 Good evening everyone. 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 such a pleasure to meet so many of you yesterday at the third annual graduation open house and tonight it is a great honor to welcome students family friends and community members here for the formal highlight of our academic year the Ford School's 2011 commencement ceremony. I'd like to begin by introducing to you the members of the platform party with me on stage is Robin Wright our commencement speaker who will be introduced more fully in a few minutes. To Robin's left is Janet Weiss the Dean of the Rackham Graduate School and the University's Vice Provost for Academic Affairs for Graduate Studies. Officially Janet is here to represent the University of Michigan but it is our great fortune to count her as a member of the Ford School faculty and we're honored that Janet can be with us today. Also on stage are four additional faculty members John Chamberlain, Mary Corcoran, Elena Delbanco and Yizir Henry each of whom will speak or be recognized later in the program and finally elected by their respective classmates to provide the student commencement addresses we have soon to be Ford School MPP graduate Joseph Person and BA graduate Tomaso Povane wave of revolutions and protests in the Middle East and North Africa this winter and spring have reminded us of the power of collective action. The power that young people in particular have when they work in concert and with a shared passion. In February President Obama said of the events in Egypt that we had witnessed a new generation emerge a generation that uses their own creativity and talent and technology to call for a government that represents their hopes and not their fears a government that is responsive to their boundless aspirations. In the words of one activist we use Facebook to schedule the protests Twitter to coordinate and YouTube to tell the world tonight we are gathered to celebrate the achievements and launch the careers of young people somewhat closer to home the classes of 2011. Our graduates leave the Ford School tonight to engage with and shoulder a significant bundle of public policy challenges an uncertain economic recovery global climate change violent conflicts nuclear proliferation partisanship and divisiveness in our public dialogue budget crises and more. They will set out to apply their skills and energies to find creative solutions for those and other public policy challenges. But before the Ford School classes of 2011 go on to shoulder their professional responsibilities this seems like a good opportunity for their family and friends to learn in case there's still a few questions just what is a school of public policy anyway. And what is a degree in public policy all about so let me take just a few moments to tell our guests a bit about the Ford School and help them understand and appreciate all of your accomplishments. The University of Michigan established our program's forerunner 97 years ago as the first program of its kind in the nation created to train professionals for public service primarily at the time in state and local government. In 1968 we were renamed and reoriented towards the application of social science to building sound public policy. And like today's MPP and MPA graduates those students received rigorous training in the quantitative analysis of economic political and organizational questions. Over time our focus has broadened considerably to encompass national and global issues as well. In 1999 the school was named for the university's most distinguished alumnus President Gerald R. Ford. It's a name we are extremely proud of in light of his lifelong commitment to exceptional principled public service his integrity and his civility. Next Tuesday I will be in Washington D.C. when the U.S. Congress dedicates a new statue of President Ford in the Capitol Rotunda. Congressman Fred Upton led the House effort to install that statue calling President Ford and I quote a Michigan original and a model for all those who are called to public service. He went on to say a seemingly ordinary American who unexpectedly found himself in the presidency at one of our nation's most tumultuous times. Gerald Ford led with honesty and integrity by standing above the political fray. President Ford allowed a wounded nation to heal. Being named for President Ford remains a point of extreme pride for our students. It was also an important milestone in our school history propelling us to a new era of tremendous growth in our faculty, our students, and as many of you had a chance to enjoy yesterday our facilities. It was transformational to move into our beautiful new building while hauled just five years ago. But it was the growth in our educational programs over the past decade that has truly reshaped our identity, making us a full service source for outstanding public policy education. Many helped but two faculty leaders are particularly responsible for that leap forward. Mary Corcoran, the founding director of our innovative joint PhD program, and John Chamberlain, the founding director of our undergraduate program. Mary and John are both stepping down from their leadership positions this summer and for that reason we'd like to take a few moments to recognize their contributions. Each was the chief architect of an academic program with the highest of intellectual standards at one of the world's most prestigious universities. If you listen to the members of our community talk about Mary and John and their programs you'll certainly hear about quality and rigor of the academic training but about both those professors you'll also hear over and over again of their availability of how much they care for each student, of their ongoing mentoring connections with alumni and of the personal human touch that they brought and bring to their roles. In 2001 the school launched its joint PhD programs with economic sociology and political science. Almost immediately this was a great success attracting high quality applicants whose advisors enthusiastically recommended the program in large part because of Mary's sterling reputation as a researcher and a teacher. As a director Mary has whether formally or informally mentored each of the 83 students who have matriculated. We have 37 graduates to date and they have gone on to tenure track faculty positions at universities and colleges, research work for the private sector, think tanks and prestigious postdoctoral fellowships. When asked to support our nomination of Mary for a Rack of Mentoring Award just last year her former students responded with effusive personal and professional praise. They described her as empowering the ultimate role model full of enthusiasm and energy and they told us how overwhelmingly supported Mary makes her students feel and they commended her encouragement of broad creative thinking. So Mary it is my great pleasure to thank you publicly and on behalf of the Ford School for all you have done to craft and nurture our PhD program. These flowers are from our PhD students. We launched