Mr. Obama delivered his first commencement address as president at Arizona State University, whose decision not to award him a ceremonial diploma touched off a national furor. He used the controversy to make the point that no one should be satisfied with “the outward markers of success,” either as individuals or as a country.
“I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven’t achieved enough in my life,” Mr. Obama told tens of thousands of students and relatives packed into Sun Devil Stadium. “First of all, Michelle concurs with that assessment. She has a long list of things I have not yet done waiting for me when I get home.
“But more than that,” he added, “I come to embrace the notion that I haven’t done enough in my life. I heartily concur. I come to confirm that one’s title, even a title like president of the United States, says very little about how well one’s life has been led — and that no matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, always more to learn, and always more to achieve.”
He cited Americans who ran the Underground Railroad, fought for worker rights, developed new technology and saved people caught in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. “A whole bunch of them didn’t get honorary degrees,” he said in an ad lib not in the released text, “but they changed the course of history and so can you.”
He added: “That’s what building a body of work is all about: it’s about the daily labor, the many individual acts, the choices large and small that add up over time, over a lifetime, to a lasting legacy.”
Read on from NYT.
On a side note: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a commencement address at NYU yesterday.
Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) Internships, announced by Secretary Clinton at the 2009 New York University commencement speech, are part of a growing effort by the State Department to harness technology and a commitment to global service among young people to facilitate new forms of diplomatic engagement. Dipnote, the State Department's blog, explains in full:
1 comment:
Love Sister Hill!!!
President Obama is so insightful and prositive. He knows what he's doing and where he's going. I enjoy listening to him speak but he does put action behind those words.
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