 Good evening, please take your seats Thank you I'm Susan Collins the Joan and Sanford Wildein of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy And it was a pleasure to meet so many of you yesterday at our graduation open house and tonight It is such an honor to welcome students family friends and community members here for what is the formal highlight of our academic year the Ford schools 2012 commencement ceremony of our platform party with me on stage is miss Carol Bellamy and I will be actually on this side She is our commencement speaker and I will be introducing her more fully in just a few moments to Carol's left is Janet Weiss the dean of Rackham graduate school and the university's vice provost for academic affairs for graduate studies Janet is here to represent the university of Michigan but it is also our great fortune that we count her as a member of the Ford school faculty so we're very honored to have Janet with us here this evening as well also on stage are two additional faculty colleagues John Chorchari who'll be reading the names of our graduates and Susan Donarski who will deliver the faculty address and finally elected by their respective classmates to provide the student commencement addresses soon to be Ford school MPP graduate Chad cooking him and be a graduate a junior core safety from the mid 20th century to the present this university has been the site of powerful and influential student action it was on the steps of our student union in 1960 that presidential candidate John F. Kennedy junior first called the University of Michigan students to service a call they heated and still act upon more than 50 years later a voluntary organization for international service which of course we know as the Peace Corps was born on this campus as the product of student passion and compassion and while it's perhaps best known it is but one of many examples of the ways that Michigan and Ford school students have mobilized their skills and energies to make a difference both in this country and throughout the world we now face a myriad of seemingly intransigent challenges and arguably there has never been a greater need for that determined spirit to act to confront our challenges through action action Ford school students are committed to public service to shaping and enacting good public policy they will make decisions about water conservation about nuclear power about how to increase literacy rates they will work in local communities for private organizations for the government they will act they'll roll up their sleeves and put the skills they've learned to use certainly as leaders but also as managers organizers writers lawmakers teachers as president Ford observed and I quote while we can never do all we might miss wish we must always do what we can and that is how Ford school students can meet these challenges they will do what they can even as students today's graduates engage here at school in the local Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit communities and in the larger world Ford school students create paths to change where none existed they partner with other committed individuals and organizations and sometimes they even create new organizations they work to find innovative solutions to the serious public policy challenges that confront us and that means they that means you serve in the best and the most dynamic senses of that word so bravo congratulations keep up the good work Ford school classes of 2012 we're so proud of you but before our graduates cross this stage and take up their new challenges now seems like a very good time to address a question that might be a common one around your family gatherings and that is just what is public policy anyway well public policy is our collective quest to address pressing and often stubborn problems why is income and equality a persistent and growing American challenge how can good science be translated into action to slow the pace of climate change how can Detroit and other rust belt cities cope with the massive employment restructuring that followed the shift of American manufacturing abroad and how can we ensure that human rights and security persist in the context of growing threats to national security the complexity of these and other problems requires bright and energetic doers who are prepared to work to find creative and viable solutions in 2014 the Ford school will celebrate 100 years of educating just these sorts of public policy professionals always a leader the University of Michigan established the Ford school's forerunner 98 years ago as the first program of its kind in the nation to train professionals for public service primarily in state and local government in 1968 we were renamed the Institute for Public Policy Studies and reoriented reoriented towards applying social science research to the task of building sound public policy and like today's MPP graduates Ip students received rigorous training in the quantitative analysis of economic political and organizational questions over time our focus broadened considerably to encompass national and international issues and our flagship MPP program remains one of the best in the country in 1999 the school was named for the university's most distinguished alumnus president Gerald Ford it's a name we're very proud of in light of his lifelong commitment to principal public service his integrity and his ability to reach across the aisle and forge consensus being named for president Ford remains a point of pride for our students they call themselves forties and use the president's name and likeness on t-shirts event posters co-ed fraternity his face even adorned sports equipment this spring when a very enterprising group of students established an all school and it really was all school lunchtime