Te whare e tu nei
Te marae e takoto ana
Tena korua
E nga mate maha
Haere, haere, haere
Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe, tena kotou
Tatou nga kanohi ora e hui mai ana
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa
I greet you this afternoon, as I if I would greet you if I were in my own home country of Aotearoa, New Zealand, by acknowledging all of you, by acknowledging the people of this land, and by celebrating your achievements, which we will all benefit from, as expressed in a Maori whakatauki, or proverb. Ko te manu e kai ana I te miro nona te ngahere Ko te manu e kai ana I te matauranga nona te ao. The bird that partakes of the miro berry owns the forest. The bird that partakes of education owns the world.
I also wanted to begin by introducing myself, in part, because I take nothing for granted. In fact, recently I was asked to present at a course for policy makers at another institution whose name I'm told I should not mention while on these hallowed grounds. [laughter and jeers] Let's, for argument's sake, call it Marvard. At the conclusion of the program, the organizers asked students for individual comments on each session including my own, and in the interest of generous transparency, I was then sent that feedback. As I scrolled through the results, I noticed a note at the bottom of the form from an attendee that simply read, “I appreciated the session although I didn't know who she was.”
And so, hello. My name is Jacinda Ardern. And I was, for a time, the prime minister of New Zealand. [cheers and applause] I'm not sure I see that as adequate explanation for my presence here today though. Even as I look over the sea of faces and the unusual hats, which no one has quite managed to explain to me, [laughter] I still find myself wondering, how did I end up here?
That's because politics never felt like it was a given for me, and leadership most certainly didn't. I grew up in a rural, conservative part of New Zealand. My sister and I were the first in our family to go to university. While I was [cheers and applause] while I was interested in politics, I didn't really meet a politician till after I left high school. But I wanted to change the world, or at least help the people who did. So I delivered flyers and knocked on doors, happy that I was helping elect people who would make a difference.
But politics sometimes has a way of propelling you forward. While I never quite said yes to running for parliament, I eventually stopped saying no and at 28 years of age I became an MP.
Then, after nine years in opposition and just seven weeks out from the election, my party leader, the man who was running to be the next prime minister of New Zealand, faced a poll, a poll that told him our party would almost certainly lose. So, he came to work one Tuesday morning, quit, and nominated me to take over. I guess it's not much of a spoiler alert to tell you we went on to win the election, [cheers and applause] I was sworn in as prime minister, and I found out that I was pregnant, all within the space of just three months.
I'll admit though, some days I wonder if I am still in shock. In part, because there was never really any time to just digest this rapid and surprising string of events, and because the six years that followed, came with the same ferocious speed. In amongst the agenda we had of addressing a housing crisis, child poverty and climate change, disaster keep finding its way to our shores. One unimaginable tragedy after another. It's perhaps understandable then that people often ask me about managing crisis, leading through change and dealing with uncertainty.
And yet, perhaps what they don't expect is that I often talk about something else. I talk about imposter syndrome. Because I have had it for it as long as I can remember. Now while imposter syndrome has been described in a multitude of ways over the years, in simple terms, it's a confidence gap.
But I have no doubt, there will be many sitting before me today who don't need a definition of what it can feel like. You already know. If you have ever achieved something and felt discomfort in that moment of adulation, a belief that it was happenstance, that someone else was responsible, that if tested and required to do it again you might fail, then you know.
If you have ever been presented with the opportunity to take on a challenge or a new role, to put to use a skill set that at least others believe you hold and yet your first thought is, “I don't have what it takes,” then you know.
If you have ever stood before a large crowd and wondered, what am I doing here and why the strange hats? Then you know.
But what you may not know, is the thing that has you questioning yourself, the self-doubt and the sensitivity that so often comes with it, the traits that you have tried to hide or shake off, might have a power of their own.
Self-doubt brings with it humility. The humility to know that when a challenge presents itself, you need to understand the problem to the best of your ability. It drives you to seek information, to listen to experts who can teach you and advisors who can guide you.