our undergraduate program in the fall of 2007. It was a major intellectual and administrative undertaking for the school to create a new degree program and it took years of planning. A liberal arts degree for undergraduates is a very different endeavor from the professional graduate policy education that we have offered for so many decades. As a trusted and respected campus leader John Chamberlain was exactly the right person to guide these efforts to pull the right people to the planning table to ask the right questions and to get things done in a wonderful way. Yesterday the BA graduates presented John with a beautiful photo album and memory book as a token of their affection for him. In it the students thanked him for the community that he created. They said that his door was always open and he was always available for them. John leaves behind the legacy of a high quality thriving undergraduate program with top notch University of Michigan students applying to attend and very committed faculty who actively lobby to teach them. John from the faculty, students and staff of the Ford School a heartfelt thank you for all that you have built. John, Mary and all of the members of the Ford School's outstanding faculty and staff are wearing lapel flowers this evening so that you can spot them. Our excellent faculty have broad interests. Their joint appointments connect us throughout the University to economics, political science, sociology, math, history, business, social work, education, natural resources, information, urban planning and more. We also have a terrific professional staff team that keeps the education, the research and the public service missions of the school moving forward. I'd like to ask all of the faculty and staff now to stand please and I'd like you to join me in thanking them for all that they do. 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's start with the six new PhD graduates. Their training at the University of Michigan was interdisciplinary and policy relevant. Students developed a strong theoretical grounding in a social science discipline and paired that with rigorous coursework in empirical methods and policy analysis. This particular group is extraordinarily accomplished and we're very proud of them. The 98 students receiving a master's degree tonight, let me talk about them very briefly next. The Ford School's rigorous MPP and MPA curriculum is designed to give students the skills to collect, analyze, evaluate and present information about a wide range of public concerns. We encourage students to take seminars that involve real-world policy projects and we require that our MPP students complete a summer internship applying what they have learned in the classroom in the real world. Our graduate students are incredibly diverse. They speak 19 different languages. They come from 14 different countries and they include eight different SARAs. About 40 percent of the class has already finalized their immediate employment plans and I'd like to personally reassure the parents that if anything, our current employment rate is a bit ahead of recent years. All of our graduates will find work in city, state or federal governments in the private sector, in think tanks or NGOs in the U.S. or abroad. Now let me turn to the 57 students graduating today with the Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy. A true liberal arts degree, our program emphasizes thinking across disciplines to understand a policy challenge and develop solutions. Our first two classes that have graduated are already finding success in teaching, politics, research and analysis, sales and graduate programs such as law and medicine. The BA students are curious, hardworking and engaged and bring vitality to the school, approaching their studies with great seriousness. This group boasts 13 Phi Beta Kappas, 26 angel scholars and leaders from a variety of campus realms including athletics, publication, politics and more. The BA and MPP graduating classes presented the school with a very generous parting gift totaling more than $14,000 to fund internships for future classes. The student's generosity speaks volumes about how much these students believe in the value of a Ford School education. We know that our graduates did not arrive at their accomplishments alone. We're also joined by some 800 family members and friends this evening. And I know that all of our graduates value the love and the support that you've all provided over the years. I'd like to give the graduates as well as the Ford School community a chance to thank the family and friends of our graduating classes. And to you graduates, on behalf of the Ford School, I'd like to say thank you for your investment in this in our shared community. It's been a pleasure to work with you and to get to know you. I know that many of you have very mixed feelings about what today represents. You'll miss your classmates, the charity auction, gamma row fi, being being snowed in DC career trips, snowed out DC career trips, Dominic's, Denard, Big Lebowski bowling notes and so much more. But in spite of all that you'll miss today is also full of the promise and hope of the future with new jobs, new cities, new friends and new challenges. The legendary groundbreaking entertainer and civil rights activist Lena Horne once said, it's not the load that breaks you down. It's the way that you carry it. We all know that just outside of these doors, our nation and our world faces significant challenges, heavy loads for public servants and citizens alike. And so to our graduates, I say, carry your load together. Carry it with the same commitment to community and friendship and connection that you found here at the Ford School. Carry it in concert with others with your classmates and with colleagues and friends that you'll meet along the way. For my part, I have great optimism because I know that you are among the ones headed out to shoulder the challenges of our time. And I know how hard you've worked. I know that you have armed yourself with a very best public policy education available. We are so proud of you. We will remember you. We will follow your achievements with great interest. And we truly hope that you will remain engaged with the Ford School. Please follow us on Twitter. Read our magazine. Talk about the school in your professional and personal circles. Join our LinkedIn group. Hire our students. Maybe even fund an internship. But know that you will always have an academic home here in Ann Arbor. So congratulations and best wishes to all of you in the class of 2011. And now I would like to introduce our 2011 commencement speaker, Robin Wright, a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Robin grew up right here in Ann Arbor. She graduated from Pioneer High School and then earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from the University of Michigan. She's remained a good friend to her alma mater while forging a very broad and deep international career in journalism. Robin was a long time foreign correspondent covering US