've learned here helping to foster these qualities in the communities where you live and where you work one of my predecessors as dean of the Ford School was Ned Gramlich an economist who went on to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors when welcoming students each fall he would note that to work in the policy world requires hard heads and soft hearts to develop effective policies he believed it's critical to do rigorous analysis and to blend it with compassion and with understanding of the hopes and the dreams of those that we are serving Nelson Mandela who knew a great deal about bringing change to the world expressed a similar idea in saying a good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination so as you move on to new work new people in new communities I hope that you will put this formidable and effective combination to use in addressing the challenges that our world our society faces today with tremendous pride in your accomplishments and confidence in your abilities we welcome you to the University of Michigan community of graduates and we look forward to your continued success again we're so proud of you congratulations and go blue thank you so much provis Collins I have next the honor of introducing our wonderful keynote speaker for today Julian brave noise cat a member of the Canem Lake Ban Tisgeskin and a descendant of the Lila Watt Nation of Mount Curry Julian is a writer and filmmaker currently based in the Pacific Northwest he's a brilliant thinker who works at the intersection of climate journalism and advocacy for indigenous rights noise cats work has been recognized with numerous awards including the 2022 American mosaic journalism prize which honors excellent and long-form narrative or deep reporting of stories about under represented or misrepresented groups in the present American landscape in 2021 he was named to the time 100 next list of emerging young leaders for his work at the center of the climate crisis Julian is my great honor to welcome you here to the University of Michigan and to the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy wait for quite up Julian brave noise cat one's quest when yeah we this quest for Alice no we skit this job I'm wish that was when I bet I owe you we this quest for Harry Peters kelm will ask a mcushusha to shamaquam which that was so cool I'm looking at statlim can that's I know what you're thinking. What the heck did that native guy with that crazy ass, native ass name just say? I've been thinking about names and naming, to have a name, to give a name. What's in a name? What is a name? And what is it to name? It's probably hard not to think about these things when your parents and ancestors gave you a name like Julian Brave Noisecat. Whenever someone checks my driver's license or reads my byline or has to listen to me think out loud into a microphone like you all are so graciously going to do today, they often stop, squint their eyes and ask, is that really your name? TSA guy hit me with one of those on the way here. I think for some it might be the first time they've encountered a real life Indian. I'm sure they've heard native names before you know like Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, maybe you know John Redcorn from King of the Hill. But when a real life Indian is staring them down, I often feel like there is some curiosity on the other side of the gaze, some desire to understand maybe to inspect my difference. Like maybe on some gut level people get that there must be some significance to a name. And indeed there is. Sometimes my family and I will sit around and tell stories about the Indians we know with big names. Growing up in Oakland, there was a family who were often unhoused with a last name that could be rendered alternatively as shot with two arrows shot twice or just shots. It was as though their very name like their family was restless. It moved here, moved there, did not want to stay put. It did not want to be singular. And it did not want to be made legible to the state. My dad remembers two Oakley's brothers, best friends, who used to run around the res together in the 60s and 70s named clobby and conky. Except in our Shuswap English pigeon, their names were rendered with Salish phonology, a glottal stop place after the K lobby and conky lobby and conky are gone now. When you say their names, your palate decolonizes, at least for a syllable or two. And of course, there are some Indians whose names received rather unfortunate English translations. One of the crow scouts who rode with General George Armstrong Custer was named Mari Tathidakkarush. History remembers him as white man runs him. It's hard not to think about names when you're an Indian. We are peoples with big and often powerful names who understood the power of naming, the power of the name one carries, and also the power of the names we give to others, to humans, to places, and to the other than human world around us. The University of Michigan invited me to stand up and offer words upon your graduation. I am humbled, humbled by their request. It was not so long ago that I was one of you sitting down there looking up and listening on my big day, not talking, definitely not speechifying, just waiting for my name to be called. So when I, a writer, a filmmaker, an activist, and an indigenous man, thought about what I should say, I thought about words and how much they matter, and about names, which in all the galaxy of words are a particularly strong constellation. Today I want to talk to you about choosing words well and with care, and about the significance of names. I want to talk to you about names in part because for hundreds of years the United States and Canada and many other nations across the world tried to wipe indigenous names off the face of this earth. When my ancestors were baptized and sent to schools built to eradicate their Indianness, church and government officials changed their names. I'm not talking about bestowing a nickname or adding an honorific or making something easier to pronounce in English. I'm talking about the wholesale eradication of names, the dismantling of the structures of nomenclature, the deletion of identities from the historical record and eventually from all human memory. When they baptized my ancestors, the missionaries would give us Indians just one name, a first name. So not too far back in my family's family tree, I have an ancestor who the missionaries must have called some Indian named Archie. In our community, there was an Indian Frank and an Indian Bob, an Indian Pete and an Indian Dick. Many of my relatives still walk around with those first names for last names. And as the missionaries erased our names and eradicated our identities, they submitted our children to systematic cultural deprogramming. