 Welcome, everyone. Those of you who are still standing, please have a seat. It's great to see everybody here. Welcome. I'm Michael Barr. I'm the Joan and Sanford Wildein of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. It was a real pleasure to see many of you yesterday at our open house, at the Rackham Graduate ceremonies, or this morning at the Big House. And it's my honor to welcome you here this afternoon. On behalf of the entire Ford School community for our 2019 commencement ceremony, I'm going to begin by briefly introducing the members of the platform party up here with me today, with more to say about our speakers later. With me on stage is our keynote commencement speaker, distinguished journalist, Michelle Norris. We're so honored to have Michelle with us this evening, this afternoon, and look forward to her remarks. We're honored, too, to be joined by a Regent of the University of Michigan, Ambassador Ron Weiser. Regent Weiser is a leader in business, philanthropy, and politics. He and his wife, Eileen, have been incredibly generous friends to the University of Michigan and to the Ford School in particular. Ron, we're really thankful to have you here this afternoon. I'm delighted to welcome another longtime University of Michigan leader, Rob Sellers. Rob is the Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion and the Charles D. Moody Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Education. Rob, thank you so much for being here and also for representing the University of Michigan leadership. I'm pleased to be joined as well by a number of my faculty colleagues. At stage right is Elizabeth Gerber, our Associate Dean for Research and Policy Engagement. Next to Liz is Ford School Professor John Cicciari. John directs our new Weiser Diplomacy Center and our International Policy Center. And he's going to be reading names of our graduates as they cross the stage. You'll see he's very good at that. On my left, we have Sharon Messini, who is the Director of our undergraduate programs, Professor Brian Jacob, who's representing the leadership of our PhD program, and our Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of our Master's programs, Professor Paula Lance. As you may be able to tell from the applause, Paula is also the elected speaker from the students on behalf of the faculty. Finally, elected by their classmates to provide the student commencement addresses are soon-to-be Ford MPP graduate, Jose Javier Lujano, and our BA soon-to-be graduate. Or I guess as of this morning, is now a graduate. That's what the president university said. Jareen Fish. We are gathered this afternoon to recognize and celebrate the accomplishment of 166 outstanding students. Smart, driven, don't cry yet. You're supposed to cry at the end. Smart, driven, public-minded people who will be leading our communities in the next half century. I have the honor of talking about these students, what they've learned here, what they've brought to us, what they've learned, what we've learned from them, and a little bit about what we know about what they're going to do next. Let me start by sharing our school's mission statement, what our faculty and students and staff believe and do. The Ford School at the University of Michigan is a community dedicated to the public good. We inspire and prepare diverse leaders grounded in service, conduct transformational research, and collaborate on evidence-based policy making to take on our communities and our world's most pressing challenges. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Our world, indeed, faces a time of truly daunting challenges. Outside this auditorium spring has finally arrived just in time. Campus is full of flowers and buds and happy faces celebrating accomplishments, and that is as it should be. But we are a community steeped in policy and politics and so we know that our world, indeed, faces many daunting challenges. Here in the US and around the world, the democratic institutions and global norms that we've relied on to build a better world are in many ways under attack. From xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, from leaders who have no respect for democracy or fear it, from corruption and skyrocketing inequality, the post-war global order, the rules-based international system, our commitment to fight bigotry, our dedication to the civil rights tradition, to embrace difference, our openness, our vitality, our shared values emerging from the wreckage of World War II are, in many ways, all at risk. Graduates, none of this is new to you. It's why you came to the Ford School to take responsibility for the times in which you live. You've inspired me every single day of the past two years with your energy, your passion, your empathy and creativity. I believe in you. I believe in your capacity and your conviction and your preparation to take on these pressing challenges. Our school is named for one of the University of Michigan's most distinguished graduates, the 38th President of the United States, Gerald Ford. In 1975, as the Vietnam War ground to an end, President Ford faced a refugee crisis and he rose to the challenge. Many in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia had been allies of the United States and they sought asylum here in this country. We were, in some large measure, responsible for the conditions they fled. Ford created an interagency task force that managed the resettlement of more than 100,000 refugees in a tight window of time, because he believed it was the right thing to do. Coming on the heels of a devastating, deeply divisive war, Ford's efforts to help refugees were not popular with the public, nor with Democrats, nor with Republicans in the Congress, nor with many in state houses around the country. But he pressed his case just nonetheless. It just burns me up, these great humanitarians. President Ford was quoted as saying of those opposed to opening America's doors. They just want to turn their backs, he said. We didn't do it to the Hungarians, we didn't do it to the Cubans, and damn it, we're not gonna do it now. Today, issues of immigration and asylum of building walls or building bridges are all too relevant once again, and they will be among the top issues today's graduates will face, leading on in the years and decades to come. There are an estimated 25 million refugees around the world, and more than half are under the age of 18. Border policy, immigration policy, asylum policy, those are all in part political issues. There's room for plenty of reasonable disagreement about particular policies. What are the right number of people to admit, and what for what reasons, for example? The burdens and the benefits that new immigrants bring to our communities. The role that principled foreign policy can or cannot play in supporting just and stable governments and societies around the world. These are all valid policy debates. But here are three principles that I believe should guide us. First, a fundamental recognition of the humanity of each and every human being. Second, that those of us who live in places of relative safety and security should feel a profound sense of gratitude to our country and responsibility for those less fortunate. And third, that our differences make us strong. Our differences make us strong. You can see it right here in the Ford School community. We're a stronger, wiser, more caring community because of our differences, because of the unique contributions of every single member of our community. Members of our classes of 2019 hail from over 20 countries. They speak dozens of languages. They include a graduate, a dreamer, who earlier today gave a truly beautiful speech at the university's graduation in the Big House, declaring herself, quote, undocumented and unafraid. They include in our community descendants of enslaved people whose brutal journeys to America cry out for justice, whose unpaid labor built this country, whose sacrifices and injustices and indignities day after day and decade after decade have worn on and without recompense. They include Midwesterners, Southerners, Red Staters and Blue Staters, Rural and Urban, Citizen and Non-Citizen, Black and White and Brown and every shade of the human condition. Students who worked in the White House for President Trump and a student who is the Easter Bunny for President Obama's egg roll on the White House lawn. Our Ford School community includes a senior member of our faculty who led and built this school for many years, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica, a beloved teacher who emigrated from Cape Town, South Africa, a staff leader whose parents came to the US fleeing religious discrimination in the Middle East. A faculty member whose research demonstrated a huge positive impact refugees have right here in our community in Southeast Michigan. Myself, whose grandparents fled the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Poland in the 1930s, coming first to Israel and then to the United States with my father after World War II, on a boat filled with oranges and old merchant marine to the port of New Orleans. And so many more of our faculty, students and staff all contributing to our strength, our differences make us strong. Immigrants and children of immigrants make America stronger with their talents and drive. They bring us friends in far places. They help us understand and succeed in those far places when we negotiate and trade. Among the Vietnamese refugees that