Early on in my time in office, we faced a major bio security incursion when a disease called Mycoplasma bovis found its way through our borders and into our national herd. When your country has more cows than people, that represents a fairly significant problem. It was the kind of problem I wanted to understand inside and out. And to tackle it, we would need every expert we could access.
We would do the same again, when a pandemic called COVID-19 arrived on New Zealand's shores.
Now while navigating both of these challenges was extremely difficult, and not without cost, I am proud that New Zealand is now on track to be the first country in the world to eradicate M. bovis, and that our approach to COVID saved an estimated 20,000 lives. [cheers and applause]
But maybe it's not doubt, but sensitivity holding you back. A trait you have been taught to hide, especially in leadership, least you be seen as weak. But perhaps, there's no way to hide it. And to do so might just be inhuman.
On the 15th of March 2019, there was a devastating domestic terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, one that took the lives of 51 members of our Muslim community. And in that moment, the people of our country rallied to reject violence and hate, and wrap themselves around the community, sharing openly in their grief. And I joined them.
But empathy is nothing without action, and so 27 days after the attack, we banned the military style semi-automatic weapons that helped wreak such devastation and did so much harm. [cheers and applause]
That sensitivity that you walk through life with, the thing that moves you to tears when you see the pain of others. It can also be what drives you to action. The reason you seek to make change. The thing that motivates you to keep going in difficult or trying circumstances.
In fact, all of those traits that you might have believed your whole life were weaknesses—questioning yourself, the doubt that brings humility, or sensitivity that comes with empathy—may just be what the world needs more of.
And that was to be the main message of my address to you today. The usual “we need you” and “don't doubt yourself” pep talk that perhaps you might expect at this juncture in your life.
But as I sat down to pen these words, that suddenly didn't feel enough. Not when the world over the course of a few short months, moved from tumultuous, to an all-out dumpster fire. Telling you that you should be bold and brave as you move into the world didn't feel like enough.
There's the war in the Middle East and Europe, with both leaving questions over our sense of humanity. The daily reminder of climate change that bangs on our door but falls on deaf ears at the highest echelons of power. Challenges to rules around trade. Increases in migration flows and a decreasing regard for civil rights, and human rights, including the right be who you are. [cheers and applause]
Not to mention an environment rife with mis and disinformation fueling not what I would characterize as polarization, but entrenchment. Views dug down so deeply and held so strongly that they are like pieces of flint, becoming explosive at the slightest touch.
We're living in a time where the small are made to feel smaller and those with power loom large. In the midst of that, why should you listen to platitudes about self-confidence, stepping into the unknown, and leading through doubt and fear from someone who comes from the bottom of the world?
Fair question. And my answer—because it's not just about you. It's about us. [applause]
There is no question that we are at an inflection point in global politics. One that is hot off the back of COVID, the economic disruption that followed, and a deep sense of financial insecurity. I understand the drive to focus in on ourselves, and our own domestic challenges. They are pressing and they are real.
But the world has experienced difficult inflections and the shock of major transitions before. Whether it's been recovering from war, the impact of globalization, or technological advances that have disrupted labor.
What people need in order to weather these storms has changed very little -- shelter, an income safety net, access to health and education. Some of the greatest leaders here in the United States have recognized this. That amongst all of the challenges politicians face, they must meet the most basic needs of their citizens first and foremost.
In fact FDR said in 1944, while still governing a country at war, “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” [applause]
The answers to the political challenges some 80 years ago were not easy, and nor are they now. Policies that make a difference are rarely able to be distilled down into sound bites. Unless of course, you believe the answer is isolation, blame and fear. And perhaps that's why in these times, we see so many reach for them, so quickly.
But in the same way that fear, as a tool of politics, is against our long-term self-interest, so is isolationism. The illusion that closing yourself off from the world somehow means you are simply prioritizing your own people. Because it ignores just how connected we are.