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada has deemed this a cultural genocide, a cultural genocide. At one of the schools my family was sent to, St. Joseph's Mission in Williams Lake, British Columbia, a ground penetrating radar study recently identified over 90 potential unmarked burials. At another school my family was sent to, the Kamloops Indian Residential School, a similar search identified over 200. Canada operated some 150 schools like St. Joseph's and Kamloops. This country, the United States, operated more than 350. 350. General Richard Henry Pratt, who founded the first American Indian boarding school in the United States, described the goal of these schools as to, quote, kill the Indian and save the man. All of the Indian there is in the race should be dead, said Pratt. In that continent-wide campaign to kill the Indian in the child, we are now learning that thousands of actual Indian children perished. That not long after the church and government took their names, many of those Native babies, Native toddlers, Native children, Native adolescents, Native teenagers, were themselves dead and in the ground. Let me tell you some of what they killed. In the traditions of my Sikwetmuch and Statling peoples, names could either be inherited or earned and names are remembered. My family remembers them. We retell them through story and song. Descendants honor our ancestors by keeping their names alive. Some names, like the last name I carry, Noiskat, or Noisket, Noisket, as it was originally pronounced, mark descent and relationship to ancestors. And I venture to guess that like me, many if not most of you carry last names that mark your descent and your relationship to your ancestors too. And in that way, perhaps our people are not so different. Other Sikwetmuch names, though, like the one carried by my ancestor Tien Meschan, recognize a person's deeds on this earth. Tien Meschan is a combination of two words, Tienam, meaning to go around, and Schench, meaning rock. As it was told to me, my ancestor Tien Meschan was a war chief who confronted settlers and gold miners coming into this Chuekham people's country. As those settlers, intruders, went around and threw a rocky past, Tien Meschan would impress upon these squatters and fortune seekers the importance of abiding by our indigenous laws. There aren't that many stories like that that still survive, so I feel lucky to know that story. Because for my people, to name someone or something is to be able to tell their story, to endeavor to understand and tell their truth. And in many instances, if you could name someone or something, you might also know how to sing its song. The morning before the Williams Lake First Nation announced that over 90 potential unmarked graves had been been identified at St. Joseph's Mission, I had a sweat ceremony with the Williams Lake Chief and a few other men. And in that sweat lodge, a statly young man, a man from my people, sang the song of my grandfather's grandfather, Nkashusha, the hereditary chief from Shamakwam, whose tax name was Harry Peters. Children from Shamakwam, like children from Canem Lake, were sent to St. Joseph's and other schools. And in all likelihood, some of those children did not return. I acknowledge Nkashusha today because I hope to stand in the strength of his leadership, his legacy, and his song, the song that was sung for me on a very important morning. You see, Nkashusha was a celebrated leader. He was one of the chiefs who signed the 1911 Lee Watt Declaration, which reads in part, we claim that we are the rightful owners of our tribal territory. We have always lived in our country. At no time have we ever deserted it or left it to others. We are aware, the government claims our country, like all other Indian territories, but we deny, we deny their right to it. We never gave it nor sold it to them. We speak the truth and we speak for our whole tribe. I invoke Nkashusha's words today because like him, I am asked to speak. And when ground penetrating radar is finding the bodies of my ancestors' children, children who did not have the opportunity to beget their own descendants and become ancestors in their own right, voice becomes an existential responsibility. I remember and honor Nkashusha's name so that like him, I might carry my responsibilities in this world to myself, to my ancestors, my descendants, and to you all here today, well, because names come with responsibilities. That's the way it is in many of the Indigenous communities I've visited. Names come with responsibilities. One of the men who has helped me to return to our Suquette McClellan's in lifeways is a hereditary chief from the Ascot First Nation named Francis Johnson Jr. Francis spends a lot of time up in the high country hunting and down at the river fishing. And everywhere he goes, he recalls the stories and names that connect us to our places. His name, his hereditary name, Clechwoman-esque, means to go up high. And that's appropriate because Clechwoman-esque is often going up into the mountains where the memories of our ancestors still live. And he knows, he knows that to carry forward our ancestors' memories, we have to pass that knowledge on to responsibility all of us have to pass on our knowledge. And that's why when he goes, Clechwoman-esque invites his brethren like me to come out with him and to learn on the land. And it just so happens that before we even knew each other, Clechwoman-esque and I both attended the same potlatch, the same ceremonial gathering where many songs, dances, meals, and gifts were shared in the remote valley of Bella Cula, British Columbia. Bella Cula is a river valley cut into the coast mountains by retreating glaciers and rising seas. And it's one of the most beautiful places, the most absolutely stunning places I've ever seen. And there in that valley at the mouth of the Bella Cula River in 2018, the Moody family of the New Hulk Nation passed the title of