President Ford welcomed to the United States in 1975 were more than 3,000 orphans evacuated from Saigon as a major North Vietnamese military offensive approached that city. In April of that year, Gerald and Betty Ford traveled to California to meet one of the cargo planes filled with those young children and babies. President Ford entered the plane and carried the first baby off himself. There's a photograph of him sitting on a bus headed toward the hangar. He's cradling one of the Vietnamese babies in his arms, bottle feeding the orphan. President Ford was leading. He was using his power, the power of his office to show the capacity for American leadership and generosity and humanity. He took responsibility. Students, it gives me great inspiration and hope to know that soon you, you will be the ones out there leading and that you'll lead like Gerald Ford. With compassion and heart, with analytics, yes, with empirics, yes, but driven by our shared generous understanding of the human condition. How have we prepared our graduates for that? Let me tell you a little bit about our curriculum. For both our graduate and undergraduate students, we start with a shared understanding of and belief and facts. And today's graduates have learned to analyze complicated data sets to think analytically, to evaluate benefits and costs. They know their stuff. That's a strong foundation to build on. We stress communication skills and so they learn to speak and write clearly. And we've taught leadership. Our graduates have been taught to listen and to talk and to think critically, ethically and compassionately. And let me tell you a little bit more at this point about our world-class faculty and our outstanding staff who have worked so closely with our graduates these past two years. Our faculty hold joint appointments all over campus in politics and political science and sociology and economics and in so many more disciplines and departments around the school, around the university. Their expertise is both broad and deep. They're thoughtful, enthusiastic teachers and mentors. They're doing cutting-edge research and they're actively engaged with critically important public policy challenges here in our community, across the nation and around the world. The Ford School's professional staff are a source of the school's strength at will. Our terrific staff team recruited, they counseled and they supported today's graduates. Let me ask all Ford School faculty and staff now to stand and please join me in thanking them for all that they do. There are others who deserve thanks and recognition and that's all of you in the audience and family and friends who are watching online. You've raised these students to care about what matters. You've nurtured them, counseled them and consoled them. They wouldn't be here without you. Graduates, please take this chance to thank your loved ones for their support over the years. Today, 91 of our students have earned a master's degree. They hail from 10 different countries and speak 23 different languages. A third have earned dual masters with other schools, the law school, public health, social work, the school of information, engineering, the business school and many more. They include the chair of the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners of RC Athlete and Captain in the US Army. For those of you who have seen their class photo, I feel like I might need to explain that they do not actually include a walking bagel. Members of this group led a fantastic course and study trip to Morocco. They led a successful charity auction to raise funds for a youth program in Detroit and afterwards led a rousing sing-along on a bus back to the pretzel. They've been intentional about their education and their career preparation. They've led by action, by putting their heads down and getting to work. This group also overcame a lot of personal adversity and through it all they took care of each other. Let me tell you now a bit about the 72 students who have earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy. They are a very smart, very enthusiastic group. They have been part of one of the university's finest liberal arts traditions. In small classes with Michigan's top faculty are BA curriculum-trained students to think critically and across disciplines to understand policy challenges and to develop solutions. Today's BA graduates include 17 Phi Beta Kappas and 18 Angel Scholars. They include a student chosen to speak, as I've said, at the university's honors convocation last month, another who spoke this morning at the university's commencement ceremony in the big house and you'll hear more from our BA students in just a moment. They write for the Michigan Daily and the Detroit Free Press, led campus-wide student government, ran track, participated in ROTC and the marching band and advocated passionately for the causes they believe in. They helped Ann Arbor massively improve student voter turnout during last fall's election. These students have improved our school and the university, but what's truly remarkable to me is that somehow they've managed to do all that without ever once checking their email. It's pretty stunning. We celebrate as well two students who have earned PhDs, one in public policy and sociology and the other in public policy and economics. Those are pioneering programs for students who want to pursue research careers in a traditional social science discipline and who see themselves as deeply committed to the study and improvement of public policy. Taken together the classes of 2019 are serious students, hard workers and dedicated leaders. Graduates, you are amazing. But let me give you five tips to help you on the path from here. The first I've said already, lead like Gerald Ford, find your passion, take unpopular stands when you know they're right, take responsibility. Number two, work hard, really hard, really, really, really hard. Anything worth doing requires an enormous amount of hard work. Number three, don't be a jerk. That might seem like one of these norms we've lost, but it's not and I really implore you to be kind to your colleagues and friends. Number four, empower yourself. You can do anything. Don't talk yourself down, talk yourself up. We're facing enormous challenges and you can make the difference. Lastly, and number five, love your team. You can't do it alone, but you don't have to. Build a team around you that will help you solve our most pressing challenges together. As your time at Michigan draws to a close, I know you're thinking a lot about your team, about the classmates you've worked and studied and become lifelong friends with. You're excited, yes, about new challenges, new cities, but I know you'll miss a lot of things about your days here in Ann Arbor. At the very least, Dominic's, Rick's, Skeeps, Charlie's, you'll miss Calculus with Carl Simon, Statistics with John Hansen, you'll miss the patient ear of Corey Stark and the watchful guide of our Writing Center team and so many other beloved teachers and mentors. You won't miss the stressful hours perhaps in the computer lab or debating endlessly about whether to provide forks in the student lounge, but you might miss naps in the reading room, the excitement of exploding water pipes in the Great Hall, or the occasional windshield day off. Of course, for most of you, you'll miss each other most. Next year, your friends and classmates may not be just down the street, but I promise you that the ties you've made here, ties forged in mutual purpose and hard work as well as in fun will endure and will help sustain and propel you. Graduates, we are proud of you and we're all going to miss you. Congratulations and best wishes to the classes of 2019. Go Blue. Thank you. Thank you. And now I'm delighted to introduce our keynote commencement speaker, Michelle Norris. Michelle, an extra applause is always good. Michelle is one of America's foremost thinkers and writers on issues of identity and race. You may not have seen her speak in person before, but you've surely heard her voice. Michelle Norris served as the host of NPR's All Things Considered for a decade, providing clear, rational context for all the news of the day. During her career, and I agree, during her career at NPR, Michelle founded the Race Card Project, an initiative that encourages people to share their descriptions of race as a way to launch meaningful discussion of race and identity. She and her collaborators won a Peabody Award for their work in 2014. Michelle has previously worked for the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times. She received both Emmy and Peabody Awards in 2002 for her coverage of the 9-11 attacks. And in 2010, Michelle published her first book, The Grace of Silence, A Memoir. The University of Michigan presented Michelle Norris with an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2013, the university's highest honor. Michelle, it is my great honor to welcome you back to the University of Michigan, back to Ann Arbor and here to the Ford School. Thank you. Hello, everyone, and congratulations. Dean Barr, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. Regent Weiser, it's a pleasure to be here with you. And it's great to be here at the University of Michigan. Good day to the leadership team, the faculty, the families, the alums, the distinguished guests, but especially the graduates. Most especially the graduates. You did this, this is your day. It's special for me to be back here