I am a child of the 1980s. An age of big hair, even bigger shoulder pads, and Lycra, often all at once. But it was also a time when two profound lessons about my home’s place in the world presented itself: apartheid in South Africa and nuclear testing in the Pacific. These seemingly distant issues struck a nerve that left a deep and lasting impact.
The Springbok tour, when South Africa's all white rugby team came to play in New Zealand, was a manifestation of the policy of apartheid that New Zealanders deeply opposed. But what the country couldn't decide on, was whether sports was the place to protest politics. The result was a historic period of civil unrest in New Zealand, as the nation fought with deep conviction, over an injustice that was happening 11,000 kilometers away.
Then just a few years later it was nuclear testing that was on the foreign policy agenda. The New Zealand government took a strong stance in opposition to this act. It was our region, our neighbors that were affected by the detonation of these deadly devices. We sent navy frigates into the Pacific to disrupt the French government's testing and declared ourselves nuclear free. The standoff culminated in the bombing of a Greenpeace protest vessel in Auckland harbor by two French spies, and the threat of crippling trade embargoes after New Zealand detained those responsible. Our nuclear-free status also eventually led to the United States removing our status as ally.
As a child, I learned these lessons. Observed them. The moments when you join your friends, but also the moments you stand against them. The lessons that remind you that it's not size, distance, or economic power that should define where you stand, but values. And that includes knowing and understanding just how connected we are. That it's not about you. It's about us.
Now while I have a lot of affinity for the place I have lived for the last two years, especially in Boston where my New Zealand accent doesn't seem quite so pronounced, I am not American. And as such I can never fully appreciate the history, culture or the politics of this place. I am a visitor, and privileged to have been so. And as such, my observation will always be just that.
But one observation is that through time, this nation has been pushed and pulled between a sense of obligation to one's own country and to the world it is a part of.
But each time there is a crisis, a war, infectious disease that grips us, or climate change, we are reminded that these two things are not in fact a trade-off. They are linked. You cannot remain untouched by the impacts of infectious disease. A trade stand-off can never just hurt your competitors. A warming planet does not produce extreme weather that respects borders. And far-flung wars may not take the lives of your citizens, but it will take away their sense of security and humanity.
We are connected. We always have been. [cheers and applause] History has taught us that lesson time and time again, and now our current challenges and crises are reminding us. Not just that we need cooperation to overcome what lies before us, but that we also need the strength of shared values.
When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was presented to the UN, it was one of America's great war time leaders, Secretary Marshall, who cautioned that not only does the systematic and deliberate denial of basic human rights lie at the root of most of our troubles but they have repercussions. Fresh from experiencing the ravages of World War II, he reminded us all that “Governments which systematically disregard the rights of their own people are not likely to respect the rights of other nations and other people, and are likely to seek their objectives by coercion and force in the international field.”
Now more than ever we must restate these lessons of the past. Remind one another that to be outwardly looking is not unpatriotic. To seek solutions to global problems is not a zero-sum game where your nation loses. That upholding a rules-based order is not nostalgic or of another era. And, crucially, that in this time of crisis and chaos, leading with empathy is a strength.
There are some who say that empathy is some kind of threat to Western civilization. There is much I could say to that claim; instead I will say just this. Empathy has never started a war. Never sought to take the dignity of others. And empathy teaches you that power is interchangeable with another word, responsibility. [applause]
And so my platitudes about what we need from each of you at this crossroads still holds. In fact, they are more important now than ever. Because right now, we need the power of your imposter syndrome, because it is also your curiosity and your humility. We need your sensitivity, because it's also your kindness and your empathy. And most of all, we need your sense of duty to your home and to others. We need all of that, because it's about you. And it's about us. [cheers and applause]
Yale University. “Yale College Class Day Exercises.” YouTube video, 1:54:20. May 18, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6SHxyCQtyw