(As prepared for delivery)

Good afternoon!

Congratulations graduates!

After all the projects, the exams and the hours of study, you have reached this moment of transition, this pinnacle of commencement.

We’re so proud of you.

We’re so proud of you, and your families and friends and loved ones too.

They’ve been with you – lifting, urging and encouraging, offering their unfailing support and unconditional love each step of the way.

We’re so honored they have joined us today.

So to the families, to the parents and the partners and the friends, thank you.

Thank you for sharing your graduates with us. They’re a fantastic class. We’re so grateful for the time we’ve shared together at the University of Michigan.

Graduates, please join me in thanking your family and friends for their lasting support and love. Let’s give them the applause they deserve. 

Graduates, you walked in this afternoon as students … but you will leave as alumni.

You will go out having earned your degrees at one of the world’s most influential and exceptional universities.

You will leave us to serve and to lead, steeped in our tradition and shaped in our ethos, our excellence and our integrity.

Our future is brighter because of you today.

And yet, in this moment of triumph and transition, you may have questions about your next steps, about if and how you’ll succeed.

I would counsel you to remember our traditions, to look to our values, and to consider the example of the recipients of our honorary degrees.

Take pride in your achievements and your identity – in who you are, and in who you aspire to be.

We see this in the lives of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and John D. Evans.

Through his scholarship and teaching, Henry Louis Gates Jr. has given a voice to the voiceless, recovered lost literary works by African American authors, and expanded our nation’s sense of itself.

He has shown how deeply connected we are no matter where we came from, a message that resonates powerfully today. 

As he noted in discussing his PBS documentary Finding Your Roots, “When we find [our ancestors], we unlock the doors and they tell their story, and their story is really part of your story, we just don’t know it yet.”

John Evans has spent decades as a change-maker in media, AIDS research, philanthropy, the LGBTQ+ community and political transparency. He has also supported our students and our university in inspiring and invaluable ways.

John had a pioneering role in founding C-SPAN, which provides unfiltered coverage of our legislature, increasing transparency, enhancing accountability and strengthening our democracy. 

So graduates, look to not only your own achievements, but to the success of others, to the wellbeing of your communities and to the stewardship of our democracy. 

As you do so, keep learning, keep growing, keep exploring, keep pushing boundaries. This is what we discover from Margaret Hamilton.

She became a computer coder at a time when computers themselves seemed like science fiction, and she went on to become the first programmer, and first woman hired as a software developer for NASA’s Apollo project.

She developed a software patch for Apollo 8 – saving the mission – and then went on to develop software that could detect errors and recover information in system crashes.

She even coined the term “software engineer.”

So keep pushing, keep learning, keep growing, keep exploring.

Finally, in all you do, cling to character, hold to values, and cleave to principle and integrity.

This is what we learn from Rebecca Blumenstein.

Her storied career in journalism began here, as Editor in Chief of The Michigan Daily.

She became a writer and editor for our nation’s most influential newspapers, leading a Pulitzer-Prize winning team at The Wall Street Journal and subsequently serving its deputy editor in chief, then becoming the deputy managing editor at The New York Times.

Today, she is the President of Editorial at NBC News, and she also serves as chair of the board of the Columbia Journalism Review and on the Executive Advisory Board at our Wallace House Center for Journalists.

At each step – and amid the tumultuous changes wrought by the digital age – she has emphasized the importance of ethics, the eminence of integrity.

As she noted in an interview, “Facts matter, [and] the truth matters, … we have a huge obligation at news sources to try to get things right, to try to be fair.”

We do.

And as graduates of this exceptional university, you have the profound responsibility – and awesome opportunity – to use your life-changing education coupled with your incredible talents and gifts in leadership and service.

You have the opportunity to shape our world, to change our future, to lift our democracy.

I’m confident you will.

So as you go forward, take pride in your heritage and your identity; look to the success of others; keep learning, keep growing, and keep pushing boundaries; and above all, hold to character and integrity.

Should you do these things, you will excel, you will succeed, and you will live a life worthy of all it means to be a Wolverine!

Congratulations again graduates, and Go Blue!