 Hold on. Can the band help us out one more time here? You guys ready? All right. This time is for real The others we were just kidding ready Ladies and gentlemen our hosts from UTSA dr. Ricardo Romo UTSA Welcome to our colleagues signing a special guest here today, but I want you all to know all of you are special in our minds Now today it is about you It's about your decision to go to college It's also a historic day for UTSA because we welcome first lady Michelle Obama who's gonna join us shortly I have a great pleasure of introducing Two great Texans two individuals committed to education committed to our welfare There are Erica and Julian Castro mayor cast and Erica There they are Erica gets to wave twice because she has two degrees from UTSA and in a minute. I'm gonna introduce you to Mayor Julian Castro who earned degrees from Stanford and Harvard Law and native of San Antonio graduate of Jefferson High School He's coming up in a minute. I think if anything we can determine is that education has been the key to mayor's success Elected to the city council age 26 elected mayor three times 09 11 and 13 Today he is recognized as one of America's great mayor is one of America's best mayors Let's give it a hand friend He's coming up. I need to say a few things about him So what makes him so great? What makes him great is he has a vision. He's got an action plan. He's got strategies. He's got ideas. He's got implementation He is really working hard for the betterment of our community and therefore he created SA 2020 Which is a bad job creations about well-being about good health in our community One of his great achievements is pre-k for SA kids and kids who are If you're four years old and younger you ought to start height you are start school So you get ready for for later on in education and later on they're gonna go to cafe college So you begin it for age four and then you end up at cafe college signing up for a college And that's what he does and he does it not only by talking about it But also by visiting schools. He has given us the gift of his time the gift of positive engagement He's also a great friend of how education for UTSA. He is a creative thinker He came up with some ideas of how to partner CPS CPS with 50 million dollar grants for UTSA in energy development About 10 days ago. We celebrated here in our campus a gift of a million dollars for Microsoft is gonna partner with us There was a mayor's idea to bring Microsoft to UTSA and get them to commit money for us to create jobs And to talk about supplies of energy now, you know that he's got a national presence. He's a recognized leader He's a first Hispanic keynote speaker for the Democratic Convention. He's a speaker in demand time magazine 40 under 40 40 leaders in the whole country under age of 40. He was recognized by time. I am proud to call him my good friend He's an outstanding individual devoted service. He's a caring individual got a lot of compassion Best part about it. He's my Facebook buddy He's family oriented He brings his family to the UTSA football games. I love him for that. Thank you mayor. All right, so let's bring on an individual Who is responsible? for bringing First lady Michelle Obama to UTSA One day mayor, I know you've been visiting the White House some one day you're gonna live there So let's bring the guy who's done so much for our city in our state mayor Castro. Thank you very much First let me say a huge. Thank you Dr. Romo for your excellent leadership here at UTSA You guys got a great president, huh? without your leadership today wouldn't be possible and The stellar success that the university has seen in the last decade and a half wouldn't be possible There's so much to be proud of here at UTSA. I also want to thank all of the faculty the staff I saw the admissions office folks here a little while ago for hosting us. Let's say thank you to UTSA Thank y'all. I also want to just take a minute to to To congratulate and thank the folks who helped make this possible And I know I'm going to commit the cardinal sin of people in politics, which is to leave somebody out But let me just say first a big. Thank you to all of the folks at cafe college. Are they here? Thank y'all to all of the folks at cafe college. I want to thank SA 2020 and their staff. I Want to thank the p16 plus and the p20 Councils thank y'all for your work, and I want to say a huge. Thank you as well to all of the sponsoring organizations Let's thank them for sponsoring College week All of the nonprofits as well like big brothers big sisters and others who have been supportive of this city year And I want to say a huge thanks to all of the colleges and universities in San Antonio that I know y'all are gonna go To whether it's UTSA I know we have some folks going to Trinity We have some folks headed toward A&M San Antonio We got some folks going to the Alamo colleges and St. Mary's and our lady the lake and We got some folks going outside of the city I know to Texas A&M Corpus Christi and UT Austin and A&M College Station all right, and if I listed all of them we'd be here forever So let me just say Let me just let me just say why we're here First and foremost we're here because We want to celebrate your success We care about you and we believe that y'all are role models For your younger brothers and sisters and for younger Folks in our community because you have worked hard From pre-k to 12th grade To get to the moment in your life that you're at now all your life. You've heard about college and Now you're on the doorstep of it You've achieved one of your dreams And we wanted to be here today above everything else to tell you how much we love you and care about you And to congratulate you for that You deserve it and secondly We're here today because San Antonio has a very strong vision of What we're building in our town We're building a brainpower community that is the liveliest city in the United States And a couple years ago Folks from around the city got together and they said you know what the number one thing that we need to focus on in this city is improving educational achievement and so we set a Vision that San Antonio would achieve the greatest turnaround in educational achievement that any city Has achieved in a decade and we set a goal That 80% of our graduating seniors would go on to college And I can't tell you I can't tell you how happy it makes me To see all of y'all living up to the dream that we have for our community We understand also that San Antonio plays a role in our national prosperity and future the fact is that In a couple of years when y'all walk the stage and receive your college degree That's gonna be a fantastic moment of Victory for you and for your family It's also going to be a great moment for our city and for our nation President Obama has set out a North Star initiative that says we want the United States again by the year 2020 to lead the world in the number of college graduates that it produces and If we're