beanbag toss tournament our naming for president Ford propelled an era of tremendous growth we moved into wild hall our beautiful new building in 2006 and growth in our educational programs has truly reshaped our identity and made us a comprehensive full-service source for outstanding public policy education and research and last fall the school celebrated the 10th anniversary of our joint phd programs with economics sociology and political science so far 38 students have received their doctoral degrees they've had impressive success on the job market earning tenure-track faculty positions prestigious postdoctoral fellowships and research posts with organizations like mathematical policy research the gates foundation the federal reserve board and the state department we launched our undergraduate program in the fall of 2007 and it was an immediate success in terms of the quality of the students that it attracted and the deep engagement of our faculty in teaching and mentoring and also in the post graduation impact of our students our ba alums are working in troubled school districts as teach for america volunteers they're serving abroad in the peace corps they're learning the ropes in dc and on political campaigns and they're earning advanced degrees in law business public policy and medicine our excellent faculty has grown as well the broad range of their expertise links us with the top-ranked departments throughout the university including economics political science sociology math history business social work education natural resources information and urban planning they're thoughtful and enthusiastic teachers and mentors and they're actively engaged with public policy challenges and let me just give you two examples su dinarski's research her research shows that we can reduce the achievement gap increase graduation get graduation rates and save money by simplifying that faffsa form over the past few years she's worked with government leaders to do just that and john churchari is a legal advisor is a legal advisor to the documentation center of cambodia helping bring justice to helping helping bring to justice excuse me perpetrators of atrocities committed over 30 years ago by members of the chimera rouge regime i am so proud of our terrific professional staff as well a team that keeps the education research public service and engagement missions of the school moving forward at this point i would like to ask all faculty and staff of the ford school to stand now if you would join me please stand it's a pleasure for me to publicly thank them for all that they do and now for the accomplishments of tonight's graduates what have they learned during their time here and what have they already given back to us let me start with our newest phd graduate ashley read brown who was earned a doctorate in public policy and political science her training at the university of michigan was interdisciplinary and policy relevant phd students receive a strong theoretical grounding in a social science discipline and pair that with rigorous coursework in empirical methods and policy analysis ashley will take a position as a management consultant with mckinsey and company not today 95 students will receive a master's degree the ford school's rigorous mpp and mpa curriculum gives students the skills to collect analyze evaluate and present information about a wide range of public concerns we encourage our students to take seminars that involve real world policy consulting and we require mpp students to apply what they learn in the classroom during a summer internship our graduate students are incredibly diverse they speak 21 different languages and hail from nine different countries they're also a tight-knit group it seemed that they didn't want to be parted even over the summer and many of them completed their internships in twos and threes there were two at direct relief international and two at the clinton foundation three at the michigan governor's office three at the white house and so on so they really are a very tight-knit group now around 42 percent of our class has already finalized their immediate employment plans and so to the parents in the room please accept my personal reassurance that our current employment rate is squarely on track with past years and all of our graduates will find work in city state federal governments the private sector think tanks ngo's in the u.s. or in other countries around the world there are 55 students graduating today with a bachelor of arts and public policy and they have received much more than your typical undergraduate education we kind of think about it as liberal arts on steroids in small classes with some of the university of michigan's best faculty our b.a. curriculum trains students to think critically across disciplines to understand a policy challenge and develop solutions the b.a. students are curious hard-working and engaged the group boasts 12 Phi Beta Kappa's who are wearing gold cords tonight as well as nine angel scholars they are truly the leaders and best across a wide variety of campus and activities including athletics publications politics and more the b.a. and m.p.p. graduating classes presented the school with generous parting gifts totaling nearly eight thousand dollars to fund opportunities for future classes their gift speaks volumes about their belief in the value of a Ford school education and the importance of making their experiences possible for others and we're very grateful to them for that our graduates did not arrive at their accomplishments alone and we are also joined by perhaps eight hundred family members and friends tonight and I know that all of our graduates value the love and the support that you have provided over the years and so graduates I'd like to give you the chance to