Reverend Damhof, members of the University Council, honored guests, faculty, staff, alumni, family and friends and, most especially, our graduates -- welcome to Winter Commencement. On behalf of the faculty, I offer sincere congratulations to each of you.
 You have come to this University from all around the state, from around the nation, and from around the world.
Today we join together to celebrate your success.
You have worked hard.
You have overcome obstacles.
We are all immensely proud of you.
But you haven't done it alone. You have had the support of many people. Now let's recognize some of them.
Our faculty are the heart and soul of the University, and your intellectual guides and mentors. Would all the faculty now rise and be recognized?
Thank you for showing your support of our students.
Families, friends, and significant others have loved and guided you, and been your devoted and dependable supporters. Please join me in appreciative applause for all of them.
Your life outside the classroom is an important part of your experience here. And today I'd like to recognize staff from our Division for Student Success.
They work hard in countless ways to enrich your lives.
They work for you in our residence halls.
They help create great campus celebrations, like this past spring's Fountain Day.
They facilitate community service projects.
And they are truly dedicated to student success.
Would our new Vice President for Student Success James Anderson and Student Success staff members here please stand and receive our thanks?
Thank you for your dedication.
Commencement is a special moment in the life of our University, highlighting the bright spectrum of our extended family.
 Winter Commencement is special in its own way. Outside there is snow on the ground - a reminder of the glorious wintry weather of upstate New York that you have undoubtedly come to love!
I am reminded of the weatherman Phil played by Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day. He finds himself doomed to relive Feb. 2 again and again and again. But in the reliving it, he gradually becomes a better person. And toward the end of his many reruns of Feb. 2, he offers this bit of wisdom in his broadcast from Punxsutawney:
"When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."
Standing here today and basking in the warmth of your success, I can't imagine a better fate than a short but lustrous commencement address.
As the cartoonist Gary Trudeau once observed, "Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated."
Today is all about new beginnings, change, growth and ultimately pride in your accomplishments.
Graduates of this institution have been making a difference for 160 years, and you today become a part of this proud tradition.
Just recently, I came across the memoirs of a member of our first graduating class in 1845. Caroline Smith Page was 82 years old in 1905 and she wrote an account of her life at the request of her grandchildren.
And what a life it was!
Caroline, in 1844, came to what was then the Albany State Normal School. It had been established to meet society's great need for trained teachers, and Caroline, when she graduated, rose to the challenge.
First, she headed to the City of Troy for four years. Then, the president of the Natchez, Mississippi Board of Education wrote to the president of the Normal School, seeking, in his words, "a lady teacher of the highest deportment."
And soon Caroline, who had never traveled outside the state of New York, began a journey that took her more than a thousand miles from home.
In Natchez, she discovered the realities of slavery,
the ravages of yellow fever,
a new book her friends told her about -- Uncle Tom's Cabin,
and the man who became her husband.
In time, they headed back north, because, as she said, "we knew we could never make a home in the south on account of slavery."
They settled in Boone, Iowa, where they lived for 28 years,
building a town,
building a school
and building a family.
The story of Caroline Smith Page - teacher, pioneer, parent - offers lessons in endurance and reminds us how we change lives and how our lives are changed by others.
Today, University at Albany graduates journey all around the globe, shaping history in great and small ways and reaffirming our commitment to public service. Caroline Smith Page Family Papers Collection >>
Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is that the sun never sets on the graduates of the University at Albany.
A few weeks ago, one of our alumni was in town, taking a brief break from his job with the United Nations in Afghanistan, where he is helping to rebuild that nation. Adam Bouloukos helps oversee the country's elections and many large infrastructure projects.
Maureen Baginski, who earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees from this University, was responsible for reinventing the FBI's counter-terrorism efforts in the aftermath of 9/11.
One of our young alums - Emil Bove, who graduated in 2003 - was selected as a Jack Kent Cooke scholar this year. This is one of the most prestigious scholarships in the nation. At the University, he was a standout on the lacrosse field and a standout in the classroom. He is now attending Georgetown University Law School.
Another alumnus is a successful entrepreneur.
 Norman Snyder Jr. graduated in 1983 with a degree in accounting. He went on to become a partner in the South Beach Beverage Company, which was transformed into SoBe Beverages. Today he is the chief operating officer of Rheingold Brewing Company, helping to revive a great New York brand.
Now Norm Snyder has done something very special for his alma mater.
He has taken a step to push our School of Business to greater success. He has committed $5 million to the School, the largest gift from an individual in the University's history.
Caroline Smith Page,
Adam Bouloukos
Maureen Baginksi,
Emil Bove,
and Norm Snyder....
Now we welcome you - today's graduating class -- to this illustrious club of alumni.
With your graduation, our alumni ranks will swell by more than 800. Our living alumni will now total more than 134,000.
We have 406 students earning undergraduates degrees.
You come from seven states and 22 countries, including China, South Korea, Mexico, Egypt, and Nigeria.
The oldest is 49 and the youngest is 19.
Your average age is 24, and 54 percent of you are men.
The most popular majors are:
Ladies and Gentlemen, four graduates leave this University with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
Now that deserves a round of applause.
