Commencement Address at South Dakota State University

Commencement Address | Graduating Class of 2012 | South Dakota State University | May 5, 2012

A Life of Choices and No Regrets

                Go Jacks!  I am so proud of you.  What an accomplishment to have both the men’s and the women’s basketball teams in the NCAA finals.  Thank you, President Chicoine, for bringing to fruition the expansion of excellence at this university.

                Graduates -- Congratulations to all of you.  Commencement Day marks the completion of your university undergraduate course of study.  But because you are the future leaders of our country and our world, “commencement” or “the act of beginning” is appropriate today.

                What do I, a girl who grew up in South Dakota in the 1950s and 1960s, have to say to you that is relevant on your commencement?

                My Commencement was 41 years ago.  It has been a remarkable 41 years.

                My message to you today is what I wish someone had said to me on my commencement day.  It is this:  Take the risk!  Find your dream, find your passion  – and take the risk to follow it.

                Having lived in Scandinavia for three years, I recognize the “jantelov” tradition.  It is strong in Scandinavia – and here in Scandinavian America.  The term “jantelov” can be summed up in a few words:  don’t think you are better than we are; don’t think you are smarter than we are; don’t think that you are particularly good at anything.

                The result of this social organizing principle is dramatic uniformity and a sense of equality -- no one wants to appear to be more wealthy than his neighbor.  Today, however, academic, business and professional leaders look for ways to reward Danish students and young professionals who are willing to achieve, innovate, create and develop new ideas – to step outside the jantelov tradition.

                My grandfather emigrated from Denmark to the United States 102 years ago.  Some Danes, including my relatives, say that anyone with any gumption left for America in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  But they don’t necessarily recognize “gumption” as a good thing.

                Fortunately those of us sitting in this arena today are the offspring of those with gumption; those with courage; those who were willing to set off on a new course.

                I’m here to ask you to do the same.  Have courage.  Be bold.  Show initiative.  Work hard.  This is your life – live it with no regrets.

                Young adulthood for me was a confusing time.  My father used to say to me when I was attending SDSU that “these are the best days of your life.”  That probably added to my confusion.  It was the late 1960s, a time of political and gender upheaval, a time of generational change.  It also was a time of personal change, having to face the dilemma of what to be when I grew up.   As a female, the issue of family versus professional life loomed large.  Family of course comes first – and let me say that I have three amazing adult children and four gregarious grandchildren.  But in addition to being a wife and mother, was it possible also to be a professional?  Eventually I found my way, as each of you will find yours.  But it was a daunting question on my commencement day.

                The road of life takes many turns.  Things won’t always go your way.  There will be days, perhaps months and even years, when you feel like God’s will has gone dramatically wrong.  My father died when I was 19.  My youngest sister was 11.  My mother who worked alongside my father every day could not afford to “inherit” the family business under the law as it existed in 1968.  We had to sell the business on Main Street, and my mother had to find a job.  It was like having the rug yanked out from under us.

                1968.  Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4th.  Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on June 5th, the day he won the South Dakota primary.  In November, my father died.  Three weeks later, my grandmother died.  Less than three months later, my grandfather died.

                Thankfully I was young and resilient – and thankfully I had close relationships with some professors here at this university who understood more than I did the severe shock and traumatic stress my family and I were under.

                I’d like to say that this was the only bump in my life’s road, but it wasn’t.  Divorce is tremendously traumatic and disruptive, not only for the spouses, but for the children and the entire family.

                The lessons we learn from these “bumps” provide the direction and texture of our lives.

Life is about choices.  Now I have experience at making choices, and I weigh the options and make choices relatively easily.  But this was not always the case.  What did I want to be when I grew up was a really hard choice, and it took me some time to come to the correct answer.

As a young girl in the 1950s in Canistota, I remember the shock of learning about the differing expectations for girls and boys.  In my family, I was between two brothers in age.  My childhood best friend was the neighbor boy, Lon.  As we were preparing to enter kindergarten, I was confronted with gender-based distinctions for our future adulthoods: Lon would get a job, but I would stay home; he would keep his last name, but upon marriage I would change mine to my husband’s last name.  I’m sure there were other differences, but I remember going home to my parents, especially my father, with the hope that he would deny that my future would be so different from the lives of the boys to whom I was so close.