at the University of Michigan for a couple of reasons also. As you heard, I run a project called The Race Card Project, and the University of Michigan was the first institution to support and embrace that work. So this place means something special to me. And also because it's in the blood of our family tree. My husband, Broderick Johnson, who's here in the audience, graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, and you will soon discover that you leave this place but it doesn't leave you. If my household is any indication, you will spend thousands of dollars over the course of your career at the M Den. You will continue to get catalogs. You will mysteriously paint rooms in your homes, maze and blue. You don't understand why you're drawn to it, it just happens. You will perhaps bear children and you will buy little twinkly lullaby things for them that you attach to the crib that doesn't play the traditional lullaby music but instead plays hell to the victors. My daughter heard that before she could talk and in our household she would sing ham to the victors because she didn't quite understand it. Now all that is fandom, and you might even say fanaticism, but it also represents what happened here. You're part of this big family and it suggests that people love this place because it is so special. We travel around the world and you know, people from Michigan, they wear the stuff. They bold, as the kids say, they represent. They are always wearing that block M. There's one right there, raise your hand. Wearing a hat indoors and that's okay because it's got a block M on it. And we travel all across the world. We were in Vietnam and someone said, oh, we go, it's like, you know, they talk to each other. But that means that you're graduating from some life special, that you will take this with you. One of the things that I love so much about graduation is the day is filled with possibility. You've got this big runway ahead of you. What will you do with it? A whole lot because you graduated from the Ford School. We are relying on you to take the wisdom, to take all that you learned, yes, and the stats. Again, an example of this is a special place. You cheered for statistics. We hope you will take all of that into the world and lift us all up. You all made it. And I say you all made it because you didn't get here by yourself. You had a lot of support. Physically, financially, spiritually. And so why we are all here to celebrate you. This is your day, it is about you. I'm gonna ask you to take just a moment. I know that Dean Barr asked you to applaud for those who helped get you here, but I want you to actually get some exercise and stand up for a minute and look to the right and the left and give a hearty round of applause to all of the people, family, faculty, loved ones who supported you on this journey. Thank you, because it's kind of their day too. And whenever you're going out to celebrate, they're gonna pick up the tab. The degrees that you received today are tremendously important, but they also represent something that carries even more currency, knowledge and curiosity and humanity. And how will you use that knowledge that you absorbed in the pursuit of that degree? How will you harness that knowledge and become the caretakers of our culture, our politics, our economy and our moral compass, our moral compass, our national character? How will you reach across cultures and disciplines and dialects to solve the world's problems because in a whole lot of areas, the current caretakers have left behind a bit of a mess. We are going to need you to solve the world's problems and light a candle for the world and with the powers of your mind and the strength of your ideas. And at this time, it is common for people to circulate commencement addresses that have stood the test of time. And I, not long ago, came across one from a fellow named Verdon Jordan, who you may know. And he said something in a commencement address, and I should be honest here, this was a commencement address that, is it the school, the other school my husband attended that he doesn't talk about as much. Verdon Jordan said it's been a decade of trial and tribulation for America's minorities. The promise of America's second reconstruction was ultimately cut off by war, by benign neglect, by national indifference. Many black people escaped the confines of poverty, many others sank deeper into poverty, and our nation itself has demonstrated a poverty of spirit and determination to make ours a land of equals. This was written in 1978, but it sort of feels like this could have been written of the moment. When you heard those words, doesn't it feel like it's speaking to us right now today? This was 1978, it was 10 years after the Kerner Commission reported on America's deep racial divide after the assassination of Dr. King. It was a period followed by rioting and protest, I don't have to tell you that, much of that happened right here for a second time in 1967 and 68 in Detroit. The country we knew then still had much to do, a long way to go, as Dr. King said, to make good on a promissory note spelled out clearly in our founding documents that all men are created equal, and not just the men, we need to say that, because the document said all men, but we now know that to mean all people, and we've tried to practice that, all humans are created equal. 40 years later, those words feel like they were written for this time, feel like they are of this moment. We've seen so much progress on the economy, so much progress on all fronts, technology, education, and yes, even the narrowing of our racial divide and the healing of our original sins in a country that was founded with a significant birth defect because of legalized chattel slavery in this country. Customs and traditions that automatically placed women, minorities, the disabled, and immigrants from a host of countries, Italy, China, Ireland, Slovakia, Slovenia, at the back of the line. And it wasn't fair, it's just the way it was. And in those times, people felt that it was always the way it would be. And then things changed. A lot of things changed. You are a generation that has grown up with the dividends of those changes. The color line that once seemed like it was 100 miles long and 100 miles high has seemingly fallen. I've seen that even within my lifetime. I'm not afraid to tell you how old I am. I was born in 1961, which meant that there were places that I could not even enter, that I could not dream to even stand in an auditorium like this and deliver a commencement address. But change is a surprising thing. The words bias and discrimination and prejudice have for so many decades been attached to people of color in America. But change is something that we all experience. And we now know that a lot of people feel like they are the victims of bias as well. White Americans have been assumed to have automatic privilege. This assumption still holds true. And yet studies show that a majority, a majority of white Americans say discrimination against them exists today. Now every time I say this, people shake their heads and say, how can that be true? But studies show this. Surveys show this. Survey by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health, sorry to mention that other school, found that more than half of people surveyed 55% say they believe there is a discrimination against white people in America. And some of you will nod your head in agreement upon hearing these things. And some will reel back and say, whoa, wait a minute, how can that be true? But those are the true beliefs for a whole lot of people. That America has become less hospitable, less welcoming and less privileged for some white Americans. And that minorities or people who have only recently arrived in America get the first crack at jobs, get more help from the government or private institutions, and they feel like they're cutting the line. Actual statistics perhaps don't bear that out, but perception is a powerful thing, especially in an era when America feels so divided and when people so often listen to news or news sources or perspectives that come from people or members of their social or political or ethnic tribe, where so much of what we hear in my business actually confirms or affirms what you already believe. The stories that we tell ourselves, the stories that we hear, the tales we adopt and embrace can confine or define us. They set the template for opportunity or oppression for ambition and contrition, for what we accept for who we accept or tolerate or celebrate. Stories are the currency of my work. Reporting, fact-checking, yes, facts do matter. Writing, reporting, and listening. And I wanna spend a little bit of time talking to you today about the skill of listening because I really do believe it is a skill. Right now in America, there's so much emphasis placed on what we say and how we say it and where we say it. You all have devices in your pockets that you thankfully silenced that allow us to focus on what is said, but I wanna talk a little bit about what is heard. People ask me about my favorite stories in the 10 years that I hosted, all things considered. And they expect me to talk about presidents and Oscar winners and people with big titles that I interviewed and I will tell you in truth, the stories that I really loved were really close to the ground. They were stories from everyday people. Yes, I talked to, I've interviewed several presidents and I'm not saying that to