gonna reach that goal you are the answer to that you are the hope for that so I'm here today with my wife Erica and With my brother Joaquin Joaquin's somewhere over here. I guess I should say congressman Castro except He always introduces me as the uglier twin, so And I'm also here with my mother Rosie she's somewhere around here and I let me just take two minutes to tell you that That Joaquin and I were very blessed in 1992 to graduate from Jefferson High School and then get to go to college We we graduated and I remember that we took off for California on Wednesday, September 23rd 1992 and we had never seen the campus and The reason we were able to go there We were growing up with our mother and our grandmother was that We got scholarships and we took out some loans to be able to afford it and my father bought us I think the cheapest airline ticket that you can get on Southwest because it stopped in El Paso LA and then San Francisco and We literally cried Halfway to El Paso In fact, the Southwest Airlines attendant had to bring us these those napkins from Southwest Airlines that are all hard and tear up your eyes Because we had never really been away from home what we found what I found in life is that Oftentimes We build up the next stage in life Whether it's going from middle school to high school or high school to college or college to grad school or the working world And what we found was that college was a little bit harder than What we had experienced in high school But it wasn't so much harder that we couldn't handle it And I hope if you remember anything from today is y'all get ready to start college It's that You should have every single reason to be confident That if you keep on doing what you're doing if you believe in yourself enough to do the work To study to pay attention to school There's every single reason to believe that you're gonna do well in college just like you do well in high school Always believe in yourself Because if you believe in yourself You can get through any next stage in life The other thing I learned in my first year of college was that you have to be who you are I Remember the first party that I ever went to in college and I remember it because I Didn't drink I still don't drink. I have never started drinking in my life but but at this party They had a keg and they had these solo cups You know the red plastic solo cups that you you see and they had this stack of solo cups stacked up And I remember that that I felt so odd because everybody was drinking And so I went and got a red solo cup And then I went to a restroom and I filled it with water And I walked around all night at that party pretending like I was sipping beer or whatever they were drinking That was the only time that I ever did that because the fact is that you'll find that the people in your life that are worth Being friends with and spending time with are the people who can accept you for who you are and When you can believe in yourself and accept yourself On your own terms other people can accept you on your terms as well And so y'all are going into a World of a little bit more peer pressure Sometimes expectations to go along with the crowd don't ever be somebody that you're not be yourself And others will be who they are to and you will find the people in life who truly care about you for who you are and so I Just wanted to come here today and on behalf of all of San Antonio. I Want to say congratulations? Thank you for all the hard work that you've done Y'all are our hope in this community for a greater future We're gonna welcome the first lady in just a little while I Hope y'all give her a great San Antonio welcome and always remember that whether you come here to UTSA Or you go out to UT or you go to Stanford or you go to Notre Dame or wherever you go That there's always a place in our heart here in San Antonio For you, and we hope that you always stay Thank you Ladies and gentlemen our mayor who Leon Castro Mr.. Mayor Dr. Ricardo Romo if you guys can both come down here. We want to do a mock commitment ceremony We'd like to welcome all of our city councilmen that are here our state representatives Please come out to the floor right now That's right. They sound great We're gonna need you over here. She just asked if we were gonna make him do the dizzy bat race Already I like that in your sections are these giant board Right and on them. They say I commit to attend and complete College right? There are markers in your stands You've already had your sign would you show them to us our lady the late awesome st. Mary's I know you've got your sign as well Show that to this Throughout the rest of it. We're gonna be calling you out. We're gonna make sure you got your sign Yeah, but before we get started mr. Mayor Would you care to lead us and what will happen later with the first lady right now? We're just gonna show you what it means to commit. Yeah Alrighty already commit We all understand the importance of commitment and committing to excellence and to Not just going to college but to completing it so Repeat after me. I Believe in myself in my future. I commit to enroll in college. I Commit to persevere when I get there. I commit to graduate and No matter what I commit to always reach higher for myself for my family and for my community Thank y'all very much Here's markers I There's markers. There's radios, whatever If you will sign your names here and show how you committed to and completed college You will be doing this throughout the rest of the day guys. That's what we call a practice run Right because I heard you You were trying But that's a practice run Because I'm gonna need a little bit more energy when the first lady runs us through that a little bit later on Yeah, so we're gonna do it later with first lady of the United States Michelle Obama right now Can we please give a huge college? Spirit yell to our city and state representatives ladies and gentlemen Give you that so we're gonna have a little bit of fun here. We're gonna take a tiny bit of a break The adult this is when the adults get bored Break we're gonna play some more games. We're gonna pit universities in colleges against each other I think we may have to do like an inner sack Northwest vista like let's put those together We'll do some alimol colleges. We'll just get them all together. All right. I like that We might have to do some UTA and M action. I see done. I like that I'm so sorry. Tamu Corpus Christi, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi are y'all up there? Islanders. Hey real quick I just want to say we might also pit St. Mary's against you IW Look at this look at this Give it up for all of our officials that are out here with us today celebrating you guys We're going to be signing your commitment cards here guys. We want you to sign them. We want to know that you commit and now Dizzy bat race with cities Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for showing your commitment to the students as well