thank your families and friends those who are here in person as well as those only able to be here in spirit thank you so much now graduates on behalf of the Ford school community I say thank you to you for your investment in this community it has been a pleasure to work with you and to get to know you I know that many of you are likely to have very mixed feelings about what today represents you've achieved so much already but will miss many of the joys in life in Ann Arbor and at the Ford school you'll miss your friends and classmates of course holiday skits the Ford school prom the chase for the Stevenson Cup ladies of corn dominix but despite all you'll miss today is also full of promise the promise of new work new cities new friends and new challenges tracy k smith who was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer prize for poetry writes perhaps the great error is believing we're alone and that the others have come and gone if there's one thing a Ford school graduate is not it's alone you uplift our community with your collaborative spirit and engagement and your insistence that the world can be changed and for the better every day our alumni all over the country and the world offer their time and expertise to mentor students and shepherd them into the world of public service many of you will do the same for the next generation of Ford school graduates you must always do what you can this applies to the world of policy and to the world at large as unsteady as unsettled as it often is it also applies to you you must do what you can for each other what you so generously offered us here you must continue encourage each other and uplift your new communities with knowledge courage and empathy we will remember you we will follow your achievements with great interest and we truly hope that you remain engaged with the life of the Ford school so follow us on twitter friend us on facebook read our magazine talk about the school in your professional circles join our linkedin group subscribe to our newsletter listen to our podcasts on itunes and someday please hire our students you might even fund an internship so whenever you're in town please walk through the doors on state and hill just to say hello and know that you will always have a home here in Ann Arbor we're so proud of you congratulations and best wishes to the classes of 2012 go forth and go blue and now i would like to introduce our 2012 commencement speaker carol bellamy miss bellamy's inspiring career has spanned politics finance international aid and development and activism here are just a few highlights she was among the very first peace corps volunteers serving in guatemala from 1963 to 1965 three decades later she was appointed by president kent clinton to direct the peace corps the first returning volunteer to later lead the organization she served as executive director of the united nations children's fund for 10 years and towards the end of that tenure led unicef's response to the devastating tsunami that struck the indian ocean in december of 2005 she's worked on wall street for more than a decade with stints at bare sterns in morgan stanley she served for five years in the new york state senate and in 1978 became the first woman president of the new york city council carol we welcome you to on to an arbor and it is our honor to have you here today to deliver our 2012 commencement address uh dean collins members of the dais of friends and family and graduating classes of 2012 as chair of the global partnership for education and let me tip my hat to those of you particularly who are um specializing in education we need some good advocates in that area and also as someone who has been engaged in the public sector for about 40 years and thank you for the definition do you know how long it's taken me to try and explain to my parents what being anyway somebody who has been involved in the public sector for about 40 years it is an honor to stand here today before you the classes of 2012 and the many distinguished guests in the audience i am keenly aware of the importance of brief graduation addresses particularly if you're outside so when you're inside they are a little longer but so anyway let me get to my points i have been fortunate enough to have joy to have enjoyed a multiple career life that's what i call it in my old age um there was a time when i'd been a wall street lawyer a investment banker and a new york politician i only needed to do real estate and i would have been in every profession that your mother will not tell her neighbors about actually however as i said in my in my old age i'm proud of the fact that i've enjoyed a multiple career life as a peace corps volunteer and okay how many rpcvs are they here they have to be a bunch of them best thing i ever did anyway as a peace corps volunteer a wall street lawyer investment banker new york politician unicef director ceo of a non-profit and now working to get kids in school in the world's poorest countries i thought i would talk to you today about some of the lessons that i've learned along the way about getting through life i have a number of them not too many lesson number one simple as the writer daniel pink among his books a whole new mind it says to his audiences do what you love or as i might say follow your passion and not your passion the reason this soft advice is now a very hard headed survival strategy in my view is because as one of my other favorite authors tom freedman has been reminding us for some time the world has become not just getting but has become much flatter modern technology communications and transportation have increased our access to things in which we couldn't engage readily before and indeed have made made the world flatter the flatter the world gets the more essential it is