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As delivered.
Good Morning. It’s great to be here! Thank you President DeVore. Thank you, facuIty. And most importantly, thank you class of 2007 -- I am honored to be here to celebrate this milestone in your life.
This is a great day for the class of 2007—and a great day for your parents’ wallets! This isn’t a great day just because you will be receiving your degree in a moment, but because you know with absolute certainty that you will never have to sit through a Western Civilization requirement again.
I know that many of you wouldn’t have graduated without the support of parents and friends. Graduates, will you stand up, turn around, face your family and your friends, and show them how much you appreciate their support. Let’s give them a round of applause.
I do appreciate the opportunity to be here but I also know that all of you are even happier to be here and that I am a major obstacle standing between you and your degree. So let me share with you just a few words and get out of the way.
Some of you are, today, fulfilling the dreams of generations by becoming the first in your family to graduate from college. Some of you are going to graduate school. Many of you are beginning your careers. Some of you are shouldering the responsibility of public service. And I’m sure there are a few of you who have no plans beyond Old Bag tonight or a Schneider’s donut run tomorrow morning!
But whether you’re going to graduate school, going to a job, or taking on a new challenge like the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps…whatever you are doing, you will be taking something special with you from this place—something that will make you stronger and better as a student, as a professional and as a citizen.
So now I’d like to be a little preachy—which after all is my job as your speaker. I’d like to touch on three very special things that you’ve experienced here at Otterbein and my wish for how you carry each of these things with you into your future.
First, look around you, at your friends and fellow graduates. They are the first part of what’s special about you now, as an Otterbein College graduate. In the end, you may find that the time you’ve spent here with your classmates learning, crying, laughing, and playing may prove to be the most valuable part of your college experience.
My wish for you on this graduation day is that after today, you remember to deliberately and frequently make room wherever you are for those special people who joined you here.
Now, take a look at the Otterbein administration and faculty. The second thing that Otterbein has given you, and that I hope you’ll take with you, is that passionate drive to become a fulfilled and successful person—a drive that starts with the extraordinary level of talent and passion among your professors and student affairs staff.
Before coming to campus, I had a chance to chat with several students over the phone. Faculty and staff: I want you to know what they said about you.
“Teachers are here to really help you out,” one student said. Another told me, “advisors go WAY above and beyond to help me achieve what I need.” And a third said, “Otterbein hooks us up and give us tools for success.”
This consistent combination of high expectations and caring support that you’ve come to expect here at Otterbein is, in fact, pretty unique.
As you leave this beautiful place that has nurtured you for 4 years, you will experience what my own graduation speaker some quarter of a century ago called the Great Awakening –the realization that the rest of the world will not necessarily operate according to the principles you have been led to expect here, in this wonderful place.
In fact, I’ll wager you that within 72 hours of starting your new job or embarking on your next phase, you are going to think that things make so little sense that you wish you’d paid more attention in Western Civilization class!
Seriously, will it shock you to learn that you may never again have as many people in your corner, dedicated to your personal success as here at Otterbein?
That not every teacher or boss you have in the future will have the same standards of excellence or belief in you that you take for granted here? No, not even those few of you who go to– dare I say it? – Ohio State!
From these gifts that your faculty and administration have given you here, I hope that you will take away both an unbreakable internal compass that recognizes and pursues goals of excellence as well as the self-awareness to understand and locate the support you will need to reach those goals.
And most of all, the thing you received here at Otterbein that I wish with all my heart that you carry throughout your life is a sense of connectedness to your community.
Just this year, Otterbein students contributed over 15,000 hours of service through service-learning, Greek life, athletics, and Cardinal Corps. So much of this is made possible by the Center for Community Engagement here on campus. Because of that center, Otterbein leads Ohio schools in service-learning; 65 percent of you in this graduating class have taken a service-learning class to meet the literacy, economic, social and health needs of Otterbein’s neighbors. Concepts of community, of citizenship, and of service are embedded into the culture of Otterbein College.
Let me give you an example: Class of 2007 member, Lauren Scott is one of hundreds of Otterbein students who have made a lasting impression on the lives of disadvantaged youth in the area. Lauren has coordinated Otterbein’s America Reads program at Avalon Elementary for three years and she has also organized a “day of college” for children who visit Otterbein to get a taste of what higher education is like. Through volunteering, Lauren has opened a whole new world to many children who might never dream of going to college. And this community and our nation owes thanks to the Class of 2007 because many of you, like Lauren, deserve to be recognized for your outstanding service efforts.
Such as the students who volunteered at Genoa Middle School through Otterbein’s Creative Literary Alliance—which my organization was honored to support through Learn and Serve America. We are proud that your volunteers helped Genoa students achieve a significant increase in Ohio standardized scores in reading – in just one year correcting a 76% proficient dip to almost 100% proficient this year this past year!
The principal at Genoa says it’s the volunteers’ influence on her kids’ lives—your influence—that led to this gain. And across Westerville and Columbus, principals, teachers, and superintendents agree that Otterbein students are changing lives and putting local youth on a path to success.
Based on my recommendation, the White House took notice of your service at Otterbein. This year you were named as one of the top 10 colleges for ‘excellence in general community service’ on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
I hope that you will take this passion for community healing and for service that is so central to life here at Otterbein and pour that passion into every community and institution with which you come into contact in your future lives. America needs that passion. The truth is America doesn’t have a chance to solve its most pressing problems without it.
Let me share a few numbers: 10.3 million – that’s the number of kids on any given day who have one or both of their parents in prison. And, here’s the rub: 70% of those children will end up in prison themselves without some intervention. And do you know that there’s one, simple intervention that can cut that likelihood in half? It’s when a citizen makes the effort, to mentor one of these children or youth for an hour a week. Think about that—one hour a week to change the life of child.
How about another number: 13 million children. 13 million AMERICAN children live in poverty; and more than 15 million children and youth who have no caring adult or mentor to guide them. Martin Luther King once said, “there is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and resources to get rid of poverty… the real question is whether we have the will.”
I’m here to tell you that we do have the resources to get rid of poverty—and it’s you. I hope that you will always have the will to serve your fellow citizens in need.
I hope many of you will care so passionately about service that you will explore joining up with deeper service opportunities like VISTA, Peace Corps, and AmeriCorps. Whatever your plans are, I hope you connect with service opportunities and, personally, I hope many of you will join the more than half a million Americans who have become AmeriCorps members. AmeriCorps is a great way to get skills and a scholarship to help pay for your education or pay off your loans while you make a difference in your community.
Well it’s almost time for you to come up here and get your diplomas, and you know what I wish for you? I wish for you that you will carry throughout your life the relationships, the pursuit of excellence and the service to your communities that are the essence of Otterbein College and that you share these special gifts generously with others.
Before you leave today, take a few minutes to look around the campus –at this special place—and reflect on what you have learned here and what you will choose to do with that in the future.
And when you return here years from now and are telling stories with your friends between visits to Old Bag or Schneider’s, I hope that one of the things you will be able to talk about is what you’ve done to improve the lives of the people in your community who needed your help. I am confident you will do great and extraordinary things.
Good luck, God bless, and congratulations to each one of you — the class of 2007.
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