[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 94 (Monday, June 22, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6884-S6885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              NEW YORK UNIVERSITY'S COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed 
in the Record the remarks given by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 
at New York University's commencement ceremony in New York City, on May 
13, 2009.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

        The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State

       Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And does it get 
     any better than this, a graduation ceremony for one of the 
     great universities in the world in the home of New York 
     Yankees? Nothing could be better. And thanks to all of you 
     for cheering a visitor. I didn't realize that was permitted 
     in Yankee Stadium.
       I am honored to receive this degree. And on behalf of the 
     other honorees, I say thank you. Thank you for giving us this 
     singular privilege of being part of this commencement 
     ceremony. As I look out at this huge crowd of graduates, 
     family, and friends, I can only reflect on what an 
     extraordinary moment in history you are receiving your 
     degrees, a moment in time of our country and the world where 
     your talents and your energy, your passion and commitment is 
     more needed than ever. There is no doubt that you are well 
     prepared for a world that seems somewhat uncertain but which 
     will welcome the education that you have received on behalf 
     of not only of yourselves and your families, but your 
     communities and your country.


                        CHALLENGES FOR GRADUATES

       As Secretary of State, I am well aware of the challenges 
     that we face. You, as new graduates, and your generation will 
     be up against those challenges: climate change and hunger, 
     extreme poverty and extreme ideologies, new diseases and 
     nuclear proliferation. But I am absolutely convinced that you 
     and we are up to the task. There is no problem we face here 
     in America or around the world that will not yield to human 
     effort, to cooperation, to positive interdependence that 
     makes clear humanity is going on, our challenges are ones 
     that summon the best of us, and we will make the world better 
     tomorrow than it is today.
       Now, I know that it is fashionable in commencement speeches 
     to be idealistic, and that may sound so, but at the root of 
     my conviction is a strong sense of reality. Because you see, 
     I don't think we have a choice. We can sit on the sidelines, 
     we can wring our hands, we can retreat into cynicism, and we 
     know what the results will be: We will cede the field to 
     those whose ideologies are absolutely anathema to people of 
     conscience and faith all over the world. So our positive 
     interdependence, which is a fact, will prepare us to meet 
     these challenges. But they can no longer be seen just as 
     government-to-government. There is a time and an opportunity, 
     and with the new technologies available, for us to be citizen 
     diplomats, citizen activists, to solve problems one by one 
     that will give in to hard work, patience, and persistence, 
     and will then aggregate to the solutions we seek. Now, I know 
     we cannot send a special envoy to negotiate with a pandemic, 
     or call a summit with carbon dioxide, or sever relations with 
     the global financial crisis. To confront these threats and to 
     seize the opportunities that they also present, we need to 
     build new partnerships from the bottom up, and to use every 
     tool at our disposal. That is the heart of smart power. But 
     smart

[[Page S6885]]

     power requires smart people, people who have gone the 
     distance for their education, who have opened themselves up 
     to this increasingly complex and interconnected world, and 
     this changing global landscape requires us to expand our 
     concept of diplomacy.
       Now, when I was graduating so many years ago, diplomacy was 
     the domain of privileged men working behind closed doors. 
     Today, our diplomats are not limited, and our diplomacy is no 
     longer confined to the State Department or our embassies. We 
     are laying the foundation for 21st century statecraft. Where? 
     In the classrooms of NYU, in the board rooms of the 
     businesses of this great city, in the halls of academia, in 
     the operating rooms of our great hospitals. We are looking 
     for those personal commitments and connections, and that is 
     where all of you come in.


                 SERVICE AND DIPLOMACY BY YOUNG PEOPLE

       The biggest challenges we face today will be solved by the 
     60 percent of the world's population under the age of 30. And 
     already, young people, like all of you, are using their 
     talents and ingenuity to help fashion their own brand of 
     service and diplomacy.
       A few examples: In the nation of Colombia, two young 
     college graduates, fed up with the violence in their country, 
     used Facebook to organize 14 million people into the largest 
     antiterrorism demonstrations in the history of the world. In 
     a few short weeks, their peaceful efforts did as much damage 
     to the terrorist networks as years of military action.
       I know that one of your graduates spent months on the 
     slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro searching for sustainable 
     development models to bring to women and families and help 
     them lift themselves out of poverty. Another of your 
     classmates was studying in China last year when the 
     devastating earthquake struck, and that has led to work ever 
     since to deliver supplies and assistance to villagers in 
     remote areas. International students have gone on to fight 
     for human rights in Rwanda, build civil society in the nation 
     of Georgia, run businesses, and lead governments. And many of 
     you, I know, used social networking platforms to make Barack 
     Obama the President of the United States of America.
       President Obama and I deeply understand how important it is 
     for the young people of our country, but the young people of 
     every country, to be given the opportunity to translate your 
     beliefs and ideals into service and action, just as John 
     Kennedy did when he created the Peace Corps and as President 
     Bill Clinton did when he created AmeriCorps. This is in the 
     tradition of citizen service.
       So we need to figure out ways to prepare all of our 
     institutions of government, including and especially the 
     State Department, to harness the efforts of those who do not 
     enter the Foreign Service but still engage in your own type 
     of foreign service. Our State Department personnel are 
     skilled, dedicated, passionate, and effective. And for those 
     of you still looking for jobs, we are hiring a new generation 
     of diplomats.
       I hope many of you will join our ranks in the Foreign 
     Service and the Civil Service, but I know that not all will 
     choose to become professional diplomats, and I also know that 
     the State Department alone cannot tackle these great 
     problems. So my message to you today is this: Be the special 
     envoys of your ideals; use the communication tools at your 
     disposal to advance the interests of our nation and humanity 
     everywhere; be citizen ambassadors using your personal and 
     professional lives to forge global partnerships, build on a 
     common commitment to solving our planet's common problems. By 
     creating your own networks, you can extend the power of 
     governments to meet the needs of this and future generations. 
     You can help lay the groundwork for the kind of global 
     cooperation that is essential if we wish, in our time, to end 
     hunger and defeat disease, to combat climate change, and to 
     give every child the chance to live up to his or her God-
     given potential.