that you do what you love because as pink says all the boring repetitive jobs are going to be automated or outsourced in the flat world the good jobs that will remain will be those that cannot be automated or outsourced they will be the jobs that demand or encourage some uniquely creative flair human flair passion imagination in other words jobs that can only be done by people who love what they do so whatever you plan to do whether you're going to continue to graduate school take some time off to think go directly to a job 40 percent that's pretty good or maybe you're still figuring out what to do next listen to your heart it's the best career counselor is there is do what you really love to do and if you don't know what that is quite yet well just keep searching because you'll find it you'll bring that something extra to your work that will help ensure that you will not be automated or outsourced lesson number two is that the most enduring skill you can bring to your coming years is also one of the most important skills one learns certainly I suspect here at Ford and that is the ability to learn how to learn whether it's in the classroom or far beyond the classroom learning how to learn ensures a better ability to survive in today's world I certainly need remind you that these days it's a bit tough to take the security of your future career for granted what you should be sure of however is that you and your peers will be at an advantage having gone through a Ford education that has such an emphasis on critical thinking at its heart and by the way never underestimate the value of lifelong learning in all my experience while following I hope my passion I also learned about the world its people and its needs lesson number three is don't get carried away with gadgets I'm sitting next to somebody who's going to give her remarks from her iPad well at least I don't have a flip chart here I mean that's and I'm not suggesting you shouldn't go on Facebook or or whatever else you want to go on it's true I often wonder how I used to survive in the pre-email error and as you can see from my gray hair I grew up in a time of troglodytes but in this age of the cloud and smartphones the internet and Google e-readers and iPads remember one thing all these tools might make you smarter but they sure won't make you smart they may extend your reach but they will never tell you what to say to your neighbor next door or how to comfort a friend in need or how to imagine a breakthrough in science and literature you cannot download passion imagination zest creativity you have to upload it the old-fashioned way within your brain with reading and writing and math travel study reflection music and art and human interaction your experience at Ford will have instilled in you a natural curiosity respect and understanding for people of different backgrounds languages cultures and religions this is the most valuable passport to take with you as you go on life's journey lesson number four is to always remember that there is a difference between skepticism and cynicism skepticism is about asking questions being dubious being wary not being gullible but always being open to being persuaded by a new fact cynicism is about already having the answers or at least thinking that you have the skeptic says I don't think that's true but I'm going to check it out the cynic says I know that's not true it couldn't be again you're lucky Ford excels at teaching one to question to consider other viewpoints and to understand that other people with their differences can be right lesson number five this is always a hard one for me because I have a hard one with this lesson but I really believe it I only wish I could stick with it as a number five be patient change of any sort takes time and effort a graduate degree as important as it is and it's important is only the start to a long career of ups and downs with hard work and a bit of luck I can assure you there'll be many more ups than downs lesson number six develop the ability to synthesize Howard Garner reminds us the future mind must be able to take this myriad of data and information that we're bombarded with and narrow the interpretation to key points and concepts lesson number seven be a global citizen I talk about this a lot so what does that term global citizen mean I'll give you I'll give you a definition tonight tonight as well in my view the first way to answer the question is quite basic pragmatic and it goes straight to the bottom line as I noted a few minutes ago the globalized world we live in and the future we're looking at demands new skills and competencies to be effective and competitive but of course global citizenship is much more than just a skill set to be acquired more than just a set of knowledge or means to build a resume or a career and global citizenship is certainly not about the number of stamps in your passport or indeed whether you go into international work global citizenship is a mindset to be embraced acted upon and lived and breathed in one's daily life global citizens embrace and advocate for the broadest most inclusive worldview and they seek to translate their beliefs into concrete actions and outcomes in their everyday lives something I just heard that you do very well global citizens have an ideal vision of the world as it could be but at the same time are realists in how they apply that vision to create change they seek to move beyond political ideologies and ethnic divisions and they work hard to acquire knowledge skills and capacities that will help make them effective global citizens are agents of change who are not afraid to step outside their comfort zones and bridge differences you know when we open ourselves to people from different cultures we overcome our fears and misconceptions we see opportunities