say, oh, smell me, it's part of the job. We interview movie stars. I've interviewed Nobel laureates. I once interviewed astronauts while they were traveling in outer space thanks to the wonders of modern technology. And I have to say that was really cool. And that morning I did it. If you work at NPR, you all have, we all have little studios in our homes if we have to update and it's usually in a quiet space, a closet or in my case, it was in the third floor of what we call the bird's nest. And I remember I had to do that at a really odd hour because of the time difference in space. And after I did the interview, I came downstairs and I was smelling myself. I was really proud and my husband said, it's your turn to make the sandwiches this morning. And that this thing brought me right back down to earth. But the stories that I love are simpler and almost weird by journalism standards. There's stories that you can do when you do a show called All Things Considered where we endeavor to consider a lot of things every day before four. I did a whole series on the American porch and what porches do for us. And I actually relied on Michigan for some of the reporting. I called the dean of Michigan's College of Architecture and Urban Planning. I don't know if he's still here, Doug Caldwell? Oh, okay. He helped me out with that story and helped me understand that porches are a uniquely American phenomenon. I did not know that. But it was the stories of individuals and how they used their porches that really moved me. The porches that helped clean up a neighborhood in a failing neighborhood in Norfolk, they decided to put porches because women would sit on the porches and they could tell what was going on and if someone was going on in the corner, they could chew people away. That people started to become house proud and they would decorate their porches and then there was a little bit of composition. Oh, she put out geraniums. Well, I'm gonna put out daisies. And it changed the neighborhood and it was something that they then emulated in cities across the country. Porches that created a space for a gentrifying neighbor, a homeowner to slowly get to know the other people in her community who feared her arrival heralded something ominous having seen what happened in so many other areas where yuppies invaded with their little dogs and their brew pubs and their koi ponds. Porches allowed that young woman who saved her money to buy that house in a neighborhood that was deemed transitional, gentrifying that space to get to know the people who would sit out on their porches late at night to get to know and love and cherish the older neighbors and working class families who sat on porches to cool themselves or play cards or swap gossip. Porches were her on ramp. Porches that allowed a kid with glasses that were too big and shoulders that were always slumped and too narrow to hear the words that encouraged him from the porches he passed where women would sweep and snap green beans and set out jars for sun tea because the Scotch-Irish immigrants in his coal mining town had to save every penny they could. I loved interviews and interactions with everyday people. Estella, the hat lady who made special hats for household seniors on Easter, who housebound seniors on Easter who perhaps couldn't get to church on Sunday but she made a hat for them so when they listened on the radio or watched on TV that they felt that they had their Sunday go-to-meeting outfit on even though they were in their living room. The man who placed an ad in the paper so he could find a family that would share Thanksgiving with him. He was lonely, so he placed a small ad and every year he went to a different household. They welcomed him into their home. I had similar encounters with everyday people in another quirky series I did this time on Children's Books with Jared Krasetska who was a young kid whose mother was a heroin addict and was raised by his grandparents and he used to doodle in class because he was distracted and one day they brought in a big deal author into his school and the author was walking up and down the classroom talking about the work that he did and he noticed that Jared was drawing and he drew a cat and he touched Jared on the shoulder and he said, nice cat. And Jared said his heart grew several sizes bigger and he kept drawing and he kept drawing and that little bit of encouragement was just like water on a desert rose. And he says that was the moment that he decided to actually try to apply himself in school. Similarly, Children's Books are really deep. They're written not just for the kids but for the parents who were sitting at the edge of the bed at night often reading to them. And author Gary D. Schmidt whose teachers who was, he describes how he was in his school and I'm old enough to remember the tracking that went on in schools where you were in different groups. In his group they were in track one, track two, track three. I remember in my school there were the robins and the bluebirds and the crows. They weren't even subtle. He was in group three which would have in my school been the crows and he couldn't read. And he said that the kids who were in the top group were destined to come to a place like this. The kids who were in the middle group would probably get a job in the factory in town and he told me that the kids in that bottom group were probably destined to serve french fries or maybe they'd be lucky to do that. He felt that he had been discarded by the time he was eight years old. And he said a teacher walked into his classroom for some reason she'd taken a liking to him. She heard him cut up in the hallway and he made her laugh. And she walked into his classroom and she just put her hand out and she said come with me. And she took him across the hall and she sat him at a little desk next to her. And she filled the desk up with golden books. Do any of you remember golden books, those little books? And they were well below his reading level but he still couldn't read them because he had been in group three. And so she said just keep trying. And every day she would spend a little bit of time with him. A little bit more time, a little bit more time. And eventually he learned to read. That one woman made a difference in his life. I asked him, by the way, what was his favorite book? And he said the book was The Big Jump. I don't know if any of you remember that. It was part of a series of the first golden books along with Green Eggs and Ham. I bet you remember that story. I love these stories because they give listeners a dose of humanity. And they remind us that the basic human condition needs to be centered in all that we do. Policy is not just about statistics and politics. It's about changing people's lives and protecting their health, protecting their dignity, honoring their humanity. These all sound like feature stories. And yes, they were quirky. And I probably couldn't do them in some of the other newsrooms that I've worked in. But every single one of those stories hinges on public or social policy in some way. How we treat the elderly, how we treat our children, how we create neighborhoods where we have people who live in one area and people who live in another based on FHA policy. It doesn't just happen through osmosis. It's based on policy. You filled your brain with knowledge here, but also make sure that you fill your heart in your work and that you hold on to that humanity and shaping that world that you were about to inherit. When you leave here and you make the big jump. You were leaving this campus as both beneficiaries and ambassadors of what I like to call radical curiosity. You were graduating from a school with a demonstrated hunger for knowledge and experience and also for understanding America and never underestimating America. And so I wanna spend what little time I have with you focusing on a few of the ways that perhaps you can carry on that tradition of radical curiosity into your future life. A do, a don't, and a dare. First the dare. See, we come with list. You had your list, I have mine. Dare to listen to someone that you do not agree with. This is so important that I'm gonna say it again. Dare to listen to someone who you do not agree with and at this moment in America, that person might be in your family. That person might be in your job. And it's no surprising, it's no surprise that someone who spent so much time on radio would try to get you to focus on listening, but this is really important. We are losing the ability to actively listen and engage in deep and meaningful conversation. I just learned today that students on this campus created an organization that allows for just that coming together and listening to each other. It's important to listen to the things and the people that you might otherwise shut out. We are living in a time where there doesn't always seem to be a common set of facts or when so many people can see the same thing and come away with totally different interpretations. Make America great, for instance, to some a campaign slogan to others an offense. Black lives matter to some a curiosity. Don't all lives matter? To others, a rejoinder to the all lives matter because history has shown that black lives are sometimes, in fact, often valued less. Climate change, an obvious threat to some, a political distraction or distortion to others. I think quite a bit about reaching across difference because of the work I do at the Race Card Project. I know that you