My father convinced me that I could be a wife, mother, and have a job if I wanted.  Armed with that, I went back to Lon to say that I, too, could have a job.  Somewhere in those conversations, it was suggested that my options were limited:  as a girl, I could be a teacher or nurse, but Lon could be a doctor. I wasn’t happy with my options being so limited.

I entered school, moved to Brookings, and girl friends replaced Lon as my friends and confidantes.  Despite what I felt as societal pressure to conform to the expectations for girls, I knew I wanted a profession.  For many years, I struggled to determine how far out of the mainstream I could be and still be comfortable and respected.  This was especially true as my husband ran for public office.

We make accommodations in life.  It is a choice to do so.

During my college years in the early 1970s, some law schools were admitting women for the first time, and women accounted for nearly 10 percent of the law students.  I wanted to be one of them.  Eventually I was, but it took me a decade and a half to get there.

I was leading a fascinating, challenging life.  Political campaigns, including McGovern for President; working on Capitol Hill for Senator Abourezk; being a surrogate candidate with Tom Daschle; founding, organizing and directing two non-profit organizations in Washington, D.C.

One day in 1985, I was sitting at my desk as Executive Director of Peace Links, Women Against Nuclear War.  Thirty thousand women across the country, women of both political parties, were part of our programs.  We took petitions to President Reagan at the White House.  We founded an exchange program with Soviet Women that continues to this day although in a different format, run by the Library of Congress.  I raised the budget for the organization through grant proposals to Rockefeller foundations, Ford Foundation, and others.  It was exciting.

But I recall the “light bulb” moment, thinking:  I’m in my mid-30s.  I’m going to work for at least another 30 years.  If I want to be an attorney, I better do it now.

I talked with a friend who had gone back to law school.  She told me a great secret – anyone can get out of law school (no one is going to flunk out), but the hard part is getting accepted to the law school.

With that excellent piece of advice, I began to look at law schools.  Living in Washington, D.C., I had three great law schools in my city.  At the best of them – Georgetown University Law School – there was a former South Dakotan on the faculty.  His advice was that I should apply to Harvard.  With three children in three different schools:  grade school, junior high and high school, that would have been too disruptive.

I applied only at Georgetown Law School, being confident I would be accepted – I had great undergraduate grades, scored in 99th percentile on the LSAT, and had an interesting career between undergraduate and law school.

At age 37, I took the risk.  I disrupted family finances, daily family dynamics, and I went back to school to earn the law degree I had wanted since the early 1970s.

During the first week, my Legal Research and Writing group went for a picnic near the Potomac River overlooking Washington, D.C.  I was asked to bring cookies to the picnic so I asked my daughter to bake them.  Everyone loved that my daughter baked cookies for her mother to take to school.

Those three years as a law student were a challenge, a commitment, an opportunity, and the beginning of the professional life I had wanted.  To the extent I was not already, I became extremely disciplined.  I got up every morning at 5:00 a.m., usually to run and be home and showered before I had to start waking up others.  I left the house at 7:00 a.m. to be in line when the law school parking garage opened at 7:30.  Three mornings a week I worked at the U.S. Senate Environment Committee, then came back to the law school to work as Managing Editor of American Criminal Law Review and full-time law student.  Every day, I was home in time to cook dinner and oversee my children’s homework or go to school activities.

As you will hear today, you are NEVER too old!  At age 40, I landed a position at the best law firm in the country – Williams & Connolly LLP.  In an era of global megafirms, Williams & Connolly is unique.  The firm handles cases all over the world, but all 250 lawyers are based in only one single office in Washington, D.C.

At this firm, I found my home.  American Lawyer has described the Williams & Connolly ethos as “fight hard, very hard, but always fight fair.”  That single sentence encapsulates great advice for any professional.

If I have a comfort zone, that is it:  work hard and like you want to win; do your best; do it the right way, on the right side of the line, and with respect for the adversary.

For 20 years, I looked forward to going to work every day.  I had fabulous cases, one of which was written into a book and made into a movie.