that we never dreamed of before we find common ground that we never imagined we come to relish differences rather than fearing them because they enrich our lives adding vibrancy color and a dazzling array of new experiences all the ingredients we need to stop our lives becoming mundane and humdrum becoming a global citizen I can guarantee from firsthand experience is the root to the life less ordinary so what do these global citizens look like well look around I have no doubt that we have a room full right here I know we all get hung up on celebrating uh you know the bonos and the operas of the world who in my view no question do great work and and and serve in models in their own way but I'm here tonight to tell you that even people who require a first and last name to be recognized can make a difference practical experiences shows all of us that you do not have to be famous or uniquely talented or blessed or some heroic type person to make a difference leadership and good citizenship are more about making choices than destiny each and every person can make a difference they start small they stay compassionate and they remain committed my last lesson lesson eight I think I was being told that I better get to the last lesson I think this is a really important lesson keep a sense of humor life can be very serious but enjoying the ride through humor can sometimes make it much more palatable and certainly much more enjoyable so let me wrap up by saying that happiness happiness is a journey it's not a destination if I've had any success in my career it's because I found a way to enjoy the journey as much as the destination I had as much fun as a Peace Corps volunteer 50 years ago in Guatemala as I do now working with the global partnership I've had my dull and down moments there's no question but more often than not I found ways to learn from and enjoy some part of each and every job you can't bet your whole life on one single destination you have to make the journey work too so let me conclude and leave you with a bit of wit and wisdom attributed to that very unique American author Mark Twain this is what he reminded us I think good to keep in mind always work like you don't need the money always fall in love like you've never been hurt always dance like nobody is watching and always always live like it's heaven on earth to the classes of 2012 I wish you much success in your future careers thank you very much thank you so much I am now delighted to welcome the members of amazing blue to the stage amazing blue is the University of Michigan's oldest co-ed acapella ensemble and they will perform two classics from the University of Michigan's songbook please thank you each year the Ford school's graduating students are asked to elect people to play key roles in our commencement one faculty member is chosen to speak to the classes and both sets of graduating classes choose a representative student speaker as the faculty speaker the classes of 2012 elected professor Susan Denarski Sue is an education economist who has a joint appointment in the University of Michigan School of Education she has a BA and an MPP from Harvard and earned her PhD in economics from MIT she's been called one of America's most visible influential education scholars from the optimal design of financial aid to rigorous evaluations of charter schools her research explores the causes and consequences of inequality as well as innovative policy solutions one of the courses that sue teaches here at the Ford school is called quantitative methods for program evaluation now as you might suspect from the title it's a course that challenges our students and she's not considered an easy teacher so when the graduating students elect to hear one last time from someone who teaches one of our toughest courses you know that we're in the presence of a great teacher and so I'm delighted to invite sudenarski to speak on behalf of the faculty so apparently I engaged in poor planning because I failed to call Dean Collins and check what she was wearing today and ended up wearing exactly the same outfit very embarrassing and I failed to talk to Carol Bellamy to find out what she was gonna lesson she was going to impart to you and it turns out many of them are the same lessons and they were said far more eloquently than I'm going to but I'll I'll do what I can I've stood in front of a lot of you for much more than the six minutes that I'm told to stand here today but I'm much more nervous than I was for any of those lectures and I think it's the funny little hat combined with the weightiness of saying goodbye to another wonderful class of Ford students so let me start with the flattery that's the first thing in any speech at graduation you guys have been a pleasure to teach you demand a lot of your instructors you demand relevance from your classes right these are not theoretical classes we teach you you want them connected to the world of practice and this makes teaching you a very tough but an extremely rewarding job besides teaching you hearing from you after graduation about where you are and what you're doing and how your Ford education has affected the way you move through the world that's another great joy so please keep us surprised whether it's on facebook or email or even walking in and saying hi okay so now on to a few gems of wisdom that I have collected over the years I seem to have been collecting in the same places as Carol and I'm now going to bestow them upon you when you charge out into the world flying the Ford school flag you keep these things in mind if you violate any of them we're going to find you and take away your degree okay so number one I think I numbered a couple of things with the same numbers we'll find out if my quant students catch this there'll be a quiz after