can not necessarily reach common ground, but you can use dialogue to create an effective bridge. And the bridge is important because if you think about the bridges that you cross every day in your life, what allows that bridge to remain standing? Oppositional force, tensile strength. So I'm here to basically provide the exclamation point behind what Dean Barr said today. You are strong because of your differences, but you will only realize that strength if you're willing to reach across the aisle, if you're willing to reach across that ideological chasm to listen to and engage with someone that you might not agree with. I know I left out a dangling participle there, apologies for that. Someone that holds beliefs that you might find offensive, someone who holds beliefs that might make you uncomfortable or even afraid. Figure out how you can engage with them. You will be stronger, they will be stronger. I promise you that. Two, don't quantify success in terms of numbers. That inclination can start early, especially in a place where you cheer for statistics. How much candy did you get on Halloween? How many soccer games did your team win? How many badges are on your Girl Scout uniform? You're conditioned to always sort of count things and rank things. How many friends or followers or likes do you have on social media and admitted, if I asked one of you today, you could probably tell me how many likes you had or how many followers you have. You check you're nodding your head, you check, don't you? And then she unfollowed me. What was that about? That's part of our media universe today. With grades and internships and measures of popularity, it continues into adulthood with salaries and promotions and the cost of one's home or the exotic nature of one's vacation. Success by the numbers is all around us. The zag at rating of the restaurant, the size of your dress, were smallest preferable and unrealistic for some of us? Or your bank account, were large as preferable and unrealistic for some of us? Numbers can signal and even define success. The zip code, the floor where your office or your home is located. The secret signs that flash into our heads to rate almost anyone and anything. And sometimes the way that we automatically apply the discount when we meet certain kinds of people or hear certain kinds of accents. But I want the people who now hold these degrees to hold also the promise in their caps and gowns and also the promise that perhaps you will not measure your life solely in terms of numbers. Is a million dollar picture more successful than the little league coach who manages to find time to spend every weekend with a rag tag team of 10 year olds despite the fact that he holds down two jobs? Is the working woman who dazzles everyone she comes in contact with more successful than the woman who chose us to be a stay at home mom and volunteers for a number of good causes? Is the investment banker more successful than the poet who helps us see the light of the world? Is the computer programmer who can churn out algorithms more successful than the journalist who pursues the truth especially the hard troops that help us understand our world and pursues that work knowing that they will never get rich at least as defined by their paycheck. Is the business tycoon more successful than the elementary school teacher or park ranger or police officer or aid worker who does famine relief or the person who sits behind the desk at the senior citizen center who has memorized the first name and dietary restrictions of every single elderly person who walks through or rolls through or is carried through the front door or the person who will clean up this beautiful room when you leave and go off to celebrate? The answer is simple if you're only looking at numbers but it's not so simple if you're looking for excellence and success and excellence and success are qualified in different ways. Success is based on all kinds of factors some in your control others not. You can be born into success if you're really fortunate and if you're only looking at numbers but no one is born into excellence even if you enter the world as a singer with perfect pitch a pitcher with a golden arm as a future academic with a mind like Einstein. You can only achieve excellence through hard work. Remember you were told you need to work hard and you do. You need to possess a mindset based on discipline self-sacrifice and a strong ethical compass. Excellence may take you to dizzying heights but also allow all of us to flourish where we are to bloom where we're planted to find our own personal best despite our means or challenges or restrictions or our relative gifts and the pursuit of excellence allows us to measure that same quality in others to see those who are doing their best even in simple things to lift up their work to new heights the barista who turns out a latte and turns it into a work of art the landscaper who transforms a plot of land into an Eden the swim coach who is known as the pool god because she can coach even the most scaredy cat kids to move into the deep end of the pool. I had one of those coaches once. They give you the seeds of courage that will flower into more adventurous lives I can tell you that. You begin to value excellence in all its forms the mastery of the complex and the simple talents that elude so many of us. How many allegedly successful people do we all know who are not necessarily excellent or not necessarily excellent listeners or excellent at consoling someone in grief or excellent in providing an at a girl at exactly the right moment because trust me no matter how long your privilege to live on this earth we all need the occasional note in our lunch box. I wish success for everyone success is great but my great hope for the class of 2019 is that you think long and hard about how you measure success and that you understand the satisfaction and the self confidence the self worth that comes from the pursuit of excellence on one's own terms. It's living life with a work ethic but also a worth ethic. So I've shared a dare and a don't so in closing I'd like to share something that I hope you will do. Do listen to the little voice in your head. Always listen to the little voice in your head. It's the wisest counsel that you will receive. You know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you have a voice you have a conversation with that little voice in your head. Sometimes you do it silently. I bet that you have long and deep conversations with them in the shower. If you're like me I am eloquent in the shower. I think of all the things that and another thing. I think of all the things that I wish I would have could have said in the moment they all come to me when I'm washing my hair. Listen to that little voice in your head because you've heard me use the word compass several times. It is your compass. It will guide you. It will help you find your way. And I know that because of the last story I will share with you which is summed up in a card that I received at the Race Card Project. I collect stories in six words. Stories about race and identity and it starts with six words and then people give me their backstory. And the six words that I received from this gentleman was race is throwing rocks at kids. It was handed to me by an elderly gentleman. He was frail. He moved slowly. He was quietly fighting back tears when he gave me the card. He did not wanna give me his name but he gave me his story. This was in North Carolina and it was after a book signing and he's now, this was years ago so I'm not even sure he's still on this earth. He was in his 70s then I hope he is. But he said as a much younger man he was staunchly opposed to integration. And when integration came to North Carolina he and his friends made clear that they were against the idea of brown children going to school with white children by throwing rocks and bricks and rotting vegetables at children who were crossing the color line to enroll in what were then all white schools in North Carolina. He knows that some of those projectiles hit their target. He knows that. And so he said this now aging man with broad shoulders and very thick hands that suggested that he probably worked with those hands for a living. He said that every time he goes around his town when he encounters an African-American man he immediately looks at their forehead. He said when he goes to the hardware store or the Piggly Wiggly he looks immediately at their forehead. He's looking at their forehead for what? He's looking for a scar. He said he knows he bloodied someone with one of those bricks. He doesn't know that person's name. He doesn't know how badly they were hurt. He does know that there was a lot of blood. He remembers it. The image is still in his head. And he remembers also that he got a lot of praise from his friends for making that direct hit. He got a lot of atta boys. So as he goes about his errands and encounters black men who like him now are older and slower, now gray, able to move through a community that once confined them to certain sections of town. When he encounters them he immediately looks to their forehead for a scar. But he's also looking for something else. He's looking for a chance after all these years to say I'm sorry. He said I just wanna say I'm sorry to his face. He knew that throwing rocks was wrong. He knew that the hatred for kids who were not any different from him except for the color of their skin did not comport with