Always it was hard work.  There were Thanksgivings when I hosted expanded family and friends for dinner, then relied on my adult children to pass the hors d’oeuvres and carry conversation while I went upstairs to chair a conference call with lawyers in three European countries.  Family came first, and my profession took off at a time when my children were close to leaving the nest.  They are my biggest fans, my loudest cheering section, and my most trusted advisors.

So how did it come to be that one so happy in the practice of law became the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark?

It is the result of a combination of factors:  looking ahead, making a choice, and taking the risk.

In addition to being a hard-charging lawyer, in 2007 and 2008, I was dedicated to helping elect President Obama:  knocking on doors, raising money, providing legal advice during key primaries, and helping vet potential Cabinet and high-level executive personnel.

Realizing that I might have the opportunity to serve in the Obama Administration, I wanted a position where I could add value.  Being only two generations removed from being a Dane, I grew up understanding that Denmark is a key ally of the United States.  This is true in NATO, Afghanistan, the Libya no-fly zone, counter terrorism, international law enforcement, and the development of “green” energy technologies.

Now it is my privilege to represent President Obama and my beloved country the United States of America to my second-most-favorite country, Denmark.

Being Ambassador is a “real” job in which I represent the entire U.S. government in Denmark.  This includes the Department of Commerce and support for U.S. businesses in Denmark.  It includes the Department of Defense, the Department of Agriculture, as well as various law enforcement agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI.  Protecting Americans living in Denmark is a high priority, and thankfully in a country like Denmark, a relatively easy task.

I take direction from the President and Secretary Clinton on a range of foreign policy issues on which we seek collaboration and commitment from Denmark.  Within my first five months in Denmark, the President visited twice – as did five members of his Cabinet, the Speaker of the House, Governors and other notables when Copenhagen hosted the UN Climate Conference in December 2009.

In October 2010, I organized a Conference on the Role of Women in Global Security.  The conference highlighted the Nordic-Baltic countries and the US as countries who understand that women are key actors in promoting stability and security in countries around the globe.  To learn how we could effectively help women living in areas of conflict, we brought ministers and NGO leaders from Uganda, Liberia and Afghanistan.  The Secretary General of NATO was a key-note speaker, as were Secretary Clinton, Secretary of the Navy Maybus and ministers from the participant countries.

                In September 2011, we marked the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 with a forward-looking perspective.  Speakers included the Prime Minister and a former Prime Minister of Denmark, reflecting that Denmark was among the first of our allies to join us in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq, and also has been a target of terrorists.

                This July I look forward to the centennial anniversary of Rebild – where Danes for 100 years have held what “probably” is the largest 4th of July celebration outside the U.S.

                Living abroad, I have gained a unique perspective on how fortunate we are in the United States.  We take for granted that we are the land of immigrants and the land of the American dream.  But we are unique in both.  We are not hampered by ancient boundaries that separated different ethnic cultures and religions.  We have in our DNA that of our ancestors who dared to seek a newer life in an unknown world.  We benefit from the wisdom of our forefathers who separated church and state and who created a system of checks and balances that, while frustrating, for most of two hundred years has served us well, as has the careful balance of individual liberties with societal obligations.

                I have found my life.  I am an advocate. As a lawyer, I am an advocate for my clients.  As U.S. Ambassador, I am an advocate for the United States and its interests in Denmark.

                Each of you must find your life – your dream – your passion.  This is your life.  It’s is the only life you get.

                These are the messages I want to share with you.  Life is about choices.  Don’t be afraid of making them.  There is almost no choice you will make that, if it turns out to be the wrong choice, cannot be corrected.

I have come to appreciate that it is the things in life that we DON’T do that we regret.  While each of us will do some things that we regret, we will make amends and get on with our lives.  For those things we wanted to do but did not do, there is no remedy but only regret.

Don’t be afraid to take a risk.  Take the chance when it comes you way.

                For those of you who stay in South Dakota, thank you.  This is a gem of a state.

                For those of you who seek to expand your horizons, be confident that you have what it takes to do so.  We former South Dakotans are out there in cities across the country.  Find us.  We are just like you are:  competent, unassuming, and hard working.

The best days of your life are ahead of you.  Find your life.  Take the risk.  Work hard.  Live your life with no regrets – or at least as few as possible.

Congratulations on your Commencement.  Good luck.  God bless you.