policy wars and revolutions in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. She's reported from more than 140 countries on six continents for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Sunday Times of London, CBS News and the Christian Science Monitor. She's also written for the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and others. If you watch national news programs such as Meet the Press, Frontline and Face the Nation, you surely have heard her incisive analysis. She is the author of several books on Iran, including The Last Great Revolution, Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, which was named one of the 25 most memorable books of the year in 2000. Robin, I'm so pleased to welcome you back to Ann Arbor. We're honored and very proud to have you here with us today to deliver our 2011 commencement address. Thank you very much, Dean Collins. I want to begin on a light note. As I watched the soon-to-be graduates walk in, I thought, now you know what Kate Middleton felt like yesterday. I'm honored to be here. I love this town and I love this university. It's a great place to get a really good grounding, to get a sense of yourself, both professionally and personally. I got what I call my accidental career here when I met one of my classmates in the hall of our dormitory, and she was going off to join the Michigan Daily. I had no interest in journalism, but I decided it wouldn't be a lark. My father had only girls and he took us off to every Michigan sporting event in the days we had good coaches. I know, sorry. I follow Michigan football and basketball avidly to this day. And so I decided I wouldn't be fun to write sports. Well, there'd never been a female sports editor at the Michigan Daily, and I was the first. And I broke the gender barrier at the Rose Bowl, which is my very first scoop. And I'm very proud to hear there's one of my successors in the audience, Nicole Auerbach. Today, you join an amazing fraternity of Michigan alums all over the world. I find them everywhere. In 1975, I lived in Mozambique during its transition to independence. There was a nine year waiting list for telephones. And I went down to the Ministry of Information and I said, look, I'm a journalist. I'm covering your independence. I really need a telephone. And I finally found someone who spoke English, not Portuguese. And he's nothing I can do to help you. You want to stay around nine years. You can get your phone and so forth. And I finally said to him, you speak such good English. Of course. He went to the University of Michigan. So he said if I could sing Hail to the Victors, he would give me a phone. I stood on a chair. I sang Hail to the Victors. And not only did I get my phone, I never got a bill. In Angola during the Civil War, I was in the southern third of the country. And we were under shell fire and so forth. And once again, I found someone who spoke very good Americanized English. And I said to him, where did you learn your English? And of course, it was the University of Michigan. And all he wanted to do was talk Michigan football because all four years he was here, he sat in 34A. And every time I come home, I keep thinking, I ought to go to the stadium and figure out exactly where that was. When I was invited to give the charge to the class, I thought long and hard about what it was I could talk to you about, what I could bring to you. And I was struck by the memory of J.K. Rowling's commencement address at Harvard. When she talked about failure, it was a fascinating commencement address because here was the richest author in the world talking about the first 13 rejections of her Harry Potter book. And she talked about how failure had become an incentive and it had pushed her. So I thought about what I could bring, as I said. And after covering a dozen wars and assorted revolutions and uprisings around the world, I realized that the defining force in my life, both personally and as a journalist covering other people's life, has been fear. I received my MA from Michigan exactly 40 years ago. I don't tell everybody that. So I've been around a while. But for all the dangerous places and crazy war zones I go to, I still have very deep phobias about many things, including elevators. They booked me on the 15th floor at the campus in and I walked down all 15 floors to get here today. Many years ago I covered, as I mentioned, this war in Angola and it was a colorful conflict. It involved colorful European mercenaries on one side and Cuban troops and Soviet advisors on the other. It was also a particularly deadly war. I was the only journalist in the penultimate battle for the entire northern part of the country. It took place on a small town, the mouth of the Congo River. Only 22 out of 350 of us made it out alive in an old tugboat that made the African queen look like a luxury liner. Afterwards I won an award for the best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative. My mother went to New York to accept it because I was still off covering the last battle in that war. And she actually got up in front of the major editors and television anchors from across the country and told the story about how surprised she was that I'd won this award because I was so frightened of things as a child that she had to pay the neighbor boy to walk me to school until I was in the sixth grade. She never told me that story. I first heard about it from friends who attended the ceremony. But age and experience haven't changed it for me. I'm still terrified of flying, even though I do tens of thousands of miles a year. And even though as a graduate student, I took flying lessons, pilot's lessons in Ann Arbor. Needless to say, I was never meant to cover wars. But by accident, I landed in the Middle East on October 6th, 1973, the day the fourth Middle East war broke out. My undergraduate degree was in history, and I still think of myself primarily as a historian. I discovered that war actually meant living contemporary history as it played out. As a result, I've covered all six Middle East wars since then and many on other continents. I've been terrified through them all. But it's also through my fears that I know I've lived. I know I've pushed myself and I've gotten far more out of life than I ever envisioned. I witnessed some of the greatest moments of my life up close. And I've met and talked to some of the characters who made that history. From the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon during the five years I lived in Beirut to Nelson Mandela when I covered South Africa. From Moammar Gaddafi in Libya to Pope John Paul II when I lived in Rome and traveled with him around the world. Over those 40 years, the people and events that have inspired me the most have been people often far less famous than the ones I've mentioned who overcame their fears. In Africa, I was in Soweto, the township outside Johannesburg in 1976. On the day a group of school children took to the streets to launch the first black mass uprising. When the government overnight changed the