the lessons that he learned in Sunday school. Did not comport with most of the lessons that he learned at his own dining room table. There were life lessons about loving thy neighbor except if that neighbor was black or perhaps came from another country. Something inside him at that time told him that trying to injure people who were just trying to get an education wasn't right was in violation of the human code of conduct. There was a little voice that said don't do this but there was larger voices. There were larger voices all around him, loud, pushy, passionate voices that encouraged and indeed implored him to join the crowd and create a wall of resistance. Really a wall of hatred that would uphold what was then the status quo. To keep schools and libraries and the public parks and the swimming pools the way that they had always been cordoned off for white Americans only. He didn't listen to that little voice in his head and six decades later he wished that he had. There's a big lesson in that story. Listen to that little voice. Even when it's drowned out by the crowd especially when it's drowned out by the crowd because that voice is your inner GPS. It's honed by your parents and your elders. Fine tuned at this fine institution. Listen to that voice. Always be in touch with that voice. Allow it to help guide you on how you use your own voice. No matter how far you travel after graduation no matter how far your talents and your dreams and your new skills take you make sure a piece of this place never leaves you. Make sure you hear your voice and the voices of your professors here. This intellectual circle, this wonderful spirited community. Make sure you always hear that voice. I know that you will make America strong. I pray that you will make America kind. I trust that you will make America strong. And I am as certain as the sun will rise tomorrow that all of you who have graduated from the Ford School on this day in May of 2019 will make America soar. And you will do that by listening to that little voice. To the class of 2019, I honor you. I celebrate you. Go blue and go big. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. That was extraordinary and beautiful and thoughtful. And helpful and inspiring and hopeful. I really appreciate it. I am delighted to welcome to the stage members of one of the University of Michigan's outstanding acapella ensembles, the Dicks and Janes. They'll perform two classics from the University of Michigan's songbook for us. Thank you. Thank you. Aren't they terrific? Each year the Ford School's graduating students are asked to a live performance to play key roles at commencement. One faculty member is chosen to speak to the class and our BAs and masters graduating classes choose a representative student speaker. As the faculty speaker, the classes of 2019, by an extremely large margin, elected associate dean Paula Lance. I'll give you a Paula's official bio first. She is the James B. Hudak Professor of Health Policy at the Ford School with an appointment as well in the School of Public Health. She studies how public policy can help improve the health of populations and reduce social disparities in health. Paula earned an MA in Sociology from Washington University and an MS in Epidemiology and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin. And now her unofficial bio. Paula means everything to the Ford School. She's led more initiatives than I can count from the launch of a new set of degrees to strategic plans for equity and inclusion to leadership training. When something goes right at the Ford School, Paula is almost always involved. And when something goes wrong, Paula is the first one called to help out. She's an incredible teacher, a mentor, and a friend, a great partner in leading this school. And I'm delighted to welcome her now to speak on behalf of our faculty. Paula. Good afternoon everyone and congratulations graduates. On behalf of the Ford School faculty, I'm honored to be offering heartfelt congratulations to each and every one of you, all the amazing humans who are graduating today. It's an honor to be part of the faculty and staff who have been dedicated to your education in the field of public policy. Given the Ford School brand, you might not all know this, we are the number one program in policy analysis and social policy in the country. Thank you. So, given our brand, you are of course leaving us with a lot of technical skills and deep knowledge. And as your faculty speaker, I am obliged to take a little time today to highlight some of the key parts of your education. So you've all learned some very important economic concepts and principles, and you have learned to never, ever, ever confuse correlation with causation. Yes ma'am. You have learned that regression can be ordinary with least squares and that regression discontinuity is clever and that P actually has value. You've honed your communication skills and you've learned that critical analysis and the objective use of evidence are essential for defining problems and designing and analyzing policy solutions. You've also deepened your understanding of how politics and power drive public policy and that every single policy decision at its core involves values, ethics, and moral reasoning. In some, you become experts in how public policy and advocacy can be used to address the complex problems facing governments, societies, communities. Policy can be used to improve markets, to protect consumers, to address inequities, to codify and protect rights, to improve social welfare, the environment, and international relations. However, you are also experts in the reality that public policy is often times the core root driver of the problems before us. You know a sad truth. The public policy has created differential access to opportunities, resources, and life chances and that public policies often fuel and reinforce institutionalized discrimination and structured inequality. Dear graduates, you have chosen a complex and challenging, yet noble field. It is quite daunting to be standing in front of you here today. It's daunting enough to stand in front of you in a classroom, even when I know that every single one of you has read all the readings that were assigned for the day and are eager and ready to discuss them right Public Policy 479. So, honestly standing at this podium on this very special day is quite humbling. So I want to first take the opportunity to acknowledge and sincerely thank all of you for the amazing ways in which you've had a positive impact on the Ford School community during your time with us. First, you've had an impact on each other by forming friendships and bonds that truly will last a lifetime. You've also had an impact on your fellow students by the important, insightful, provocative, and sometimes irritating and weird things that you have said in class over coffee at Dominix and other places around town. You have influenced others through your contributions on team projects through student organizations and student government. You've also had an impact on your professors through the insights, ideas, and opinions that you've shared in your writings in class during office hours at public events and yes, through your constructive and sometimes snarky comments and you've made important and lasting contributions through your work with us as research assistants, GSIs, and student reps on committees. And believe me, every one of your professors feels that the best part of teaching is learning with and from you. Now to be honest, you really didn't contribute much to the Ford School through your holiday party skits but that is totally offset by the myriad other ways in which you have left indelible and important imprints on the Ford School. So, as you go forth to make your contributions in the world I would like to offer some parting pieces of advice, two themes. First, leadership, we are going to talk about leadership and please remember that you are all indeed leaders. And leadership is not about hierarchy. Leadership is quite simply and fundamentally about having a positive impact on others, organizations, and communities. One important leadership trait is what is referred to as challenging the process or pointing out how the status quo is not good enough, identifying what is wrong and needs attention, calling people out when they are part of the problem. And an important leadership trait is to be able to articulate and bring attention to problems and many of you are really, really good at this. However, this alone is not leadership. The changes that you want to inspire and make require a number of additional skills. This includes the ability to bring people together around shared values and goals. The ability to rally and effectively use the resources needed for the change you envision. And the ability to have empathy for others and understanding of competing points of view and the willingness to model leadership in your action and your words. To paraphrase your motivational mantra that I believe is relevant to all of us, be mindful of your thoughts because they become words. Be careful with your words because they become actions. Watch your actions because they become habits. Be aware of your habits because they become character and be ever mindful of your character for it will shape your destiny and your impact in the world. It's really hot up here. And finally, I want to urge you all to please take care of yourself and others. I know that many of you are very