Nazmada, Nazmada, meaning heaven, from Larry Moody Sr. to Larry Moody Jr. The name Nazmada comes with the responsibility to care for their family's ancestral village site at a place in the valley the New Hulk call Snoot Lee. And it also comes with the responsibility to give. You see a New Hulk culture like many indigenous cultures, the person who is considered the wealthiest is the one who gives the most. And that, that is the function of the potlatch. In 2015, the elder Moody, Larry Moody Sr. hit the $1 million jackpot in the provincial lottery. He used the winnings to buy cars for his brothers and a Harley for his junior. And much of the rest, he put into the gifts for that potlatch that I attended, into traditional foods like salmon and venison, into piles upon piles, I mean mounds of winter blankets, into originally carved and painted traditional art, and into money that he put into other people's pockets. Because for native people to have a name, to have a name like Nazmada, to have a name like Klehwoman-esked, there's a responsibility that comes with that to give. A few weeks ago, I found myself at another potlatch. This one in Sitka, Alaska was put on by Louise Brady, a herring lady from the Kicksuddy clan of the Raven Moody of the Slinkett Nation. The Slinkett of what is now Southeast Alaska have been harvesting herring, which they have given the name yaw in their language, for at least 10,000 years, 10,000 years. That means that the Slinkett's ancestors started pulling herring and herring eggs out of the ocean about the same time that Mesopotamians started settling down to grow fields and raise livestock. And according to the Slinkett tradition, the first herring were harvested in the hair of a Kicksuddy woman named Yasha, the first herring lady who rested her head on a rock perched above the herring spawning grounds. And when she rose from that rest, her inky locks were caked in the golden translucent row of the fish. The Kicksuddy and the herring ladies were such good stewards of the herring that in living memory, the Slinkett used to be able to harvest herring eggs by skimming a special herring rake across the water. There were that many herring in Sitka, but nowadays it's not so easy to get herring eggs anymore. In the latter half of the last century, the herring were incorporated into a commercial fishery that provided raw materials for fertilizer, for animal feed, and for fish food, and that also supplies the lucrative market for Kazunoko, a delicacy consumed by the Japanese on New Year. And in just a generation, as commercial fishermen have fished and fished and fished too much, herring stocks have collapsed. There were once seven commercial herring fisheries in southeast Alaska. Today, there are just two, a decline that reinforces a multi-decade and global trend. At present, herring stocks have been nearly completely depleted in Japan, in Norway, in Nova Scotia, in East England, and in Washington State's Puget Sound, where I live. You might have never thought about herring, but this is no trivial matter. Herring, it should be said, feed everything. They feed humpback whales, they feed harbor seals, they feed sea lions, they feed eagles, they feed seagulls, they feed halibut, they feed salmon, they feed humans, they feed everything. And when those forage fish dwindle, other parts of the ecosystems they sustain can also falter. And so at the potlatch for the yaw, the slinket named for herring, Louise Brady, a kick-study herring lady, a yaw shaw, challenged all in attendance to imagine what it might look like to celebrate, to protect, and to give to the herring, to give to those little silver fish in the same way that they have given, have always given to the slinket and to many others. Louise asked us to consider the responsibilities she holds as a herring lady, and in turn, what responsibilities we hold as people who have heard and considered the gift of that story and the name of the herring lady. Because I believe and Louise believes that names bestow responsibilities on their listeners and on their witnesses too. They bestow responsibilities on you. Now, you might be wondering, why is this guy going on and on about names? Well, as I said, for centuries, I'm not talking for like 10 years, for hundreds of years, innumerable policies, innumerable practices, and innumerable processes were devised and enacted to rid society of names and responsibilities like the ones I have just named and recalled. What I am humbly suggesting is that we remember and consider the power of names. That naming matters, that as good students, citizens, and policymakers, you are going to be confronted with all sorts of realities, problems, and challenges out there in the broken world we have inherited. And as you go about that world, just as Klehwoman asked goes about his, from high up on the mountain to way down by the river, I would suggest that you seek to understand, to have empathy, and in due time to name what you see and encounter appropriately with words carefully considered to represent the truth, the truth about our shared planet with accuracy and with respect, and that this is an essential, perhaps even sacred responsibility. In her award-winning book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation writes, quote, names are the way we humans build relationships, not only with each other, but with the living world, their fundamental building blocks. Now, this might sound like simple folk wisdom or even common sense, but I think our society keeps getting it wrong. Among the many crises we face, of health, of climate, of democracy, we face, I believe, a crisis of words and a crisis of naming. Right now, Vladimir Putin, one of the most powerful men in the whole entire world, is calling the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, a country led by a Jewish head of state, a campaign for, quote, denazification. President Donald Trump, the former and still aspiring leader of the free world, has described our rapidly changing climate as a, quote, hoax invented by the Chinese. The wind got mad at that one. I guess the wind's voting for Trump. In school boards across the nation, parent activists are decrying a more accurate account of history as, quote, on, quote, critical race theory. Insurrectionists dare to call themselves patriots. For some, the common courtesy of using the gender pronouns a fellow human