language that children would learn in schools, it was that protest that was one bookend. It started and launched the protest that ended with the collapse of apartheid, almost a generation later. In Europe, I was there as people literally began to take over the Berlin Wall, marking the decisive challenge and end to communism. Two weeks ago, I finished another book about the uprisings across the Middle East, which all started in Tunisia when a 26-year-old street vendor refused to tolerate the government's corruption and abuse. His act of defiance triggered a movement that forced out a man who had held power for almost a quarter century, a movement that accomplished through peaceful civil disobedience in 30 days. Egypt's protests were triggered by two young bloggers, one who posted video of police corruption and drug dealings on the internet, and the other who mobilized again peaceful protests after the first blogger was murdered in public view by two policemen. They spawned a movement that ended a dictatorship that had prevailed for 30 years, and this time they did it in 18 days. In Syria, the current protests were started by a group of schoolchildren who wrote anti-government graffiti on a public wall. These are your peers. These are all people who overcame their fears and jeopardized everything for a principle and for freedoms that we too often still take for granted. So how does this affect your life? Two trends have defined my lifetime. One was the Cold War and the other was the rise of extremism. Two trends will define your lifetime, whatever you choose to do. The first one is globalization, the evolution of nations into regional blocks on the road to globalization as the basis of everything. Governance and trade and culture and even sport. We're already deep into the stage of regional blocks. Militarily the United States now fights a good number of its conflicts through NATO in Afghanistan and now in Libya. Economically our commerce is increasingly defined by being part of NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Agreement or APEC, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or a host of other regional blocks. Almost every country in the world today is a member of a regional block for all kinds of political and military and economic, environmental and cultural causes. So we are already in the midst of a global shake-up. The map of the world will certainly look very different when you finish your careers than it does today. When I graduated I kind of thought well whoops this is the way the world was going to be. The United Nations was formed the year I was born and there were 57 members. Today there are 193 countries. The number more than tripling and in my lifetime I've witnessed politically and ideologically the demise of communism, the end of military dictatorships in Latin America, the end of apartheid and minority rule in Africa and there is so much more change ahead and that takes me to the second trend. The transformation of the Islamic world particularly in the Middle East, the last block of countries to hold out against the democratic tide. The change will be profound. Just as the first decade of the 21st century was defined by the tragedy of 9-11, the second decade of the 21st century as you go out into the world will be determined by the outcomes of the political upheavals that are now beginning in the Middle East. For all of us as people or as policymakers change is scary. New trends make us fret and fear. Old ways are better known. They feel safer. It's really hard to break new ground. I live in Washington. I can tell you how true that is. The Middle East is the best example. For 60 years the United States opted for stability rather than the values that define us as a nation. The last, the current and the previous president have both given important speeches about democracy but then did very little tangibly about it until the protests began to lead the way. So you may see now where I'm headed. Whether as part of a community, a company, or a government, so much will change during your personal and professional lives and you will often be part of figuring out how to adapt. As policymakers you will be constantly challenged to come up with analysis and assessments and most of all solutions. Whatever your field or your specialty, the key to each will be to overcome fear, to look beyond the past, to offer ideas that differ from conventional wisdom, to be bold enough to suggest something different or new or original and not to be overcome by the unknown or the fear of change. It's always much easier to go along with the old and unfamiliar but fear keeps us from getting to the truth and understanding it. Fear of being different inhibits imagination and creativity. Fear keeps us from our full potential and fear prevents us from exploring especially as policymakers. It's just as true that conquering fear was behind some of humankind's greatest achievement, whether the original journey of man out of Africa millennia ago or exploring the universe today. Overcoming fear has led brave people to demand individual rights whether no tax without representation in this country or to people in Egypt's liberation square. One last piece of advice that I'll share from my father who was a very wise law professor at this university. He told us whatever issue you face, whatever your original knowledge or understanding of it, stand on top of the world and look down because you may well see a broader or a different perspective. It's the single most important piece of advice I've heeded in a lifetime of covering wars and revolutions. Standing on top of the world is now my best trick in overcoming my own fears. It's the best way for me anyway to move beyond simply seeing what is happening to understanding why it's happening. He was right because at the end of the day no policy will work unless all sides are taken into account not only our own. So my final bottom line to you which I'll close with is simple. Go not fearfully into the world even as you live through fear producing times. Let fear be only a force to push frontiers in your life not to limit you. Your lives will witness one of the great transformations in human history and for all I've done and seen in my life I am so envious. So congratulations to the class of 2011. You have great adventures ahead. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Amazing Blue is the University of Michigan's oldest co-ed acapella ensemble and I'm delighted to welcome Amazing Blue to the stage to perform two classics from the University of Michigan's song book. Thank you. Each year the Ford School's graduating students are asked to elect people to play key roles at commencement. One faculty member is spoken is chosen to speak to the classes. Both sets of graduating classes were also asked to choose a student speaker. As the faculty speaker the classes of 2011 elected Yazir Henry. Yazir was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. He first came to the Ford School in 2007 as our Towsley Foundation policymaker in residence. Yazir's intellectual work focuses on the relationship of political structure and violence to civic indigenous and human rights. Since 2008 he has taught courses at the Ford School on professional and political ethics, on social movements and democratic processes in the global south, and on transitional justice mechanisms and related policies after political conflict. As a young man in South Africa, Yazir worked in the political underground movement that spearheaded the downfall of the apartheid government. After the fall of apartheid he founded and developed several programs in Cape Town that sought to continue the difficult work of peace building inspired by his experience working with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yazir has advised government institutions, community groups, NGOs, and social movements on capacity building, political strategy, program design, and more. He has written and lectured widely on issues related to peacemaking, political memory and trauma, and post-conflict reintegration. It is a tribute to Yazir's standing among the students that they chose him to deliver the faculty address. And so I am delighted now to invite him to speak on behalf of the faculty. Yazir? Good afternoon all students, honored graduates, your families and friends, faculty, esteemed members of the university administration and leadership, honored, and esteemed guests. When I first came to the university it was in the middle of an ice storm. The storm was both shocking as it was beautiful. I had never seen an ice storm before, so it was really scary that drive along the I-94 to Ann Arbor. I wondered what what did I get myself into? I had survived the political horror of my homeland to be humbled by a taxi drive from the airport. Although I knew different I told myself as I entered into Ann Arbor, as the taxi lights turned the trees into exquisite spectacles of light and color, almost as if they were rainbows perched upon the covered branches of ice. I told myself this must be where the idea for Christmas lights must have come from. I made it safely to my hotel on the third floor. And I enjoyed the dangerous beauty that has stayed with me to this day. As students they may be much fun and enjoyment and laughter to be had in Ann Arbor. The excitement and confusion after having stepped into a new body of friends and community at the Ford School as well as the University of Michigan. The initial disorientation of coming year. However, completing your degrees takes effort, dedication, fortitude, focus and application. Contrary to some popular notions completing these degrees are not easy. It takes an inordinate amount of sacrifice, both self and social. Sacrifices have to be made by you and all those around you, everything and everybody responsible for seeing your journeys through to this moment. At times your head spinning with several term papers for different courses all do at the same time. You're wondering what was I thinking? Undergraduates cranking out pages and pages wondering how their thoughts are going to matter. Graduate students nostalgically remembering the job you left to come here complaining. Just remember the more you laugh the more time this is going to go. Complaining about those of us who chose the ivory tower for a living. Wondering how what we do has anything to do with reality. Well this is reality too. Having achieved this particular milestone in your particular careers just take another moment. Now to reflect upon your achievement and why you came here in the first place. Why you submitted yourself to this very complex regime of training and preparation. Take today and take another week to savor your family and your achievement. Celebrate what we as a society has achieved through you. What we as the world have achieved through you. Let today only be the beginning of marking this very real and very amazing achievement. Do this carefully and do this with joy before you rush onto your next milestone. Your new job or your new job search. It wasn't meant to be funny but share the hugs and share the tears with those who supported you through this arduous process. Remember the distance you have traveled to get here in this remembering. In this remembering understand your power along with the power of these degrees that our society as a whole as a whole has bestowed upon you. It is in the totality of this experience as a student or mine as an educator here that you will find the purpose and the true beauty of this university. Just as in this university a common denominator in all political, economic, legal, sociocultural and spiritual systems is people. It is people. You, me and each and every one of us your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, distant cousins and your loved ones. Your neighbors those who live right next door and those who live at the other side of the world. We sometimes go to great lengths to forget the simple truth. The elixir of life here on earth is not immortality nor is it eternal youth. It is just people. Ordinary and every day people you and I and it is in this search that we as ordinary people struggle and dance to find our place, our individual razon d'être, our collective reasons for being, our collective, both social and professional search for a more caring, more tolerant, more empathic, less bitter, less cynical humanity and mutuality. Humanity, a humanity that is better able to manage this earth's resources, our country, our globe and to find ways that will spare your children and their children's children. This default to cynicism and bitterness is an easy one. I want to argue that it is infinitely more difficult to build, to see the potential, to see the possibilities, to seek solutions and create that that you wish to see carefully, slowly and with purpose graduates, graduates. This in my mind is your and my generation's responsibility. It is in your and your future leadership that our society places its hope, that it places our ideals, that we place our collective dream. I was one of those children that Robin spoke of and I want to dedicate the rest of this words in honor of you but also to those who didn't make it to these empty chairs because of all our senseless wars. Imagine climbing a mountain. I was born at the foot of one so just bear the metaphor with me and all you can see is the mountain top and after days of grueling climbing you reach the top. It is our ever covered in a misty haze. After hours of rest at the mountain stop this haze slowly lifts and instead of the wonderful land and oceanscapes you had previously imagined all you see are more mountain tops in the distance, some even larger than the one you had just climbed. At this point it is easy to get lost in the intellectual difficulties of the climb ahead or the pain of having to turn back and this is especially so because this is most likely true. It is at this point that I want you to remember that you must celebrate how far and how much you have already climbed, how much you have already achieved. It takes strength in the knowledge that