 Thank you. And now it is my great pleasure to introduce my longtime colleague and my current boss, Paul Courant. In addition to his role as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Paul is an Arthur Thurnell Professor, the Harold T. Shapiro Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Economics, Professor of Information, Presidential Bicentennial Professor and Faculty Associate in the Institute for Social Research. His wit and his warmth are legendary. We speak often of the wonderful community at the Ford School. As a longtime faculty member and former director of the school, Paul is among those who created that special culture that we treasure and who helped us sustain it over all of the years. Please join me in welcoming to the podium Provost Paul Courant. Thank you, Susan. As interim Provost, I'm here in part to represent the university. At this ceremony. And as a faculty member at the Ford School, I get a bonus opportunity to congratulate our graduates from that perspective. So if I can count right, congratulations class of 2017, congratulations class of 2017. The Ford School is a wonderful microcosm of the University of Michigan. It's diverse in many ways while being united in its commitment to intellectual rigor and creative thinking. It's a place where students work hard together and develop lasting friendships, as Susan was talking about. You have in your time here contributed to this community, and I trust that you've come to appreciate the foundation it gives you. We're confident that it will stand you in good stead as you move on to live and work in communities throughout the world. When you came to the Ford School, you brought with you intelligence, curiosity, and a commitment to the common good. We have, as a school, added to your knowledge and helped you develop skills that will prove useful as you seek to affect public policy in your careers and as active citizens. And we've taught you several arcane vocabularies that you can use to amaze and delight your families and friends. You've taught us a few things as well. To listen carefully, to think imaginatively, to laugh at ourselves, and to remember the deeply held beliefs that led us to public policy in the first place. You've shared your experiences and your convictions with us, and we are grateful for the opportunities you gave us to learn. That faculty learn from students is one of the best things about universities in general and about the Ford School in particular. As you leave the Ford School for the policy world, you enter an arena where the problems you will address are complex and challenging. In choosing this field, you've committed yourselves to work that is hard, underappreciated, and critical to our shared future. This work requires a strong commitment to careful analysis, robust debate, and thoughtful decision making, and a willingness to accept the fact that some people make more money than you do. Since its founding in 1914 as the Institute for Public Administration, the school has been a leader in providing rigorous training for careers in public service. In today's world, the need for clear-eyed analysis, evidence-based decision making, and commitment to the common good is considerable. Partisan news sites reinforce the well-documented, in part well-documented by Ford School faculty, human tendency to search for evidence and evaluate evidence in a way that favors one's initial belief. The immediacy and brevity of some forms of social media encourage communication without reflection and the distribution of content that lacks complexity and nuance. At the same time, increases in partisanship, sometimes hyperpartisanship, have deprived us of useful examples of debate and deliberation. Harold Shapiro, who served as president of the University of Michigan and of Princeton University, and who was a member of the Ford School faculty in the 1980s, made the observation that the university must be both a servant and critic of society, a combination of characteristics that can be difficult to practice. Not everyone so much loves and trusts their critics. The same combination applies to those who seek to improve policy on behalf of society. Once one serves and is critic, and indeed serves in part by being a critic, the service and the criticism in turn require deep knowledge of how the world works, and the kind of knowledge that is often developed in universities, but all too rarely used. And that's where you come in. The world is in need of what you are very well prepared to do. Your commitment to the thoughtful exploration and compassionate resolution of human problems represents our best hope for the future. So to the graduates, let me say that with pride in your accomplishments and confidence in your abilities, we welcome you to the community of University of Michigan graduates and look forward to your contributions to the world. Congratulations and congratulations. As noted earlier, I'm also wearing an administrative hat. With that firmly in place, I want to salute Susan Collins as she presides over her final commencement as Dean of the Ford School. Wait, there's more. In her 10 years as Dean, Susan has led the school to new levels of accomplishment. She's made the school and its expertise more visible to policymakers around the country and around the world. Faculty members are regularly consulted by officials at all levels of government and contribute to national and international policy debates through op-eds, upshots, podcasts, blogs, and other media. She's worked with imagination and energy to bring practitioners to the school, enriching the curriculum with these voices of experience. Susan's first concern, however, has always been to ensure that Ford School students receive an education that will make them leaders and best throughout their careers. Attentive to the needs of students at all levels, Susan has worked tirelessly to ensure that students have the academic training, interpersonal support, and financial resources that they need to succeed. The Ford School has a decades-long history as a caring community. Susan has sustained and strengthened that tradition while overseeing growth in the program. To forties and ipsters alike, these are important gifts to a place that they love. While Susan is stepping down as Dean, she will continue to be a member of the faculty. She will hold the Edward M. Gramlich Collegiate Professorship of Public Policy. The naming of this chair pays tribute to the school's founding Dean, who was, like Susan, deeply committed to the common good. Susan, we are grateful for and better because of your contributions to the Ford School, the University of Michigan, and the society we all live in. Thank you. Wow, thank you so much. Again, I am overwhelmed and it again is such an honor to be a part of this very special community.