identifies with and prefers is considered a step too far. And on the cable network with the largest audience on television, by far, much of what I have just said would likely be called fake news. If democracy is the collective expression of our views and values through votes, I wonder how much of today's dysphoria can be traced to something off kilter within ourselves, to people unmoored from place, from community, from social role, from communal responsibility, and from social reciprocity, to the turmoil of workers chasing jobs and livelihoods far away from familiar hamlets, to the young people floating through social media platforms and the pensioners flipping through television stations, to the sick who are denied their fundamental right and the dignity of health care, to the good traditions that are dying, to the special places that are homogenizing, to the names and responsibilities no longer given and too often forgotten. And sometimes I wonder, I wonder what our world might be like if the policymakers who took this land had let some of those traditions, responsibilities, and names live. If more of us sought to remember, understand, and name the parts of our humanity indigenous and otherwise that were nearly completely annihilated. I'm currently writing my first book and co-directing my first documentary. And in each of those projects, I've been thinking a lot about the power and significance of naming and of names, including and especially the power of my own. You see, I once thought about names as static, as something you received at birth and maybe came into in a flash as an adult or early career professional. But along my journey, advocating for climate and environmental justice in Washington DC, reporting from indigenous communities across North America and beyond, and holding tight to survivors and relatives as we searched the grounds of St. Joseph's mission for ancestors and for answers, I've come to realize that names are not discovered. They revealed and worked towards across a lifetime and sometimes across many lifetimes as names carry stories and accrue stories and songs over generations. And so let me tell you, let me tell you what I'm learning about my name, Julian Brave Noiskat, and also about myself. Noiskat, my last name, is derived as I said from the ancestral name Noiskat. No one remembers what Noiskat means anymore. No one. No one in the whole world. I've asked my kia, my grandmother, who's a fluent speaker of our sequetmuk language, but she can't come up with a translation. In an old ethnographic text, I've been looking all over for this, I found reference to a warrior with a similar name, Noises Ken, who helped bring an abusive man to justice near the Fraser River. And look, I mean, everybody wants some sort of like justice-seeking hero type to be their ancestor, so I thought that was pretty dope. And I don't know if Noiseskin is my ancestor, but part of me would really like to think so. But what I do know, what I do know is that in the 1800s, the name Noiskat definitely belonged to a man named Copper John from Tschuechum, which is in the Kerabu region of British Columbia near the Fraser River. And then it belonged to my great-grandmother, Alice, who raised my father when his own parents, who were all messed up from the residential schools, could not. And what I also know is that one night, in 1966, when my dad was seven years old, Alice went out in a blizzard to look for her husband, Jacob, who had been out drinking. And she froze to death. After Alice was gone, there were no Noiskats anywhere in the whole world until my father married my mother, reclaimed Alice's name, and passed it on to me and to my sister. We may never know, I may never know, what Noisket means or to which ancestor it originally belonged. But what I do know is that to be a Noiskat is to be among the last of your name, to be a survivor dangling on the limb of a family tree they couldn't quite chop down. Julian, my given name, connects me to my mother's late best friend, Julia. To my great-grandmother, Julia Kraus Peters, the daughter of Unkeshusha. To my cousin, Julianne, who is learning our language so that she can help me teach the next generation of speakers, our kids, our nieces, our nephews, our cousins. And to King Julian, king of the kingdom of Madagascar. And if I recall from the Madagascar franchise, also the self-proclaimed king of the Central Park Zoo. He was a hereditary chief in his own way. And lastly, brave, my middle name connects me to, and you're going to be surprised by this, of all people, my late and very, very pale white grandmother, Suzanne, an Irish Jewish orphan who may not have been native, but who understood the power of a name, who gave me a quality to aspire to in my own, and who I think had a sense of humor, maybe a bit politically incorrect, but a sense of humor, nonetheless, insisting that our only half-native grandchild go around being called a brave. Today, the Gerald R. Ford School, the public policy at the University of Michigan, is going to call out the names of 171 graduates. When they call out your name and put a degree in your hands, I want you to think about the ancestors who gave you that name, maybe your parents who are here, maybe their parents, their parents before that, back and back. I want you to think about their deeds, their good deeds, their bad deeds, and all the ones otherwise. And I want you to think about your own, to imagine what it might look like to live your life in such a way that you might become an ancestor worthy of having their name and their story remembered, passed on, maybe even sung about. To honor those who have made you who you are, so that you might go out into the world with responsibility, with generosity, and with intention, so that someday you might name things well too. Thank you. Jillian, thank you so much for those powerful and moving remarks and advice for our class. We are going to have a little bit of an interlude now with a wonderful singing group, I believe they're about to come up on stage here. So I'm delighted now to welcome to the stage one of the University of Michigan's outstanding acapella ensembles. You're going to love this name, The Compulsive Liars. They'll perform two classics from the University of Michigan songbook for us. Sing to the colors that float in the light. Corri bends the gray michigan. Each year the Ford School's