you have learned to successfully climb the mountain you were standing at top before you will learn as much as climbing the next one, standing at top and looking down and remembering your journey. Now you have heard this before and you will hear it again. Our world is in crisis, poverty levels are increasing, a large part of the world is at war, shifting weather patterns, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and twisters are wreaking havoc, millions of people are affected, many have been killed and many die as I speak. As professionals and leaders you are going to be asked to transcend yourselves, your likes and your dislikes to understand your social and your professional purpose beyond monetary and social gratification. Still, still you need not and in fact I would argue it is important that you do not fall to the whims and ideas of simple self-sacrifice, of mere self-sacrifice. This misconception that you reach the mountain by going wings and flying to the top is a misnomer. If I have learnt anything in my short life on this earth it is to lead as best as you can in the scope of the capacity with the power available to you at that time. Do not fear yourselves and do not fear life. Live it fully and live it in ways that will facilitate the collective resolution of the social, political and economic ills that face us all as people, just people, ordinary people. The most successful of you, the most successful of you will be those prepared to undertake these tasks and processes directly, slowly, humbly with fortitude, love, yes love and imagination. It is a good thing to bask in the long shadows of peace. It is a good thing to bask in the long shadows of peace. However, I would argue that it is much better and far more important to keep sight and understand how these shadows came to be there in the first place. To remember both the rays of the sun along with the reasons they cast their shadows simultaneously. Those of you who know me well know this is an important for me, no either or. Simultaneously we have to manage the gray together. Each step that you take from year on in is an act, another one. Even if there are countless theories telling you to the contrary. Each step you take from year on in as professionals, as leaders is an act. Each step has consequences even if you are not able to fully comprehend them at the time. Walk from year with care, with humility and empathy, with courage and compassion. Proud of who you are and what you have achieved. Proud of those you love and those who supported you. Just like you, we and the faculty are human beings too and we have done the best we can with our engagement with you. You have given meaning to me and to the aspirations I hold in the world and I can say to you now you have done so for many of my colleagues as well. Thank you for granting me this opportunity, this privilege and this honor to share in this moment with you. Your family and your friends and those you love. I'm proud to have been a part of this faculty and this journey you have undertaken over the past two to five years. I'm happy and I have no regrets at having walked alongside you. Though this has been difficult, it has also been beautiful. This might sound cliched but there is no rose that is a rose with no thorns. Walk proudly now with strength and enjoyment and in celebration. Walk in honor of what you have achieved and walk in honor for the privilege and the difficulties that await you in the face of what you've achieved. Without you, we as the school and the faculty do not exist. May all our deities bless each and every one of you in the times both trying and beautiful that lay ahead of you. Thank you. Yezier, thank you. The undergraduate class of 2011 elected Tom Pavone to speak on their behalf. Tom already has an outstanding research portfolio and in fact just this week took first place in a national undergraduate research paper competition. He was on the editorial board of the Michigan Daily and penned 28 opinion columns for the paper. Tom has already started graduate coursework at the University of Chicago and just one year from now he expects to complete a master's degree in social science. Tom also has been accepted into the University of Michigan's law school for fall of 2012. He plans to study European law and international human rights law. He was born in Rome and is fluent in three languages in addition to Stata. Tom, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the podium. Thank you Dean Collins for that gracious introduction and hello 40s and 40s wannabes. As I stand before you today I'm reminded of how jealous I am of Dean Collins's fancy title the Joan and Samford Wile etc etc. I say jealous because the title is so long that if I had such a title by the time I'd be done delivering it here time's up done with speech. It'd be a lot easier. Never make fun of Dean Collins's title again. As I was trying to narrow the focus for my remarks I thought perhaps it's best to start with a question like now that we're graduates what's next but when you think about it perhaps it's best not to ask any question whose answer is unpaid internships so I thought perhaps a more appropriate question might take a more retrospective approach like what is public policy but when you think about it perhaps it's also unwise to ask any question that nobody here except apparently the Dean seems to know how to answer. Long story short I decided to scrap the question idea and focus my attention on what distinguishes the Ford School from other departments here at the University of Michigan. What makes it unique? I immediately thought I've got it it's the popularity of the professors exhibit A there happens to be a Facebook group titled the Dr. Barry G. Rabe Appreciation Society which I am happy to inform is quickly approaching one million members. Now admittedly there is one Facebook group featuring a Ford School faculty member that isn't doing so well. In fact last I checked only one person was a member of the group titled I have more degrees than Professor John Churchari coincidentally that member is John Churchari only one who qualifies so but in all seriousness what distinguishes the Ford School is in its top-notch faculty with an average of 3.59 degrees 17 page CVs 22 years of education and four personal copies of the West Wing season four. It isn't even that the Ford School chiller is apparently more temperamental than most as evidenced by my personal stack of 759 emails titled the chiller is down. Know what makes the Ford School special at least to me is its vibrant sense of community. Let me tell you why I do not take community for granted. When I was growing up I moved to three different countries within the time span of six years and during the same time period I attended four different schools. So while all of my classmates had had the time to build lifelong friendships with the kids they had grown up with I constantly felt like an outsider like the new kid. Then we moved to the United States and high school came and I was excited by the prospect of