tired right now. Am I right? Yes. You are tired not only because you've been working hard to finish your degrees to figure out your next chapter and to get the hell out of here. But many of you are also tired because of the relentless energy you have to spend just living in this world. You're tired because you care deeply and with immense passion about the significant problems and inequities in the world that seem to be getting worse. If you're like me you're exhausted by daily examples in the face of true human suffering of terrible global leadership of corruption, of ideological power plays, the blatant use of alternative facts and policy debates I could go on but I won't. And too too many of you are tired because who you are fundamentally your race, ethnicity cultural background, your citizenship your religion, your core values and beliefs, your gender and who you love are under constant attack politically, socially and even physically. Many of you are exhausted because you've had to navigate college or graduate school as the first person in your family to do so. And many of you have the extra burden and stress of being responsible for some very big ways for taking care of others as well as yourself. Despite these moments of exhaustion and fatigue I hope you find solace in Martin Luther King's brilliant insight that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. I know you will all continue to work in this arc for the causes in which you believe, for the change that you demand and for the communities in which you live, work love, pray, play and vote. I know you will continue to stand up for truth and facts. I know you will continue to advocate for equity fairness, social justice and human rights. You will work steadfastly for policy changes that will improve the world. And you will continue to fight against public policies that reinforce institutionalized racism, discrimination, inequality oppression and hate. The work you do will involve crossing difficult bridges building new bridges and sometimes burning bridges that deserve to be gone. This work is without question incredibly difficult and it will continue to make you both inspired and tired. So please take care of yourself and others along the way. Ask for help if you are struggling even if you don't know exactly what kind of support or assistance you need. And please make the time to relax. Laugh, dance, sing, sleep. Enjoy and nurture your relationships with family, friends, partners and your dogs. Have adventures and travel. Get those stamps on your passports. You can enjoy this beautiful planet in between your efforts to improve the planet and the lives of the people on it. A wise character in Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon said if you surrendered to the air you could ride it. So to all of you beautiful, entire people who are now Ford School alumni surrender to the air and ride the winds that are going to take you to amazing places and allow you to be the leaders and best in a troubled yet beautiful world. Thank you for sharing your hearts and minds with the Ford School. I am so grateful that your winds carried you to Ann Arbor and I'm eager and proud to watch where they carry you next. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Paula. Now we're going to hear from the student elected to speak on behalf of the bachelor's class of 2019, Jareen Fish. Jareen has been incredibly active during her time in Michigan to say the least. She's been a varsity athlete for the Maison Blue, competing in hurdles and long jumps and other things I don't understand on the track and field team. She's completed internships in the Marine Pathways and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Jareen was the vice president of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the outreach chair for students of color in public policy and a writer for the South Campus Times. She's been a valued member of our student services team this past year serving as a peer advisor for other undergraduate students. Next year we have the great good fortune that she will remain on campus in the School of Business. I'm so pleased to welcome Jareen Fish to the podium. Hi everyone. Thank you Ms. Norris and Professor Lance. I could not have asked for better opening acts. But in all seriousness I stand here before you all distinguished guests, faculty and staff family, friends and most importantly graduates honored to be delivering the BA remarks. Truth be told I only had about a half a second to enjoy being selected to give this speech before I realized I meant I had one more final. In between you and I I had no idea what I was going to say let alone how I was going to say it. Yet slowly but surely everything began to fall into place. I'd like to start off my speech with a story about an eighth grader who much like the BA cohort in front of you was very type A. For she believed everything had to go a certain way and this led her to outlining her entire life. I'm not convinced this was an outline more so than it was a detailed essay as not only did this outline name the college she was going to but it also had her postgraduate plans and even the year she was going to get married. Rumor has it the outline even named the type of engagement ring she wanted. Needless to say she thought she had her entire life planned out. Okay it was me. I was a little eighth grader and now fast forward eight years I did not like the college I thought was my dream school. I am not on the track to become the bachelorette in five years and I do not have the mental capacity to think about marriage for at least another couple of decades. I'm sure my dad is ecstatic about that one. For that same girl who thought she had her world figured out is standing before a crowd basking in her uncertainty more confident than anyone could imagine. I have only Michigan to thank for this confidence. Not only has the school shattered my hopes and dreams over and over again from eating sleep for dinner stripping me of my beloved Michigan time forcing me to show up my 830 instead of 840 or even being waitlisted to the Ford School of Public Policy. But it has also granted me the opportunities of a lifetime from shaking the hands of both President Obama and Justice Sotomayor to finally being admitted to the number two public policy institution in the nation. It has given me access to probably the most impressive faculty and staff in the world. Yet, as I said hopes and dreams were shattered. Though it was a fun journey and it was fun getting here today was not easy. Every year more uncertain than the next and this was stressful for a girl who literally thought she had her entire life figured out at 13. Last year was probably the most frightening year of them all. New people, new degree requirements and in reality I do not think my cohort handled this change in scenery well at all. Not even by a long shot. While I did not suffer through pubpaw330 it was okay I was having my own fun with Econ 401. I was there for the op-eds I was there for pubpaw 476 and I was there for the holiday skit. You can actually graduate about these later. But let's just say this cohort embodies strange bedfellows. Each of us has passionate as the next. Yet, amidst our disagreements we also shared a lot of good times from the charity auction to two wine nights at Dean Barr's house to two barcrawls, yes we've been celebrating since last semester. This cohort has learned to come together. For just like this speech everything has worked out. So to the Ford community thank you all for your encompassing support to my family and friends and really my mom, my truest believer thank you for everything you've done for me to be here today for I would not be here without you to the parents thank you all for allowing me to share the space with your children I can tell you from personal experience you all have done one heck of a job and to the cohort thank you all for two of the best years of my life you have allowed me to laugh during the most polarized time in history I have no idea what the future holds but as Professor Cabo told me I know things will work out because you all are some of the most brilliant thinkers I have ever encountered and I know whatever you accomplish will be nothing short of exceptional just remember, uncertainty grants confidence we did it and go blue thank you thank you Joreen don't worry Joreen is not fleeing the premises she's going to get in line to get her degree the master's classes of 2019 elected Jose Javier Lujano to speak on their behalf Jose earned his dual undergraduate degrees in political science and sociology from Santa Clara University after college he worked as a policy analyst for the mayor of San Jose California on whose election campaign he had served as a field organizer last summer Jose worked in DC with the Obama Foundation my brother's keeper alliance Broderick Johnson sitting here I think had something to do with that he's completed internships in the US House of Representatives and abroad for the UK's Labour Party here at the Ford School Jose served as diversity officer for the student affairs council our graduate student leadership group Jose plans to put his skills and education to work in the public sector finding ways to end homelessness and to move communities Jose it's an honor to welcome you to the podium Good afternoon everyone Buenos tardes a todos I'm honored by the opportunity to speak before you today Antes que nada, quiero agradecer a mi familia y a