graduating students are asked to elect people to play key roles at commencement. One faculty member is chosen to speak to the class and our BAs and master's graduating classes choose a representative student speaker as well. As the faculty speaker, the classes of 2022 elected professor Betsy Stevenson. Betsy Stevenson is a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. She's a faculty research associate at the national bureau of economic research and serves on the executive committee of the American Economic Association. She served as a member of the council of economic advisors from 2013 to 2015 where she advised President Obama on social policy labor market and trade issues. She earlier served as the chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor from 2010 to 2011. Betsy specializes in work on the effects of public policy on families and on women and I'm delighted to welcome her now to speak on behalf of the faculty. Graduating class of 2022, I am so happy to see you here and incredibly honored that you chose me to address you and the ones who love you. I watched a lot of previous Ford School graduation speeches in preparation for today and I learned that people do a better job sticking to five minutes when a member of Congress is holding a gavel with a countdown clock in front of the speaker. Lucky for me, Dean Barr has yet to implement that. There's a familiar rhythm to most graduation speeches just like there is a familiar rhythm to life. We celebrate your accomplishments, we applaud your hard work, we are inspired by the fresh ideas you've brought into the classroom, as we look forward we are energized by the change we know you can bring to society the difference you will make and the mark you are about to make on the world. But the pandemic broke the familiar rhythm of life and when I asked myself why did the class of 2022 choose me, I realized that you didn't choose me for my accomplishments, you chose me for being in the thick of it with you. For the shared disappointment we felt, the challenges we faced, the mental health struggles we encountered as we all endeavored to march forward even though all of the familiar patterns of life had broken, even though the very fabric of our society seemed to be dissolving in front of us. When most of you applied to the Ford School, the pandemic had yet to start. The U.S. economy was booming, women held more than half of all jobs in the economy, more mothers were in the labor force than ever before in the United States. In January 2020, I said in an interview with NPR, I can't imagine what could happen that would disrupt women's upward trajectory. I couldn't imagine. I'm sure that few of you could have imagined. As you applied to the Ford School, you envisioned being in rooms full of your classmates, debating policy issues late into the night long after everyone else had departed Wild Hall. And there we were in the fall of 2021 facing each other on Zoom. Graduate students, including some of you here in this room, took a stand against the university, asking for more safety, more clarity and better partnerships with all stakeholders. Others felt torn about whether to cross a picket line when they had given up so much to be here, even if it was just virtually. And yet the worst of the pandemic was yet to come. These were not the experiences you hoped for, but they are the experiences that have shaped you. They are the experiences that will allow you to bring an even greater vision for change in a world that desperately needs change. While each and every one of you did your best to work through these difficult times, for some of you, the schoolwork that had been you had been trained your whole life to do became overwhelming. While for others, it became easier and escape from the pandemic. As a faculty, we had to look harder to teach each of you where you were emotionally. The beauty of that experience was that the discrepancy between how each of us appears and how we are actually doing melted away. To paraphrase Frank Brunei, we all had to look for each other's invisible sandwich boards that itemize our personal hardships and hurdles. Suffering from COVID, just lost a loved one, couldn't say goodbye. I'm not sure I can afford to be here, crippled by anxiety. As we looked for each other's invisible sandwich boards, we developed empathy. I say we because I was right there with you. We all, students and faculty, needed to dig deep to find as much empathy as we could for each other. And really for everyone. An empathy for everyone is where the hard work is. It's easy to have empathy for those who face an injustice in the world that angers you deep in your bones. The work. The work is in finding empathy for those who anger you deep in your bones. Why should we find this empathy? We need this empathy to enact change. Only when you can understand, can you begin to persuade. Only when you can empathize, can you begin to find common ground. Let me step back and explain why I love teaching policy students and take a moment to share with your family and friends what a policy degree is. And throughout, I hope you will see why I think through this development of empathy, you, the graduating class of 2022, have gotten the best policy education of any other graduating class. As an economist, my goal is to teach students how to use economics and policy. To be successful using economics, to be a successful economist in policy, all the economics you need is a deep understanding of principles of economics. That's the truth. But you have to be able to move from the textbook to the playbook. And a key part of moving from the textbook to the playbook is being able to understand how people are likely to respond to the ways in which a policy shapes and changes their lives. Doing so requires empathy. And of course, policy is more than economics. You have learned from political science, sociology, history, and of course, statistics and values and ethics. Your job as a policy student is to integrate across the many disciplinary fields you have learned from, so that you can be effective along all of the dimensions that matter, developing policies that shape incentives for individuals to get the outcome you want, communicating the policy proposal in a way, and at a time that a policy maker will be receptive to your idea, considering the social, emotional impact, and spillover effects that