(Remarks as prepared for delivery)

I’m so grateful to the members of the leadership team who have joined us today – I simply could not ask for better partners in guiding this extraordinary university.

Most of all, I’d like to thank and congratulate all of you, our incoming and our transfer students – thank you for choosing us – and welcome home to Michigan!

You’ve made a life-changing choice, a choice of academic excellence and exceptional research, of amazing student life and incredible opportunity … and of outstanding athletics, including a National Championship football team!

At this storied university, you will be walking in the footsteps of hall-of-fame athletes and moon-walking astronauts, of Broadway producers and Pulitzer prize winners and Nobel laureates, of doctors and CEOs and one U.S. President, so far.

I believe that the next Wolverine to sit in the Oval Office could be in this auditorium today.

For in addition to the distinguished and acclaimed members of our faculty, you will be joined by your peers – by your new friends sitting right next to you – and all those with whom you will engage in the classroom and the laboratory, on the athletic field and the stage.

You have joined us at a critical moment.

In addition to the anticipation, the energy, the excitement of your first year at Michigan, we are also facing critical choices for our nation in the months to come, not simply about the next president, but what kind of people, what kind of a democracy, we will choose to be.

For that reason, we have embarked upon a year of Democracy, Civic Empowerment and Global Engagement.

Throughout this academic year, we will be hosting events all across the university related to civic engagement and the critical challenges facing our nation today. You’ll have the chance to hear lectures from national leaders, to see presentations on key issues such as countering disinformation and building democracy, and even enjoy performances by our phenomenal artistic and creative teams.

It’s so vital that you engage.

We need your purpose, your excellence, your energy. What’s more, the Year of Democracy, Civic Empowerment and Global Engagement is only one aspect of the Vision 2034 which we announced this past spring.

Together, through Vision 2034, we will transform the University of Michigan into the defining public university, leveraging our interdisciplinarity and excellence to educate learners, to advance society, and to make groundbreaking discoveries that impact the greatest challenges facing humanity.

This is your moment.

This is your opportunity.

This is your opening of worlds of possibility. 

Yet it comes with a profound responsibility.

For the life-changing education which you embark upon today comes with the profound responsibility to serve; to serve others, to be leaders in our nation and to change the world. That’s why you’ve come to the University of Michigan.

That’s why we’re so honored to have you with us today.

So let’s go forward together, dreaming bigger, bolder dreams, and then making those dreams realities.

Welcome home to Michigan … and Go Blue!

As we prepare to conclude, the platform party will lead the recessional march that officially closes the program.

We ask everyone to remain in your seats until the recessional of the platform party is complete, and then to join us next door at Michigan Stadium for your class photo.

I would now like to invite the Fanfare Band to conclude today’s program with two songs important to the tradition of the University of Michigan.

For some this might be the first time hearing The Yellow and the Blue, the alma mater or the anthem of the university. The next time might be at the end of a football game this fall.

To close our program the band will play a song you have probably heard this week, our fight song, The Victors.

Once again, Welcome to Michigan, and Go Blue!