                         EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGES

       This starts with opportunities for educational exchanges, 
     the kind of dorm room and classroom diplomacy that NYU is 
     leading on. I want to commend my friend, your president, the 
     trustees of this great university, for understanding and 
     believing in the importance of educational exchanges.
       You know, study abroad is like spring training for this 
     century. It helps you develop the fundamentals, the teamwork, 
     and the determination to succeed. And we want more American 
     students to have that opportunity. That's why we are 
     increasing funding for Gilman scholarships by more than 40 
     percent. More than 400 New Yorkers have used Gilman 
     scholarships to spend a semester abroad, including nine 
     students from NYU last year.
       Now, of course, study abroad is a two-way street, and we 
     should bring more qualified students from other countries to 
     study here. NYU provides a prime example of what 
     international students can bring to a campus and how they can 
     benefit themselves and their countries. Over 700,000 
     international students came to the United States last year, 
     and NYU had the second largest number of any school in the 
     country.
       Now, the benefits from such exchanges are so great that I 
     am committed to streamline the visa process--particularly for 
     science and technology students so that even more qualified 
     students will come to our campuses in the future. We're also 
     doing more to marry technology with global service. That's 
     why today I am pleased to announce that over the next year 
     the State Department will be creating Virtual Student Foreign 
     Service Internships to harness the energy of a rising 
     generation of citizen diplomats. Working from college and 
     university campuses, American students will partner with our 
     embassies abroad to conduct digital diplomacy that reflects 
     the realities of the networked world. And you can learn more 
     about this initiative on the State Department's website.
       But I know that you don't have to wait for us to create a 
     new program. When you go home today, go online and find the 
     website called Kiva, K-i-v-a, where you can help someone like 
     San Ma, a mother in Vietnam who is seeking a microcredit loan 
     to buy rice seed and fertilizer for her family farm; or log 
     on to Heifer International's site, and for less than the cost 
     of a dinner out, you can donate a flock of geese to a hungry 
     family in Asia or Africa; or help Wangari Mathai's Green Belt 
     movement in planting trees and offsetting carbon emissions 
     and empowering women in Africa.


                             GLOBAL SERVICE

       Now, supporting these projects and others like them doesn't 
     require a lot of time or money. But for the people you help 
     and the planet you protect, your participation can be not 
     just a game changer, but a life changer. Global service also 
     means promoting good governance. We need informed citizens, 
     both here at home and around the world, to hold their 
     governments accountable for getting results and finding 
     solutions.
       And this is not only directed at the graduates today, but 
     there are a lot of proud mothers and fathers and husbands and 
     wives and grandparents and children and others who have seen 
     you to this day. And this is an offer and a challenge to all 
     of us. In the times that we face, we know we don't have a 
     person to waste, we don't have an idea to overlook. In fact, 
     we have to be even more committed to reaching out and 
     crossing the divides that too often separate us. For those 
     who have come to this country to celebrate a child or a 
     friend's graduation, please take home this message: America 
     more than ever wants your help; in fact, needs your help as 
     we build these new partnerships and as we seek solutions to 
     the global crises that cannot be solved by any one people or 
     one government alone.
       We need each other. We always have. It's just so much more 
     apparent today. A flu starting in one country spreads quickly 
     around the world. An extremist ideology starting with a few 
     people explodes across the internet. A global financial 
     crisis affects farmers and small business people in every 
     corner of the globe. That is a new reality. But equally 
     important is that we also now have the tools to work together 
     to forge this common approach to these common threats.
       So, Class of 2009, you have an historic opportunity. Every 
     class is told that, and to some extent I suppose it is always 
     true. But just in the course of this commencement ceremony, 
     you've heard several references to the global economic 
     crisis. The times that you are graduating in are, yes, 
     perhaps more difficult and somewhat more daunting. But that's 
     when we really rise together. One of the best lines from one 
     of my favorite baseball movies, A League of Their Own--said 
     it well, ``If it were easy, anybody could do it.''
       You know, when the Yankees moved in to their old stadium 
     next door in 1923, there was only person on the roster from 
     west of St. Louis. Their team mostly looked the same, talked 
     the same, and came from the same kind of cities and towns and 
     rural areas across America. Think about the team that plays 
     in this new stadium. It includes players from Mexico, Japan, 
     Taiwan, Panama, four other countries. The Dominican Republic 
     alone is home to seven Yankees. In the same way, NYU has 
     evolved as well. The university was founded to serve the City 
     of New York. Today it serves the world.


              THE BEST INSURANCE POLICY: AN NYU EDUCATION

       We know that there is much yet ahead that none of us can 
     predict. There is no way to stop change. Change will come. 
     What is unknown is whether it will bring progress or not. But 
     you have done what you needed to do to get the best insurance 
     policy you could, and that is an NYU education. And so armed 
     with that education, I have every confidence that you will 
     not only succeed by the dint of your own hard work and 
     effort, but you will contribute far beyond your own personal 
     needs. This is your moment. You've made it to the big 
     leagues, and you are up to bat. Go out and give us a future 
     worthy of this great university, of this great city, of this 
     great country, and of the world we all wish to create 
     together.
       Thank you, congratulations, and Godspeed.

  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

                          ____________________