Our students earning graduate degrees number 449, and come from 29 states and 25 countries, including China, India, Poland, Turkey, Nepal, Indonesia and the Ukraine.
The oldest is 66 and the youngest is 21.
Your average age is 31.
And sixty-four percent of you are women.
So let's put some faces on these numbers.
Kasandra Cliff is receiving an undergraduate degree in human biology. But that is just part of her story. While here, she volunteered 30 hours per week for the Five Quad Volunteer Ambulance Service and assisted with patient care at Albany Medical Center.
Jorge Vasquez, Jr. also juggled a lot while earning his undergraduate degree in Africana studies. He was an RA in our residence halls. He organized community service events including a Halloween Haunted House for children, a Black Solidarity Day march and vigil, and programs on HIV/AIDS awareness.
Aaron McDonald is a top undergraduate, fully employed, and a volunteer math tutor, founder of Urban E.S.T.E.E.M., Inc. and a Christmas volunteer for the Salvation Army. Aaron took the initiative to develop a web site for a local chapter of the Salvation Army for his final project for Information Studies.
Lawrence Migliore has served his fellow students and this University as Student Association president; RA, housing manager, and orientation assistant; and vice president of Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society. Today, he receives his undergraduate degree in economics.
Alice King Ingham, after 20 years as a social worker, became a doctoral student in our School of Social Welfare. Her work with Albany elementary schools became a centerpiece of the Family Support Network of the Capital Region. She now shares her experience as a faculty member at the Radford College School of Social Work in Virginia.
Grace B. Mose is a citizen of Kenya who grew up in a rural village and overcame extraordinary obstacles to study here. Today, she earns a Doctor of Arts in Humanistic Studies. Her goal is improve the treatment of women in her home country.
And Andrew Puckey teaches 11th and 12th grade English at Whitesboro High School, near Utica. He has been traveling an hour and a half back and forth to classes, through blizzards and rain storms and rising gas prices, to earn his master's degree in English. We think his students at Whitesboro are lucky indeed to have him.
So what do these stories tell us?
That commencement is a day of collective success individually realized.
They also remind us of the importance of perseverance, commitment to others, and courage in the face of obstacles.
Each graduate has a different story but you all share the accomplishment of completing a significant stage in your life journey - earning a new academic degree.
You are going places, and so too, I want to remind you, is your alma mater.
 Just ten days ago, as the centerpiece of our commitment to excellence in undergraduate education, we unveiled our new Honors College.
Our University has always been a destination for some of the most talented and motivated students, and it will continue to be.
And today, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce to you another exciting development that will further distinguish your alma mater.
You all remember that last February we set a goal of raising within one year $1 million for scholarships through our Inaugural Scholarship Fund.
We jumpstarted the Fund with $100,000 that the campus could have spent on a presidential inauguration.
Then the Fund started growing.
Alumni, parents, friends, students, faculty, staff and corporations added their support through gifts and pledges.
The Senior Class of 2005 contributed.
Our University Police organized a baseball tournament to raise money.
 The University at Albany Alumni Association, Chartwells, Barnes & Noble College Booksellers and University Auxiliary Services provided leadership gifts and pledges.
Today, I am announcing that we have not only reached but we have exceeded our goal -- and we have done it two months ahead of schedule.
Our supporters have pushed the Inaugural Scholarship Fund to more than $1.5 million.
The biggest push came from a $700,000 donation from the estate of Irving Harold Losee, a 1938 graduate.
The gift will create the Irving Harold Losee Scholarship Fund to support Honors College students.
Along with another $300,000 in the fund, it brings the total support for scholarships for The Honors College to $1 million.
We are very grateful to the almost 1,000 other individuals who have contributed to the Inaugural Scholarship Fund.
Thanks to their generous support, our Inaugural Scholarship Fund is a tremendous new resource for making your alma mater ever stronger and better.
We have so much to be proud of, and as you leave, we want you to carry pride in this institution with you.
As you lined up before marching in today, you received a pin.
 It shows Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom who has been this institution's symbol since its founding.
I urge you to put your pin on - and to proudly wear it as you venture forth.
For even though most of you are leaving us, you will continue to define our institution. Your personal achievement will become the touchstone by which future generations will measure the reputation of the University at Albany.
It has become our tradition to leave our graduates with some handy personal advice. Here goes:
- Always carry a safety pin.
- Remember: In God We Trust -- but lock your car anyway.
- Making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
- Opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Never use your VISA card to pay off your MasterCard.
- Failure isn't falling down. Failure is staying down.
- Don't waste your time trying to find another word for thesaurus.
- Borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back.
- The wild geese may soar, but turtles don't get sucked into airplane engines.
- If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
- Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by sheer stupidity.
- Be yourself. The grass never grows where everyone goes.
- Laugh often.
- Make a difference.
- Stand for something, even if you stand alone.
- And, always, always remember your Alma Mater - we will never forget you.
 I offer you:
- my personal congratulations,
- my respect,
- my affection,
- my gratitude,
- and my thanks for the honor of serving you as your president.
God's speed on your remarkable journey ahead.
Thank you.
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