beginning anew but as it turns out it wouldn't be so easy. For just as I was about to muster the courage to come out I read a testimonial in the high school newspaper of a fellow classmate that was almost beaten after school just because he decided to be open about who he was. So I thought you know maybe new beginnings will have to wait but then King College here at Michigan 40 billion students 30,000 languages 40 million majors and one taxi. It was as if I had upgraded from a black and white television to a multicolored one but size also has its downsides and in a school with nearly 25,000 undergrads it's easy to feel like no more than just a grade on a test and that is where the Ford school came in. Here I know almost everyone in the building and for better or for worse almost everyone in the building knows me. Here I can use the phrases vis-a-vis as it were expose facto on a priori in the same sentence and not be ridiculed. Admittedly that'd be a really crappy sentence. Here I'm always invited to trivia night at Charlie's even though I have never contributed a correct answer. Here I can engage in rigorous intellectual debate with the same colleagues with whom I engage in far less academic activities at Gammer 05 and some Thursday nights the ones I remember. And here I know I will always be able to rock it out Lady Gaga at Necto and be welcome back to a supportive community. I cannot tell you how honored how grateful I feel to have been surrounded by passionate kind and intelligent people for the past two years. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to be constantly encouraged to be my own person and I cannot tell you how moved I am that my BA classmates have provided me with this opportunity to let all of you know how much I love the Ford School and this community right here that gives Wild Hall life. These may be tough economic times. The labor market might be tight the unemployment rate might be high the jobs out there might be few but I have no doubt that the Ford School spirit will live on in each one of us and that it will open doors that would have otherwise remained closed. And I also know that if we remain true to ourselves and to the values we have acquired here in the halls of Wild Hall we will make Gerald proud. And so I say to my BA friends for the very first time as one proud Ford School alum to one other congratulations I love you all and thank you so much. And then he worked for the university for two years coordinating program on intergroup relations. Later he lived in Sydney Australia working with the government of New South Wales. Joe I'm delighted to invite you to have to adjust the microphone a bit. To my beloved 40s congratulations on arriving at this day after much academic rigor arduous effort and the occasional sleepless night induced by either program even or night in the room ball. As a warning both are equally treacherous. A few years ago many of us were furiously finalizing our Ford applications and often getting the same response from our well-intended friends and family. The same question Tom had to do. What exactly is public policy? It's both a strength and a rewarding challenge to our program that the Ford curriculum has such an elastic and inclusive definition. Simply look at the diversity of the student body. We boast people from Teach for America Peace Corps veterans of the military Japanese ministries NYU law school dropouts we've had we've had students take a time a break from their study to intern at the White House do aid relief in Haiti and we had Sarah Sherry Obedsneg to factors master master's in immigration policy by transplanting her husband from the South Pacific. We have earned math camp merit badges salsa dance with Annabelle at cafe Hibana and learned not how to dance through Ross at Rush Street. We had Carl Simon hit us over the head with a log in Calculus and witness Jim Levinson and all of his sardonic wick bike up and down here in River Drive. After a long day of chasing undergrads out of the grad lounge we watched Joe Cooter and the invisible hands make their debut performance and we went karaoke singing with not one but two Fumis. We grabbed race with pinchy and pokey while doing international economic development and we dutifully followed Cree Jones and Simon Tam through the IPE induced streets of Turan. The Ford community wearing its plurality proudly on its leaves has given us an integrative and imaginative skillset to make our professional marks on the world without ever imposing on us narrow constraints on how to further realize those skills. So after an incredulous few semesters an internship and a double dose of charity auction later there is the looming question how do we move forward in our careers purposefully. So I'm going to use some economics lingo here so for those of you English majors out there please bear with me for the next 30 seconds. One career approach lies in the profit maximizing model. This is the idea of self-interest that gets promoted at the exclusion of any public good. In this model the chief concern is maximizing your bottom line and looking out for yourself. And the other end of the spectrum there is the martyrdom approach in which a person's self-interest is foregone for some semblance of the public good. And in this mindset a person sacrifices sustainable pay time with family and friends all for a larger purpose. And in grappling with these two polarities I found both to be not only untenable but also ultimately self-defeating. In the profit maximizing model there is an overt obsession with self-interest that willfully ignores our role within the larger community. And likewise in the martyrdom approach it operates from the subtext that if I cannot be great in my accomplishments I must be great in my struggle and it seeks often unconsciously to attain a sense of moral superiority. It is a credit to our program that the Ford curriculum has reconciled the idea that we have to make a false choice between these two paradigms between self-interest and public service. The Ford school thrives at finding the overlap between the two and this overlap is best expressed by Eric Erickson's idea of generativity. It's the buzzword for my speech. Developmental psychologist Erickson says that healthy adults have as their highest priority a desire to be generative which means to give back to the world through creative expression. For some of us in this room that has been or will be through having children and having a family likewise others may attempt to give back to the world through influencing social or economic policy promoting greater equity or promoting human rights. To be generative is to not be stuck in an either or dualistic way of thinking. It suggests that we are at our best when we are able to come from a position of balance and while we may not have heard the term generativity on a daily basis in the Ford school it is reflected through the integrated ethos of our studies and our emphasis on collaboration and community. The job market we live in today is rapidly changing and the different