President Kermit L. Hall
Graduate Commencement Address
May 14, 2005
 

Welcome to the 161st Commencement of the University at Albany. On behalf of the faculty, I offer sincere congratulations to each of you who will, today, be awarded your master's degree, your certificate of advanced study, or your doctorate.

We are here to celebrate your success.

You have worked hard.
You have overcome many obstacles.
We are all immensely proud of you.

But you haven't done it alone. Your have had the support of many people, and let's take just a moment to recognize some of them.

The faculty are the heart and soul of any university and the University at Albany is no exception.

The University has superb faculty who deliver the best education. Would all University at Albany faculty please rise and be recognized?

Thank you for showing your support for our students as we send them on to the next phase of their lives.

We also cherish staff from across the University who volunteer to help make this ceremony a success.

   They line you up,
   make sure your hoods are on straight,
   help your families to their seats,
   push wheelchairs,
   run the elevator and answer about 40,000 questions,
   all with friendliness and good cheer.

They are as excited as you are, and as proud of you as I am. Would the graduate ceremony volunteers, wherever you are out there, stand up, wave your hands, and receive our thanks. Thank you for your dedication.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a glorious day in the life of this wonderful university and it is a great day for all of us. This is my first graduate commencement ceremony and for most of you, it is your first one as well. And for both you and me this is a new beginning.

But while I am still trying to find a place to put things in my desk, you have been trying to figure out what to take from your drawers.

Of course, before all of us get too puffed-up, we should remember Mark Twain's sage observation that "I never let schooling interfere with my education."

Being a graduate student, of course, has its challenges and often we end up explaining ourselves in ways that, well, don't quite fit the truth. Let me, then, share with you the Top Ten Lies told by graduate students. I told these lies to myself, when I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota.

Number 10. It doesn't bother me at all that my college roommate is making $90,000 a year on Wall Street.

Number 9. I'd be delighted to proofread your book/chapter/article.

Number 8. My work has a lot of practical importance.

Number 7. I would never date an undergraduate.

Number 6. Your latest article was so inspiring.

Number 5. I turned down a lot of great job offers to come here.

Number 4. I just have one more book to read and then I'll start writing.

Number 3. The department is giving me so much support.

Number 2. My job prospects look really good.

And the Number One lie told by Graduate students is:
No really, I'll be out of here in only two more years.

The truth is, of course, that you have now earned a distinction that will stay with you for the rest of your lives - you have joined the ranks of the exceptionally schooled, to use Twain's term.

Education falls into the category of things we value like travel, friendship, chocolate, leisure: a little is good, more is better.

By that line of reasoning, graduate education ought to be especially valuable, and it is. One of the Greek roots of the word for school is scholê which, interestingly enough, means leisure. Plato, for example, called school a place in which leisure is employed. Sophocles thought scholarship gave one "rest from" other things.

So: your family and friends thought you were working, but really you have been enjoying leisure, "resting."

And in fact, a strange and wonderful thing happens in graduate school--we come to love the very activities that seem so much like work to everyone else.

We discover the best times of our lives in:

• the laboratory;
• scholarly work;
• the design of effective social work interventions;
• the study of the very large--the atmosphere--and the very small--nano-viruses;
• in business and economic modeling;
• in exploring the relationship between educational theory and practice.

We become creative, as we research, experiment, survey, interview, compute, write, edit and turn our original ideas into final projects, theses, and dissertations.

Graduate education and our graduates matter, and here are three good reasons.

Number 1: There are people out there who are about to hire and pay you to do not only what you have learned to do but also what you love to do.

Higher education at all levels translates into dollars. For example, the average annual earnings today in this country are:

• $17,000 if you have no degree
• $25,000 if you have a high school degree
• $45,000 if you have a bachelor's degree
• $58,000 if you have a master's degree
• $65,000 if you have a doctorate
• and $90,000 annually for some professional degrees, including an MBA.
  

Number 2: Our graduates contribute to our society in many ways.

• They produce new knowledge.
• They create art.
• They make and study poetry, fiction, and history.
• They develop governmental policies.
• They serve as school administrators and public health workers.
• They bring new talent and insights to scientific research.

Number 3: Our graduates replenish the community of scholars, who make American universities hum. Many of you will be the faculty of the future. You will teach others subjects as diverse social stratification, risk analysis, or the possible recurrence of smallpox.

********

You, collectively, number nearly 1,000: 134 are receiving Ph.Ds; 815, master's degrees; and 34, certificates of advanced study.

You represent some 36 countries - China, India, Korea, Germany, Taiwan, the Russian federation, and more -- 29 states (including New York) and 53 New York State counties.

Your average age is 32, but 16 percent of you are 40 or older.

The ways you are already making a difference reflect the great diversity of the people and programs of this University.

Michelle Gill, who is receiving her master of public health degree, addressed new challenges in Tanzania, where she worked to help members of parliament to become better informed about AIDS.

Elizabeth Santa Ana, who is receiving her Ph.D. in clinical psychology, developed an intervention designed to improve treatment outcomes for patients with severe substance abuse disorders. She's headed to a postdoctoral position at Yale University Medical Center.

A native of Mexico, J. Ramon Gil Garcia is receiving his Ph.D. in public administration and he is on track to be a leader in the increasingly important field of digital government. His innovative dissertation focused on e-government success.

A single mother of three children, Martha Griesel Sola has journeyed 20 years to earn her bachelor's and now her master's of social work degree - balancing all along the way family, work, internships and community service.

Dominic DeRocha, an officer with the New York State Police, put aside actually chasing criminals for one year to study crime and society's response, and now he is armed with a master's degree from our School of Criminal Justice. Criminals, watch out!

In 1989, Rhonda McClam's family was homeless, and she and her siblings led disordered lives. But inspired by teachers to go to college, she earned her bachelor's degree in 2002 and today receives her master's in our highly ranked Africana Studies program.

Tanya Nicole Manning actually earned her Ph.D. from our School of Education this past fall. But her mother died shortly after she defended her dissertation and she chose not to march at our December commencement. Her father had died earlier - in fact, just shortly after she began her studies at the University at Albany. Today she joins us in recognition and memory of the unstinting love, caring and support of her parents.

Such personal success and perseverance give us hope for the future. But with the pride that accompanies both, also comes responsibility.

Let me remind you of the world that you will serve.

Right this moment, if we could reduce the world's population to a village of 100, that village would be composed in this way:

• 51 village inhabitants would be female, 49 would be male;
• 70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white;
• 50 percent of the village wealth would be in the hands of 6 people;
• 80 inhabitants would live in substandard housing
• 70 would be unable to read;
• 50 would suffer from malnutrition;
• fewer than one would own a computer;
• and only one would have a college education and fewer than one-half of one percent would have an advanced graduate degree.

So, recognize now that you are special and that being special carries an obligation to take your knowledge and translate it into not only personal gain but also social change.

Whether you have earned a master's degree or a doctorate -- and I stress earned, not received -- you are a resource, our hope for the future, a navigator for the successes of others.

That is why graduate education is the pulse of a public research university. Such education makes us at once unique and vital.

And even though most of you are leaving us, you will continue to define our institutional reputation. Your personal achievement will become the touchstone by which generations to come will measure the University at Albany.

My advice is to remember that even though you have been well schooled by this great university, you should not let it interfere with your education.

And in closing I would turn your attention back to Mark Twain who observed: It is what you learn after you know everything that really counts.

Do well but do good.

Be moved by your heart, but be disciplined by your knowledge.

Make a difference in the world and help others to make a difference as well.

You have my respect, my affection, and my heartiest congratulations.