the talk one no jargon okay cut the jargon out of your out of your writing in your speech you're all wicked smart that's a technical term sorry so impress people with your clear thinking rather than with inside or mumbo jumbo so for example and this is hard to do especially once you get inside the beltway that is Washington DC keep speaking English so don't use the word incentivize for example when encourage and motivate are perfectly good words that are used and understood by normal human beings okay dialogue is not a verb you don't dialogue with someone you talk with them and if you use the word impactful in any context we will not only revoke your UM degree but also contact any other institution from which you have graduated and get those pulled to all right number two no tiny fonts all right you're gonna go forth and use powerpoint there's no way to avoid it no font smaller than 18 point okay write that on the inside of your hand and just follow that for the rest of your life okay now on to the bigger more spiritual stuff so how about that career do you have it all mapped out yet the other 58 percent of you some of you are really organized planners and you've got your futures mapped out you're the people who read what color is your parachute and you've done your Briggs Myers and you make the rest of us really nervous so what I say here is for the muddlers seek out and work with people you like and whose work you respect so look around the world and look for people who are doing things that really impress you and who you like and do what you can to work with them volunteer with them join their organizations stick close to them a prestigious title a fancy firm something looks good on a business card a nice office furniture they're all worthless if you don't like and respect the people who are on your team so working with good-hearted and smart people is what sustained me throughout my career and it's pretty much the only career plan I've had and it's worked out pretty good for me don't worry about appearances don't waste your time worrying about what people think of you instead be of use this economist MIT trained just like Susan that's what this outfit is is the MIT robes the key to productivity is doing stuff so get out there and do stuff and that's how you'll be productive ask questions we already heard this one if somebody asserts that something is obviously true take that as a red flag right off the bat make them back it up find the facts do your analysis draw your conclusions and make yourself heard speak truth to power is the fancy way we put it right don't tolerate fools when Ron things are said speak up okay if the emperor has no clothes point it out make a joke about them don't go along to get along that's the easy way to go you don't need a Michigan education to take the easy path right so stir up the waters and make trouble if you need to on that front a very smart piece of advice I once got was to be as helpful as possible to the people who work for you and a little bit of a pain in the ass to the people above you so final final word you want to change the world and that's how you came into Ford was want to change the world you had a strong heart you got strong hands and now I hope you're going out with an even stronger mind because you need all three you need to care and you need to work hard and you need to work smart and with all three of these I know you're going to move mountains it's going to be an inch in a time one inch forward half an inch back but I know you're going to do it please come back and tell us about it when you're done thank you very much Sue and as you can tell our faculty really love what they do which is wonderful the undergraduate class of 2012 elected adjuni corsetti to speak on their behalf adjuni is the james b angel scholar and has been an active leader during her time here at michigan she served on an advisory board for the dean of students was communications director for the outstanding student-led publication consider magazine and coordinated advertising and activities for TEDx of u of m while studying abroad last year in strassburg front france she worked as a press intern for the council of europe adjuni exemplifies the wonderful spirit of activism here on campus as well as our diversity of thought and ideology having organized a halloween day zombie protest of one of our own speakers that's great adjuni it is a great pleasure to welcome you to the podium thank you many of you at the ford school may know me as um professor ellen dirdorf um or perry zealock um but today uh much to the dismay of the ford faculty and staff i'm sure um i'm just myself a fellow student who has shared this completely bizarre year with you shared the same feelings of panic uncertainty and excitement i look at my friends with their computer science and engineering degrees and their med school tracks and i think where am i with my public policy degree uh that does not directly translate into a laid out path i've been driving myself crazy thinking about public policy in my past and my future for the past few months so i decided that we need a break so today i'm going to talk about physics uh which i know nothing about so here goes um specifically newtons laws of motion newtons first law states that an object in motion will remain in motion until an opposite external force is applied to it it states that will keep moving until something hits us hits us really hard one month ago one of my best friends committed suicide when i was writing the speech i kept stopping at that last line while i'm talking to you today i stop at that last line it hits me every single time but then without a doubt something happens newtons lab is not real life in newtons lab there is one isolated object but in real life there are many many objects