todas nuestras familias las presentes y aquellas que se unen por live streams Saludos y gracias I'd like to tell you a story about a remarkable woman who was born today in the northern Mexico town of Canatlán Durango, Mexico It was there, La Rosa the oldest girl of four was born in 1961 Rosa like any child her age followed her family where they went from the ranch to small town to the big city they eventually made it to the border town of Tijuana where despite competing interests she became the first in her family Tijuana was where she went to school but in my mom's story it was just a stopping point on the journey northward you see, my grandfather first came to the United States through the Bracero migrant farm worker program and it was here in the state of Michigan that he was first inspired to immigrate my mom grew up hearing stories of opportunity in far away places like California or Washington as a child she dreamed of one day owning her own home having a fulfilling job that provided for her family perhaps even the flexibility to take her family on a small vacation her American dream she strived to reach great heights sometimes falling short because of family necessity but she never gave up on the belief that better times were around the corner while going through any difficult time she would always say as is often said in Durango puro parlante never look back always hold your head up high as a kid my mom's journey to the United States was simply a story about a time gone by but now as an adult I can fully appreciate the magnitude of a young 19 year old woman's sacrifice in search of opportunity to say yes to the prospect of risking one's life because the alternative is simply unacceptable while deeply saddening also brings to bear the notion of hope enough to counterbalance the risk to one's life coming to America was never simply about it being better than the alternative it was about opportunity and vision we are all on a pursuit for opportunity of some kind each of us chose to pursue a path of public policy this path brought us each to Michigan like many of you I chose to pursue public policy to help my community and figure out ways to tackle the most vexing issues like homelessness and access to affordable housing because these problems and issues we often debate amongst ourselves are not just outcomes and measurements they are true stories about real people like you and me and together they comprise the communities we represent as masters of public policy we are empowered to take the tools we learned in and out of Wild Hall and make with them communities we can be proud of communities that welcome all who dare to come and make it possible to achieve one's dreams and create boundless opportunities for those that come after I certainly won't be the last to tell you that times are tough for too many of us across the board it seems that the machinations occurring in the head of the current occupant of the White House stand to test our resolve and seek to further divide and marginalize rather than uplift and empower we know this we talk about it but despite this present reality I am so hopeful now more than ever about all the good each one of us will do once we walk out of those doors as masters of public policy together we've had difficult dialogues about the direction our country is going and where we go from here what began in the classroom and eventually made its way to 40 parties and tailgates will soon find itself cast into the spotlight and make it possible for all of us embarked on our careers and makes good on the work that began here our search for opportunity doesn't end with this major accomplishment rather it is only beginning whether here in Michigan or wherever you choose to make a home let's continue to seek opportunities to make our homes better for everyone it was because of a young woman's daring search for opportunity that I can stand before you here today the kid from East San Jose that dared to dream big and say yes to a once in a lifetime opportunity to tell my community's story and through that to be able to tell my story here today to my peers I say thank you thank you for making this the greatest college experience of my life and for the 40 family that I can now proudly claim as my own it wasn't all parties late night homework and trips to pretzel bell we often came together to celebrate but if necessary we supported each other through the difficult times you, the students are the real reason we are the top public policy school in the country to this institution which one March morning unexpectedly sent me the best news I had ever gotten that they wanted to invest in me and my growth I say thank you thank you for providing students from all walks of life the opportunity to study and value the policy so that we may be better stewards of our communities everywhere to my mom you will forever be my hero and the reason I am here today while I know you are not physically here today every single day that I can claim to be a graduate of the University of Michigan I owe to you to all of you, I thank you every single one of you go blue thank you so much Jose I want to present that families and friends and our students have been looking forward to all afternoon our graduates are ready to come to the stage to receive official congratulations on a job well done and this year as in the past the names will be read by John Chichari I'm pleased to welcome John to call the names of our graduating students and I'm going to invite the members of our platform party to please step forward and help congratulate our graduates as well thank you all to start with our candidates for Doctor of Philosophy and as part of the congratulations we will offer them they will receive their hoods from supervisors here at the Ford School and so I'd like to invite Assistant Professor of Public Policy Natasha Pilkowskas to the stage also I'd like to ask Professor Brian Jacob to step front and center Brian is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy, Professor of Economics and Professor of Education here at UM and now for a Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy and Sociology Christina Cross Christina's dissertation is entitled The Color, Class, and Context of Family Structure and its Association with Children's Educational Performance Her next job placement will be as an Assistant Professor at Harvard University in the Department of Sociology Doctor of Philosophy, Public Policy and Economics, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Crow Mark's dissertation is entitled Economic and Social Determinance of Military Enlistment his next job will be with the Department of Social Sciences at the US Military Academy at West Point we're now going to welcome our candidates for the Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Administration to the stage and I'd ask that you please hold your respective applause until we've gotten through all of the candidates first Ozan Al Khan Katie Allen Amara Ansari Christopher Askew-Murwin Paola Avila Lindsay Barrett Ryan Bartholomew Heath Bergman Ricky Bicknell Lior Bruckner Jack Bryan John Cumming Meininger Sarada Dhulipala Amelia Essenstad Reginald Farrell Corey Fitzgerald Anthony Folks Emily Futcher Harry Gao Christopher Garzon Maxwell Geigel Augusta Gudemann Paola Geraguevara Marcus Hall Stuart Hammond Leah Hicks Sharon Hu Yuyichi Ikeda Rajiv Joseph Annabelle Juard Takuya Kanamori Jessica Kaplan Ann Kolesnikov Phillip Lee Chris Lazama Derek Leif Jose Javier Lujano Layla Molo Rafael Marokin Zechevich Andrea Matei Daniel Messner Jason Morgan Hira Mumtaz Takedo Muroya Jacob Murray Yusuke Namiki Kara Nasif Elizabeth Nelson Megan Nestor Shen Ni Logan Norton Jagozie Okwu Steven Oliphant Abigail Oric Tom Phan Morgan Polk Jonathan Poser Elizaveta Rachmanova Molly Robertson Eric Rodriguez Danielle Santos Ryan Shaken Jonathan Schellen Kevin Schuster Stephanie Scott Arifa Shah Brooke Sinclair Beth Megan Souters Rachel Torres Jessica Tro Kila Washington Allie Waters Cherise Wilkins Jess Wunch Kazuma Yamamoto Anna Zinkl and Hannah Zlatnick and now we'll move on to our newly minted Bachelor's of Arts in Public Policy Thomas Aiello Matri Anantharathman Darine Bailey Ria Basha Allie Berry Julia Berthel William Beale David Bloom Paige Brogan Allison Brown Medline Carter John Chambliss Tyler Cody George Davidson Morena Deedon Will Feuer Samuel Finn Dreen Fish Daniel Green Sasha Greer Samuel Griffiths Daniel Grossman Nick Geisinger Summer Harrison Anna Haynes Sasha Heyman Andrew Heama Ethan Hopper William Horn Talia Katz Caroline Kennedy Caroline Kelly Caroline Kelly Samantha Kennedy Nicole Koslowski George Lancaster Caleb Lee Chen Liang Tiffany Lo Kelly Lownds Christopher Meyer Benji Mazine James McGrath Molly McInerney Ian McKenney Lydia Murray Ivan Navarrete Sarah Peel Zoha Kureishi Kaitlyn Reedy Grace Reardon Grant Rivas Steven Robards Matisse Rogers Teresa Ross Brian Sang Chris Sherry Jordan Silverman William Salmson Alexandria Summers Alana Spellman William Stewart Kevin Schweitzer Ashley Chung Renzi Wise Alexander Wood and Will Wright Graduates, if you would please stand and face your guests in the audience. Those of us on the platform, if you'd like, you can sit for a moment. Our bachelor students, would you please move the tassel on your mortarboard from right to the left? As you've anticipated from your clapping, proud to present to you the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Classes of 2019. Congratulations everybody!