lead policies to shape not just outcomes for individuals, but for whole communities, and figuring out how you communicate and implement policy decisions in the best way to minimize negative effects on communities. It all comes together in the most important part of the public policy degree, learning how to write. If policy schools were ranked on memo writing, Ford would be number one. You learn writing by writing. So even if you're wincing at the memory of all that writing, know that it was the most important thing you did. And communicating is about empathy. You have to care about your listeners, your readers. Who are you talking to? How are they hearing you? Why should they want to listen? You have to listen to me today, but will you hear me? Only if I have heard you. And you did teach me. As some of you may remember, I reflected on one of these learnings in an interview with the New York Times last summer, when I explained that I was teaching about the disincentive effects of unemployment insurance and how it can discourage people from working. A concept economist called moral hazard. When one of you raised your hands and said, is it really moral to use the threat of hunger to motivate people to work? I didn't have a good answer. Because this is where you now come in. Policy is about values. It's your turn to decide on the values that you believe should guide society. Many of you know my policy priorities, but today is not about me. It's about you. I want to learn more from you as you take your place in the world and begin to advocate for what you believe in. And I know you are going to in the worlds of words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, blow us all away. My advice to you as you go forward is to remember that sometimes it gets hard and those are the moments that define you. Sometimes you fail and those are the moments in which you grow the most. The past few years have been hard and there have been failures for many of us. Use the empathy that you developed along with the more concrete tools to build a stronger, more humane and more just society. Now, notice that I have ended at the familiar rhythm and pattern of hope that comes from you, the future. You will inspire us all going forward. And I look forward to seeing what you, the class of 2022, do. Thank you. Thank you, Betsy. Now we're going to hear from the student elected to speak from the bachelor's class of 2022, Gerald Sill. I got to introduce you first. Gerald has earned a minor in urban studies along with his BA in public policy. While at Michigan, Gerald has held internships and jobs with the Washington County public defender's office, the center on finance law and policy with me, organizational studies, ISR, and media matters for America. That's in addition to working for the Michigan daily and serving as treasurer for the students of color in public policy. He's been a busy man. Gerald is headed to Seattle where he'll take a position as career consultant analyst at Mercer. So I'm so pleased to welcome Gerald to the podium. Thank you, Dean Barr. Good evening distinguished faculty and staff of the Ford School friends and family and graduates of the Ford class of 2022. I must admit when Dean Barr informed me that the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy would be renamed the Gerald R Sill School of Public Policy, I was a little bit shocked. Obviously, obviously the accomplishments that Dean Barr just listed speak for themselves. We're not doing that. Are you sure? We share the same first name and middle initial. The rebranding cost would be super minimal. So I've just been informed that's not what we're doing here today. It's an honor to be part of such an incredible graduating class filled with angel scholars and MLK Spirit Award winners, former Hill and government interns, and the organizers of the senior class bar crawl. I'm so proud of all of you for persevering through a pandemic in Zoom University, Professor Stevenson's microeconomics class, and many other challenges to get to this moment. Over the past few days, you have likely received many well-deserved congratulations from family and friends, followed by the question, so what exactly is public policy and what does one do with a public policy degree? If anyone knows the answer to that question, please see me after the ceremony so you can tell my mom. Many of us chose to study public policy because we wanted to make an impact and help change the world for the better, from combating climate change to reducing economic inequality to fighting for racial justice. Or in my case, you were looking for a major that would allow you to avoid taking Michigan math. In all seriousness, I am so excited to see what all of you smart, talented, and kind graduates will accomplish, from becoming business leaders to policymakers to judges and professors. Sometimes I worry about the future, but as I look amongst this incredible cohort, I know that the world is in good hands. Right up the road from us here on the Hill Street is the Gerald R. R. Sill, I mean Ford School, and next to Weill Hall is the Chabot House. For the past couple years, as I've walked past, I have often seen a message scroll by on the electronic sign outside that reads, the world depends on your one good deed. When I first saw that message, my initial reaction was, wow, that's a lot of pressure, and well, I better do something big. For a long time, I thought that the only way to truly make an impact was to do something grand. Like how neuromantic comedy, professions of love come from holding up a boom box outside a window, or stopping someone from getting on a plane. In public policy, in the public policy world, I guess this would be analogous to passing groundbreaking legislation, or giving a rousing speech that turns public opinion. However, I have come to realize that to make an impact, you don't necessarily need to do something big. Graduates, when we reflect on the moments that helped us reach this point, we likely do not think of extravagant gestures, but rather small moments of sacrifice, kindness, and empathy. From apparent rushing us to soccer practice after a long day of work, to a professor staying after class to answer a question, to a friend checking up on us when we've gone a little too hard at the senior bar crawl. I hope that I can serve as proof that even little things can make a big