compartments of public, private and non-profit are blurring together. The advice from my father's generation where people often worked in an entire industry their whole life no longer really applies. We are fortunate to have a degree that prepares us to move confidently from one sphere to another and to analyze issues from so many perspectives. For instance, we could have one student let's call him Lin Roy Marshall who after a busy four semesters of breakdancing at various Ford parties decides to get a job working for disaster management NGO and say Santa Barbara moves on to work at the UN and finds himself 20 years later as a private contractor inside the belt away for a federal agency. Lin Roy, it could happen. If there is any overarching lesson at Ford it is the value of embracing paradox and the sophistication of finding the overlap between competing ways of thinking and I trust that we will continue to find the generative solutions in our lives and where there is no overlap I trust we will be able to create one. One more thing Erickson also maintains that we don't really reach adulthood until the age of 40 everything before 40 is just a dress rehearsal so hats off to Alexis Guild for learning how to ride a bike last week a few weeks ago 10 years before adulthood she's ahead of the curve and with that in respect hats off to Julie Montero de Castro the last two years have been like your bot mid-spot welcome to adulthood it is my privilege to address a student body encompassing such a diverse range of interests ambitions backgrounds and eccentricities generativity is also about contributing to the world and benefiting the next generation so I encourage you all to use your Ford experience to always develop a holistic holistic approach to your future and I wish you all the best of luck in the world thank you thank you Joe well we are now at the moment that friends and family and I dare say our graduates 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 Elena Delbanco Elena has been a highly valued writing instructor here at the Ford school for many years working closely with many of these graduating students our students seek Elena out not only because she's an excellent writing tutor but also because of her personal commitment to helping students succeed both inside and outside the classroom Elena it's my pleasure and my honor to announce the names of our wonderful Ford school graduates this afternoon I'll begin with our students who are earning doctoral degrees let me begin by welcoming to the stage Jeff Smith a professor of economics in the college of literature science and the arts he will hood our first graduate our first graduate is Jessica Ann Goldberg her dissertation title is essays in development economics congratulations Ryan Kellogg assistant professor of economics at the college of literature science and the arts will hood our next phd graduate Ryan please come to the stage our next graduate is Eric Johnson Eric's dissertation title is essays in environmental economics and applied econometrics Sheldon Danziger who is the Henry J. Meyer distinguished university professor of public policy at the Ford school will hood our next graduate Sheldon our graduate is Maria Cherise Johnson Maria's Maria's dissertation title is African American women and their fathers understanding the influence of fathers on daughters conceptualizations of fatherhood and womanhood Mary Corcoran will hood our next graduate Catherine King Catherine's dissertation title is biological psychosocial and neighborly social relations implications of the neighborhood built environment Liz Gerber professor of public policy at the Ford school will hood our next graduate Robin Finney Robin's dissertation title is diverse interest group collations and social welfare policy in the United States Mary Corcoran and Sheldon Danziger will hood our final PhD graduate Mary and Sheldon Daniela Pineda Daniela's dissertation title is examining a federal intervention to improve Latino college participation evidence from title five developing Hispanic serving institutions program 2000 to 2007 now we welcome to the stage our Ford school graduates receiving a master's degree in public policy or public administration Kyle Jeffrey Arons Takahiro Azawa Masahiko Ando Daisuke Baba Sarah Elizabeth Bonner Sarah M. Brooks Brian F. Brosner Torian Kimberly Brown Yufang Che Patrick Cooney Robert Joseph Dagnu Ashley M. Davis Catherine Mary Decker Sarah Marie Dent Otter R. Desai Kim Dunham Jared Pong Eno Umei Erdem Joshua Fangmeier David N. Fouch Brittany Gala-Storfer Fumikazo Goto Lilia Abigail Gowland Alexis Guild Masami Hihara Gregory Phillip Holman Jennifer Goon Hong Reena Hachino Minty Janath Hossain Beth Rebar Lynn Jones Ajay Kalleri Carolyn Lye Ashley Nicole Lewis Carolyn Leethon Rebecca Lopez-Kris Molly Jane McGuire Mahima Mahathevan Linroy Marshall II Maria Martín de Almagro Iniesta Julie Montero de Castro Mayela C. Montenegro Christopher Ryan Mueller Takuro Mukai Christopher Murillo Dalal Najib Catherine Hogan Nielsen Niam Bhatti Sarah Elizabeth Obed Annabelle Payez Parvati Patil Joseph William Person Wa Fan Phillip Rogers Stephanie Rose Victoria Renee Roth Adam F. Schmidt Annan Sharma Kazutaka Shimatani Manuela Stuart Cifuentes Elliot James Sims Eklah Sinser Bria Smith Jason Smoot Elizabeth Joy Stamberger Adam Swinburne Shahe Tadome Elizabeth Mary Talbert Hoyen Karen Tam Simon Hankyu Tam Gerald Scott Thompson Dominique Chantel Warren Jennifer Ann Williams Ross Williams Adam Wilson Sarah E. Wyckoff Kazuya Yoshida Jin Yun Christopher Zbrozik We will welcome to the stage our Ford School students receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy Nicole Amanda Auerbach Michael Burtonthal Erin Maureen Benosh Biel Catherine Louise Buck Ross Lenk Chanowski Daniel Patrick Childs Andrew Jacob Chinsky Molly Elizabeth Cohen Nathan Cole Carolyn Marie Cox Julia Ashley Diegel Jared Russell Gamlin Ryan Garber Christina Jane Hart Thomas Jeffrey Held Anli Herring Robert Schaefer Hink Beatrice Elizabeth Ann Hinton Brian Jeffrey McConnell Hurd Hannah Homburg Kyle Richard Kreshofer Phillip Raymond Kerdunowicz Alexandra Levy Justin D. Lewis Daniel Lux Kunal Malik Abigail Kovina Marciniak Ian Klinger Margolis Chelsea Moppen Dupika Mowley Noah Shepard Neary Danielle Elise Nelson Megan Eileen O'Rourke Stephanie Nicole Parrish Carl Andrew Patchen Neil Patel Tommaso Pavone Brian Jordan Rappaport Peter Rodis Jenna Jeanette Rowe Chandler Ruff Anyuska Rovena Megan Eve Ryan Lauren Salisman Peter Saul Alex Schwartz Douglas Adam Sharp Stephanie Ann Snyder Joseph Sakawi Kelsey Alexandra Van Overloop Brian Chase Wenglen Lauren Elizabeth Wisniewski Tristam Wolff Thank you so much, Elena. I would like to ask our graduates to please stand and face your guests in the audience. Undergraduates, our BA graduates. At this time, please take the tassel on your mortarboard and move it from the right to the left. It is my great pleasure. I am so proud to present to all of you the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Classes of 2011. Congratulations!