moving at the same time what got me and the rest of jordan's friends and family through the past month are the people around us that would not let us simply stop out of our loss came intense beauty and profound love people reaching out to people across campus across states across nations and the only thing that they had in common was their love for jordan and their grief over her loss but the point that there exists many objects does not detract from each individual object the most beautiful and terrible part of jordan being gone is that nobody and nothing can replace her like the individuality of a person no other experience will be able to replace your years here at ford and your years at michigan but we can be sad and happy at the same time sad about what we leave but excited for what we take with us and what we head towards we don't have to move on from and let go of experiences that form us but we do have to move forward we cannot stop the two things that will carry us are the people around us and ourselves at the ford school we don't have to reach out we don't have to know each other's names or make wild hall feel like home or parade around main and south u bar-to-bar wearing matching american flag bandanas but we do and we did and that's why it's hard to leave and that's why i'm going to miss you guys like crazy and that's why it is all worth it we will keep each other i know that we will and wherever we go next we must continue to build more communities things will hit us sometimes hard enough to make us stop and it is the people around us that make sure we move again we must remember that when we stop it is okay for others to carry us and that we must carry others when they cannot carry themselves lastly we must never undervalue our own power no one will be able to contribute to this world what we will and in the way that we will i know it's hard for you to imagine that you are that important but you are ergo newton was wrong but thank god republic policy majors what up and that is what ford students can do we can redefine the boundaries we can create our own rules and we can prove newton wrong congratulations ford family thank you thank you thank you for what you've given me for what you've given our community and for what you will unleash into this world be ever with the families that you create stay ever in motion and much love and now we will hear from the student elected to speak from the master's class of 2012 chad cookingham chad is an outstanding student who was an awarded a gerstacker fellowship for x for academic excellence here in bachelor's degrees in economics and psychology from dartmouth college in 2002 and since then he has taught mentored coached and tutored young people in a number of settings including the gunnery school in washington connecticut collegio americano de keto in keto ecuador and wuster school in danbury connecticut he completed his summer internship doing program evaluation for the denver scholarship foundation in colorado and chad has accepted a full-time position as the college and career director for generation schools in denver chad i'm delighted to invite you to the podium faculty and staff friends and family fellow graduates my name is chad cookingham some of you know me as the guy who changes his facial hair all the time some of you know me as the only person to actually do all of the reading for 585 but most of you probably know me as my most famous role mary's husband for those of you who do not know my wife mary and i came to the forward school together and both of us are graduating with our mpp's today when we tell people that people often have lots of questions about us going to policy school sometimes the questions are more general about policy school but sometimes they're very specific about going to school with your spouse sometimes people ask us whether we hold hands together in class of course i tell them we do not even though we do and one of the most common things people want to know is if we take a lot of classes together and when they find out that we do what they really want to know is so how do you deal with it when your spouse does better than you in a class to which mary responds i don't know if you should probably ask chat though we do get asked many questions about going to school together most of the questions that people ask us are questions that all of us have been asked over the years the first question people ask is really a two part question of what is policy school and why are you going there i'm not going to lie in the beginning i was not very good at answering the first part of that question because i'm not really sure i knew what policy school actually was before getting here thankfully i am better prepared to answer that question now but it's the second part of this question i've been thinking about a lot lately why did we all come here to policy school and what is it that does unite us we all have very different policy interests from technology to education to food to national defense so what brought us all to this place to study together when i think about what we all have in common it seems to me that it is the deep-rooted belief that the world can be a better place and that we have a role to play in making it so to me one of the most important things that we can do in our post-forward lives is to make sure that we never lose sight of the fact that we can change the world whether we end up in the public sector the private sector the nonprofit sector we must always stay true to this belief we can never fall victim to the cynicism that pervades the media these days while others may be fine saying oh that's just the way it is we cannot afford that luxury no matter how hard it is we need to fight so that we can live in the world that we want not the world we