difference. So not only to the Ford B-8 class of 2022, but everyone here, I hope that you will seize the opportunity every day to do one good deed, and then another, and then another. The world depends on it. Congratulations to the Ford graduates of 2022 and forever go blue. Thank you so much, Gerald. The MPP and MPBA classes of 2022 have elected Crystal Olalde Garcia to speak on their behalf. Crystal learned her undergraduate degree in political science at Rice University. You have to give yourself time to enjoy the introduction. After Rice, she joined Teach for America and went on to administrative and strategy roles with a number of school districts. Here at the Ford School, she earned a prestigious Ford School Rackham Merritt Fellowship, and she's been a first-rate student leader in her role as co-chair of the Graduate Student Government, the Student Affairs Council. Crystal will be joining the Deloitte Government Public Services Team in Austin after graduation. Crystal, it's an honor to welcome you to the podium. So good afternoon, Yvona Sardis. Whether you're in person or watching virtually, thank you for celebrating the 2022 MPP, MPA, and PhD graduates of the number one social policy school, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. My name is Crystal Olalde Garcia, and I'm both honored and a little nervous to be standing before you today. I am a proud Mexican-American, first-generation college graduate, and I want to begin with gratitude. Gracias a mi mamá, a mi papá, a mi familia por todo el apoyo y amor y condicional. Los quiero mucho. Thank you to my fiance, Kyle, for his unwavering support through it all. I'm grateful. I'm grateful to my peers for providing more leadership development than I could have ever imagined. And I'm thankful for the faculty and staff for your commitment and dedication to our collective learning. This cohort includes students who had one in person semester before the pandemic and the rest of us who committed to a graduate school program knowing that we would be in Zoom University. We all came to Ford eager to influence policy and policy outcomes. We may have changed interests or concentrations along the way, but we remained committed to learning how we can play a role in the policymaking process. While I cannot possibly capture or speak about everyone's experience in four minutes, I hope the lessons I'm about to share will resonate with you in some shape or form. First, communication is crucial. A virtual year challenged us to find new techniques to provide insight into our personalities, passions, and strengths. From Zoom backgrounds to Instagram stories and Slack reactions, we found ways to show empathy, support, and humor to one another to connect even at a physical distance. The resourcefulness we had to summon in these conversations will help us address the challenging issues of the changed world that we are about to return to. Second, community is needed. We began building our community virtually and we were eager to meet one another in person. During orientation, we found ourselves in an unprecedented and hopefully never repeated moment. Under the tent, six feet apart, screaming through our masks, trying to learn each other's names. As we proceeded through the core curriculum, we continued forming friendships and connections. All mending our park in York became frequent spots with our weekly park days and Saturday checks, thanks to AJ and Rebecca. The gap between people's Zoom energy and in person presentation was a common topic in the early days. I know I may have surprised some of you with my height. In addition to the crucial importance of communication and community, I've been especially impressed by the power of questions. Some of the questions we asked each other in the early days were as lighthearted as, can you show us your pet? We soon transitioned to the more consequential, do you have hand sanitizer? And increasingly, over these last two strange and important years, our questions have communicated the depth of the community that we have built together, exploring, for example, our various individual and shared reasons for deciding to pursue a graduate career in the first place, asking, why is this the norm? What can change? What can I do? Questions posed by professors and peers contributed to our policy toolkit. These included, are there inequitable outcomes? What are the racial implications? What are the measures of success? Questions like these have equipped us to challenge the six new policies and propose better ones. I know these and many other important questions will be posed throughout the country and internationally across various fields by this amazing cohort. As we prepare for the next chapter, I'm deeply grateful for the time I spent in this special place surrounded by such intelligent, brave, caring, and dedicated individuals. And it gives me hope to know that each of us will carry all the skills, connections, and guiding questions we have built and shared together. We did it 40s. Congratulations to the class of 2022 and forever go blue. Thank you so much, Crystal, for that wonderful set of remarks. We're now at that moment that families and friends often await in the afternoon. Our graduates are ready to come to the stage and receive official congratulations. Families, let me ask you a special favor to please remain seated. After the ceremony, you'll be able to get a photo of your graduate taken by all the professionals that you see here. These will be good photos that you will be able to have very quickly. You'll see them on the big screen as well. And if you stay seated, everybody will be able to see around you. So I really appreciate your cooperation in doing that. This year, the names will be read by John Chichari. As I mentioned, John is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and a Faculty Director of our International Policy Center and Wiser Diplomacy Center. He teaches courses on politics, political institutions, and post-conflict law and transition. John is an undergraduate and a law degree from Harvard, along with a master's degree and a D-Phil in International Relations from the University of Oxford. I'm pleased to introduce John to call the names of our graduating students. By presenting our—sorry. