University of New Hampshire Commencement 2005 Remarks
Dr. Ann Weaver Hart
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us for the 135th commencement of the University of New Hampshire. Before we proceed with this year’s celebration of achievements and in honor of the year just past and our commencement speaker today, I have a small wardrobe adjustment to make. [changes hats]
I am honored to welcome you on this auspicious occasion. This is the day that we join together to celebrate our graduates’ achievements and wish them well as they embark upon new journeys of discovery and purpose.
Today, we recognize more than 2,400 graduates. Forty-two of you have earned Ph.Ds; 430 have earned master’s degrees; three will receive certificates of graduate study; 1,810 are baccalaureate degree recipients. You represent students from more than 110 different majors. You range in age from 20 to 61 and hail from 35 states and 20 countries. Whether you are from Morocco or Massachusetts, Nepal or Newmarket, Kenya or Keene, I am confident that your University of New Hampshire experience will serve you well as you begin your new lives as alumni of the University of New Hampshire and citizens of the world. Congratulations to each of you.
You have enormous opportunities ahead of you. And you have awesome responsibilities. The world has changed dramatically in the four years since most of you experienced the shock of the attacks on New York and Washington less than two weeks into the beginning of your college educations. In addition to daunting political challenges, you are the heirs of stewardship over a world brimming with technological innovations that provide remarkable access to information that is both instantaneous and without boundary. Globalization in technology, finance, politics, the arts, and popular entertainment shapes our lives.
Some examples of the remarkable changes that have taken place in the 30 years since the establishment of the Internet: The average desktop computer today puts more computing power in the hands of consumers than the U.S. Government first used to send men to the moon.(1) We have come a long way from the massive mainframe technology of years past to ever smaller, faster, more powerful devices. Right here, at UNH, scientists have transported the three billion letters that make up the human genome on an iPod.
How many of you today have your cell phones with you? How many of you have used them to take photos this morning? That looks just about right. Fifty million cell phone owners in the U.S. today are younger than 25.(2) And, in the United Kingdom there are now more mobile phones than there are people.(3)
New York Times reporter Thomas L. Friedman has called the Internet the “pinnacle of democratization of information.” Everyone now has a voice that can be heard around the world. Truly, all the world is a stage. Blogs are the new wild, wild West of communication, and some of you have probably already produced and aired your own radio podcasts.
While these technological advancements enhance our experience, the onslaught of information (and disinformation) can be overwhelming. Your University of New Hampshire education has prepared you well to respond with critical and insightful minds. You have learned how to think without your computers and how to communicate without your cell phones. And you have benefited from being a part of a great public university that is grounded by its mission of teaching, research, and outreach to the wider community.
Along with the newfound freedom that the globalization of information brings, must come an unwavering commitment to uphold the highest standards, as more than ever before, our personal values will be virtually on our sleeves for all to see. The worldwide competition will be tremendous as young people from the United States, China, India, Russia, and Eastern Europe “plug and play—connect, collaborate and compete—more easily and cheaply than ever before.”(4)
As graduates you have the best of two worlds: you are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and values of a UNH education and you have the fabulous technological tools that will help you to define your unique place on the globe. I urge you to make the most of both and to approach the world with compassion. President Jimmy Carter once said, “A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others.” You are prepared to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained and to take these qualities with you into a future that you will shape for all of us.
(1) Personal Computing: Then and Now the PC Evolution from the 1981 Debut of the IBM Personal Computer to the Extended PC Era Today, http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/20th_anniversary/20th_anniversary_backgrounder.pdf
(2) Eric Gwinn, “Americans are Top Spenders,” http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/ chi-0504130376apr14,1,5062053.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
(3) Iain Thomson, “UK now has more mobiles than people,” http://www.vnunet.com/news/1162891
(4) Thomas L. Friedman, “Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/opinion/13friedman.html