were given we can change the world and we don't have to do it alone which leads me to the other question people have been asking lately the other thing they want to know is what it is that i've gotten out of graduate school and while the mind obviously goes first to the skills and knowledge that we have all gained i think the most important thing that we can take from here are the relationships that we have made as long as we stay true to our belief that the world can be a better place than we always have each other to help us get there from our professors to career services to the broader University of Michigan community people will always be willing to help us in our path but most important of all are the people sitting around next to us we are all here to support one another because we're all here for the same goal even if we're approaching it from different angles we should never hesitate to reach out to our fellow classmates when we need help or advice introduction or collaboration as Cesar Chavez said you're never strong enough that you don't need help so as we leave this beautiful place that has taught us so much for the real world that can be so cynical we can't lose sight of the fact that together we can change the world and though it may be sad to leave behind all the friends that we have made we need to remember that we are all headed to the same place even if we set off in different directions and no matter how far we end up for man arbor we should never forget that it is great to be on michigan wolverine go blue thank you chad we are now at the moment that family and friends have been looking forward to all evening our graduates are ready to come to the stage to receive official congratulations on a job so well done this year the names will be read by john torturi john is assistant professor of public policy he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on politics political institutions and post-conflict law and transition he taught a course on economic and social policies in columbia and then took 20 students to bogota this spring to meet with policymakers and other leaders john has an undergraduate and a law degree from harvard capped by a master's and a phd in international relations from the university of oxford i'm very pleased to introduce john torturi to call the names of our graduating students good evening to begin i'll call our graduate earning a doctoral degree and i'd like to welcome vincent hutchings to the stage vincent's a professor of political science in the college of literature science in the arts and he'll hood our phd graduate vincent ashley read brown ashley's dissertation title is coffee shop conversations and exploration of how local elected officials develop and engage their social networks and now we'll welcome our graduates receiving a master's degree in public policy or public administration maggie allen sarah jane blumenthal trisha keosley bosler a u.s. navy veteran scott burgess daniel cabezas cobin calhoun neil clarence carter kathryn l chen yo hei chiba gregory huynatsky mary rose cipolloni alexandra citron charles clark adrian julia cohen chad brian cookinham morrin reed downs brendan john egan masahiro enso amit yavushan erdem anna erickson kate fletcher caroline massid francis jesse michael franceblow rafi garabedean collin girst devy glick alita halflet yoshinora yoshinori harada ben johnson june condo gabriel james creshock kevin quo jiyun lee claire ruth lainan haruka maeda oliver tuckman matthews suneki matzuo salvador maturana rogers devon mcmacken lindsey taylor minima cut lejo mo illua jonathan riley moore harlan edwardo pacheco figaroa elizabeth rose paluzola dionizio garcia pires keenan pontoni dylan curtis pressley jessica hope pressley ryan william pretzer evan alexander raleigh emily elizabeth rinner nathan keller ricks kathryn maria radriguez joel ruder komolchan oxaitang rodney m sap aamon patrick scanlan julie marie schneider alexandra martin shukoff sarah shubatowski hillary holstein smith syrie fidel sokari marin miriam spolem george stanco amer sultan stephanie swercheck pauline z greg thorn justin d tully yon tulek shinichiro suri david turner serena astraya vialba jeffrey warner christin elizabeth welling elizabeth caroline wilson coji yamashita yuki yamaguchi and perry zealock and now we'd like to welcome to the stage students receiving a bachelor in arts in public policy missy allen kandace amori viddy bomsai andrew michael beeline zachery berlin nina bada charia emily biel christopher crackiola daniel rachel de priest kathryn de hunt leili door alisha dugle michael florick i am frankle benjamin gordon jamie goresh brian jordan gutman ashley marie hill meredith harowski sanjay jolly ruben cap brandon cappy me emily knoll jeremy levy maria lew lora mason megandine mckiever lydia mcmolyn lared michael mirar loren mandry alexander odell jonathan olinger charles o'neill farine osman mary grace pelagrini karen donna ridder emily elizabeth rogoff devin rubenstein joseph mullen sandman jamie beth surlan ajuni korsetti alexis heather smith christopher john sorenson benet stein derek a Sutton abigail white matthew welful masha zilberman evan zinnaman and steven zuckerman graduates please stand and face your guests in the audience b.a. students at this time please move your tassel on your mortarboard from the right to the left i am so pleased to present to you the gerald r ford school of public policy classes of 2012 congratulations graduates thank you all for coming today and sharing in this very special occasion i'll ask you please to remain seated while until the class has exited and then we have light refreshments in the lobby and i encourage you to stay take some photos greet one another um and enjoy the company again we're so proud of you graduates go forth and go blue