Commencement/Baccalaureate Address / page 21

Gloria Steinem
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Wellesley College - May 27, 1988
May 27, 1988
I am honored to share this day with all of the Class of 1988, and I will always remember it. On the other hand, you may not remember it at all. To insert a note of realism here, I don't remember one single thing about my commencement speaker, or what she said, or what he said. Instead of one theme that might exclude many people, I'm going to be diverse in the hope of coming up with a sentence or two that might be more useful to more people. Each […]
Laura Bush
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Southern Methodist University - May 16, 2009
May 16, 2009
Thank you, Dr. Turner, for your kind introduction. Thank you for inviting me—I'm happy to join each of you for this special day. Thank you to the distinguished faculty, members of the Board of Trustees, alumni, parents, and families for your very warm welcome. Most of all, thank you and congratulations to the SMU Class of 2009. Today we celebrate nearly 2,000 graduates from 7 schools and 173 majors—representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 102 foreign countries. We congratulate your parents and families and teachers, […]
Blanche Lambert Lincoln
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Randolph-Macon Women's College - 2000
May 27, 2000
Good morning and thank you so much. To you graduates, this is a very awesome task that I have. As I stand here before you, but also the faculty, who carefully instructed me as I walked down in the procession that they only remembered my involvement and not my grades. I was very pleased to hear that. But it is a delightful morning, a wonderful morning for me to be here to join you. It is a great honor for me to be here today and it is also with […]
Maya Angelou
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Smith College - May 17, 1980
May 17, 1980
I am honored that you have asked me to participate with you in such an important rite of passage—your most important rite of passage—and certainly your first as an adult. I am honored because I know that this particular ceremony will furnish you with friends and memories that you will carry through the rest of your lives. You will be influenced later on, you will go on to get another degree and another, and many of you will be honored by kings and presidents—and queens I pray. But this one […]
Marian Wright Edelman
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Oberlin College - May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015
It is a great honor to share this day of accomplishment, celebration, and transition at this great college with your trustees, President, faculty, families, and most importantly with what I am sure is the best graduating class in Oberlin’s history. Oberlin’s great abolitionist history makes me wonder how much closer America’s dream would be towards becoming America’s reality today if your admissions policies for African American citizens and women had been adopted by other colleges and universities in their beginning years. We are living in a time of unbearable dissonance […]
Gwen Ifill
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Simmons College - May 15, 2009
May 15, 2009
Thank you. Leave it to Simmons to make me cry just before I have to speak. Both of you – than you and congratulations. I could not be more pleased to be anywhere that I am right here today. I feel such affection for you and I wish you such good things. Sending another class of Simmons graduates off into the sheer terror of the current employment market – it just fills me up. I look at you and I see excitement and anticipation and nervousness and a little bit […]
Condoleezza Rice
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Southern Methodist University - May 12, 2012
May 12, 2012
Thank you very, very much. Thank you, President Turner, for that wonderful introduction. Thank you to the chairman of your Board of Trustees, Caren Prothro, and to the faculty. Thank you for what you have done to prepare these young people for what lies ahead. To family and friends, and most especially to the graduates of the class of 2012, congratulations to you. It’s great to be here in Mustang country. It’s wonderful to be back in Dallas and to join you for this splendid ceremony. I do know that […]
Wilma Mankiller
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Northern Arizona University - Dec. 18, 1992
December 18, 1992
I ran into someone at the hotel this morning who asked me about how to address me since my credit card has "Wilma Mankiller, Principal Chief." I think some people still have a little trouble identifying with a female principal chief. It reminded me of the first time I had to address this issue. I went to a very prestigious eastern college to do a panel on Indian economic development, and this young man picked me up at the airport to take me to the university. He asked me, "Since […]
Condoleezza Rice
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Stanford University - June 16, 2002
June 16, 2002
It is really wonderful to be back in Palo Alto on this glorious day. This is the first Stanford commencement I've attended since 1999 and I know that a lot has changed since then. But it's awfully good to see that the Wacky Walk is not one of the things that has changed! President John Hennessy. Provost Etchemendy. Former Presidents Casper, Kennedy and Lyman. Members of the Board of Trustees. Fellow faculty members. Distinguished guests. To all the family and friends out there -- without whom today would not be […]
Hillary Rodham Clinton
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate Address, Speeches
Commencement Address at Barnard College - May 18, 2009
May 18, 2009
Thank you so much. I am thrilled to be here and to participate in this important commencement of this great university, the great college, because I, too, am a graduate of a woman's college and I think it's the best investment that I and my parents ever made. It is my honor therefore to join you in celebrating, and I want to congratulate all of the student speakers who I thought did an excellent job in expressing the feelings and the aspirations of this class. I am honored to be […]