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to begin by presenting our graduates for Doctor of Philosophy. And my colleague, Professor David Thatcher, will hood our first graduate. Jessica White Galouli is earning her Doctorate in Public Policy and Sociology. She's an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Suffolk University. And she's serving as a subject matter expert for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Her dissertation is entitled, 9-1-1, Is This an Emergency? How 9-1-1 Call Takers Extract, Interpret, and Classify Caller Information. I have the great privilege of hooding our second doctoral graduate, Anita Ravi Shankar, who's earning her PhD in Public Policy and Political Science. Anita is the Director of Criminal Justice Research for Policing at Arnold Ventures. And her dissertation title is, A Pathway to Pro-Social Policing, A Framework for Police Behavior, and Three Tests of What Works in Police Reform. I'll now call out the names of our graduates for the Masters of Public Policy and Master of Public Affairs. I would ask both for our master's students and our bachelor students that you please reserve your most enthusiastic and sustained applause for the very end so that we can hear all of the names called clearly. And so to begin, Masahiro Abe, Rachel Elizabeth Abendroth, Clary Bodra, Alex Baum, Victoria R. Bell, Jonathan Breems, Darian Alexia Burns, Tia Caldwell, Paul Kapp, Milagros Chose, Catherine Chima, Fanta Konde, A.J. Convertino, Christina Curtis, Benny Doctor, Alicia Dyer, Meredith Ice, Justin Fisher, Adam Taylor Flood, Ryan Fogarty, Colin Fuss, Cecilia Garibay, Gage Garrison, Nomendari Gusikoff, Scott Heck, Ying He, Karina Suzette Hernandez, Connor L. Hicks, Maximilian Hill, Jordan Incorvaya, Victoria Ann Gale Johnson, Vivian Columbi, Lawrence Katnioleka, Claire Knutson, Hannah Krause, Carissa Kresge, Janice Le, Jose Lemus, Charlie Lindsay, Shatem Lyons, Daniel Marquini, Yasunao Matsuda, Rebecca Mendelsohn, Greg Medima, Corey Miles, Mandy Mitchell, Isaac Newbegin Nico, Maya Omera, Crystal Olalde Garcia, Tyler Orcutt, Douglas Ortiz, Kana Otani, Priyanka Panjwani, Daniel C. Park, Eleanor Cooper Pershing, Jeffrey A. Pfeiffer, Hannah Pollock, Gregory Calvin Pollard, Christy Pritzle, Ziyu Chu, Salene Rangel, Brian Ricketts, Dalia Safe, Claire Salant, Celia Charlene Onipidesoyer, Rachel Schaefer, Yasin Shafi, Kyron Smith, Noah Strayer, Vanessa Taylor, Sydney Thompson, Carly Thurston, Lynn Tranfong, Phoebe Trout, Emily Tuesday, Cassidy Uckman, Yuki Ura, Sarah Murray Wagner, Joel Wheeler, Katie Wheeler, Pisacha Wichenshan, Jonathan Wilger, Jess Williams, Allison Winstol, Maheen Zahid, Lorena Zajmi, E. Joe, and now for our graduates of the Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy. Gina Abufara, Alexander Acho, Lily Grace Alexander, Maxwell Barmak, Kristen Bolster, Connor Bradbury, William Frederick Brown, Sydney Berg, Abigail Estelle Caswell, Tuyn Chokraborty, Madeleine Irene Cohen, Juliana Coyado, Andrew Cox, Elyon DeCache, Kevin James Davis Jr., Reed Isaac Diamond, William Ahmed Dobbs, Charlotte Falk, Adam Mataz Futa, Josephine Fongar, Emma R. Ford, Janani Gandhi, Ruben Glasser, Andrew Goldman, Brenna Goss, Newper Jane Goyal, Caroline Jane Hannon, Brenna Healy, Lena Hoppe, Eman Hock, Connor Gregory Hines, Skyler Jensen, Julia Johnston, Jasmine Kultenbach, Ishaan Kalra, Benjamin Korn, Calder Lance Lewis, Alice Lin, Jordan Lippert, Molly Maisie McLeod, Erin McDonald, Alex McMullen, Julia Miller, Rachel Milner, Michaela Elizabeth Minnis, Sarah Neiman, Alexa Patrick Rodriguez, Grace Phillips, Rhea Prasad, Atticus Rush, Caroline Reed, Devin Regal, Benjamin Rosenfeld, Lizbeth Rubin, Molly Ryan, Marissa Sable, Noelle Seward, Bianca Shaw, Victoria Shana Nazari, Gerald Sill, Emma Louise Smith, Anna Southan, Owen Timothy Stecco, Maheem Syed, Megan Esther Tyga, Amanda Valely, Caroline Van Dam, Madeleine Claire Walsh, Thomas Weinstein, Emma Wong, Sophia Yoon, Angela Zhang, Jolin Zhang, Alex Michael Zittleman. A great group of students, graduates I should say. Just an amazing group of graduates, they're going to go on to do I think some powerful things and we're going to close with a song in just a minute. I want to just say some special thanks. What you're seeing here today is not something the Ford School has ever tried or done before which is to have a pop-up graduation outside in the middle of a field and it took an enormous amount of coordination and collaboration. I'm not going to mention everybody's names but I do want to just say a special shout out to Katie Cole in our communications and outreach office who brought Katie brought everybody together here. Amazing volunteers you see in the audience who are staff members who are helping out on their own time just to make this happen and brought together the other schools as well just a phenomenal job and I'm very grateful. I'm also grateful to all of you for coming today so we're going to let our students thank you in just a moment but I wanted to give you my personal thanks for the way that you have raised and nurtured the graduates who are sitting before us today. I am very blessed to have been in their company these last two years and I know that they did not they did not arrive here fully formed but they arrived here formed in such a way that I could see their strength of character and their strength of spirit and that is thanks to all of you who are here in the audience today. In just a moment we're going to go up the road to Weill Hall to the School of Public Policy to continue this celebration with our graduates. I welcome all of you to join us there. Let me now ask our graduates to please stand and turn to face the crowd. As I said you've all achieved something wonderful but you did not get to this moment by yourself. Will everyone in the audience today please rise? Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, spouses, partners, sisters, brothers, friends, faculty, staff, neighbors, everyone else here who are offering their support. Our platform party who has helped you through this moment, please stand. Graduates now please join me in thanking all of those who have brought you here today. We have a special tradition now for our undergraduate students. Will our undergraduate students at this time please move the tassel on your mortarboard from the right to the left until the wind blows it away. And now I am so proud to present to all of you the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Classes of 2022. Go Blue!