Nicholas Burns Addresses Massachusetts Graduates

President O’Donnell, President of the Board Pamela Richardson and members of the Board,

Mr. Fernando Reimer of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education; Members of the Mass Bay Foundation; Faculty and Staff, Parents and Friends; and, most importantly, Graduates of 2013; congratulations to all of you for this magnificent ceremony.

Graduations are—always—unfailingly positive and hopeful events and it is truly a special honor to be with you today.

I grew up here in Wellesley and remember well this campus back in the 1960s and 70s—first as a Catholic School—Elizabeth Seton and the Academy of the Assumption—and then as Mass Bay Community College.

For all of you graduating today—I am sure you have a mix of feelings as you await your diplomas— relief that all the exams are over; the bittersweet of leaving; pride in your accomplishment;

You have many people to thank today. Most of all your parents.

Now, here is what Mark Twain said about his father: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my Father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in those seven years!”

So, graduates, now, might be a good time to stand and thank your fathers and your mothers for all they have done for you.

This college is a special place.   Over 100,000 students have studied here before you.  And it is aptly named.  All of them have helped to build our strong and united “Community” here in the Bay State.  The Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics do that—they bind us together as a “Community”, and in the case of the Sox a “Nation”, in New England.

Of all our institutions of higher education, our community colleges are most truly “of the Community”.

You come from Framingham and Natick, Waltham and Ashland, Hopkinton and Medfield, Norwood and Needham, Watertown and Wellesley.  And, when you graduate, most of you stay right here in our community; you work in health care, biotechnology and other leading industries; you create new businesses; you lead us in state and local government; you protect us in our police and fire departments.  You pretty much do everything!

You are a Major part of our proud community here in the Greater Boston area.  That was never more true than during the one event you will be sure to remember from your last month at Mass Bay—the tragedy of the terrorist attack on Patriots Day.  That bombing was a brutal, cynical and savage assault on the innocent people of our community.

It was an affront to everything we value and everything we love—the safety of our community, our daily freedom, the sanctity of human life. We have profound sympathy for all the people who were wounded; and we mourn the loss of three members of our community.

One of them was a guest in our community—Lingzi Lu from China—a student like all of you.  We mourn little eight-year old Martin Richard of Dorchester whose death saddened every one of us.  And, we mourn a member of the Mass Bay community, Krystle Campbell, a graduate of the class of 2005.  How appropriate and how right that Mass Bay will remember her always by establishing the scholarship in her name—a living fund and memorial to a special young woman.

When we reflect on that terrible week in April, our dominant memory is of pain and loss.  We also remember, however, that in the minutes after the attack, our community seemingly rose up as one to help and heal—to turn towards, and not away from, the trouble as so many people have observed.

We learned a lot—a lifetime’s full of lessons, in fact—during that extraordinary week from the bombing on Monday to the lockdown on Friday.

First, we learned a lot about leadership that week.  About how fortunate we are to have some pretty amazing leaders in our community.  From Police Commissioner Ed Davis to Governor Patrick to Mayor Menino.  They were impressive.  They took charge.  They led effectively.  They brought us through the crisis.

Second, we learned a lot about bravery on Patriots Day and again during the lockdown and the chase—the Incredible bravery of our Police and Fire Department leaders.

And, Third, we definitely learned how important it is to be competent—to really know your job and to be excellent at it. Think of the EMS personnel who stabilized the wounded and transported them to our world-class hospitals; And then remember the extraordinary nurses, doctors and staff who saved many lives that day at the Brigham, Children’s; Boston Medical Center, Mass General and elsewhere .

Finally, we also learned that government is not always the problem; in fact, it can often be the answer. The State, the city of Boston, the city of Watertown, the FBI and the White House all pulled our community together.

And they got the job done.

And, when Zhohair Tsernaev was finally apprehended in Watertown, the people of that community cheered the Police. What a memorable moment that was and how deserving that the police were recognized —the mark of a civil society and a strong community.

Of Boston Strong, One Boston, One Community.

The one, certain and lasting result of Patriots Day is that we are not going to be intimidated; We are not going to be afraid. We are determined to build and strengthen our community; And, we will need you, as graduates of the class of 2013, to help lead our Greater Boston community into the future.

Your Mass Bay education will help you to lead.

Because a few years ago, you made a key decision—to invest in your education and in your future. Education is, and has always been, the elevator up in American society; it is the surest path to prosperity and success, to security and to happiness. It will be the most important difference maker in your lives.

And, if you commit to be a life-long learner, it will continue to enrich long after this ceremony today.

Lincoln hoped his own son’s education would teach him “to have faith in his own idea, even if everyone else tells him they are wrong.” He said, “Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself because then he will always have some sublime faith in mankind.”

Some of you were inspired to seek a higher education by the example of your parents and family before you. They showed you the way.

For others, you are the very first in your families to go to college.

And some of you have taken the most extraordinary path of all—you came to America as immigrants and you’ve now taken the essential step in the modern American dream—you graduate today. You will infuse us with new energy, new spirit, new hope. Every time an immigrant arrives on our shores, he or she renews the American dream.

Two of my grandparents came here as teenagers from Ireland. Every person here has a unique story—we all came from somewhere else around the globe to build our unique national community here in the United States of America. Together, immigration and education unite to make us stronger.

That is why it is essential that the Congress pass an Immigration Bill this year that will keep our doors open for young people to chase the American Dream. That dream is at the heart of our community—no matter our religion, our race, our ethnicity—we are all members of the American community.

E Pluribus Unum.  Out of many, one.

One people, One Nation, One Community.

The immigrant tradition in America is vital for another reason---it connects us indelibly to the rest of the world. It reminds us that we are linked to the seven billion people in 195 countries that comprise the human race today.

So, as you graduate, you are, in this one sense, different from every other generation in our history.

The America that you will lead after Mass Bay will be more integrated, more connected to the rest of the world through globalization than at any other time in our history. A great many jobs in America depend on our ability to export our products to the rest of the world.

Our Farmers depend increasingly on export markets on every continent. Our manufacturing industries need to sell their products to consumers in Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

Every song we write here, every athletic feat, every iPhone engineered, every cancer drug imagined send ripples of America out to the rest of the world to every country on every continent.

And, the reverse is true, as well as we are richer for the music, traditions and products of the wider world beyond our shores. In fact, never before in human history have the fates of individual human beings been so inextricably linked as they are today.

That is why our education and our work has to be based on a deep knowledge and awareness of other cultures, other peoples, other religions and traditions. Our kids, increasingly, will need to learn Spanish, and Mandarin, and Arabic and Hindi.

We’ll need to work in common cause with people all around the world to conquer Climate Change; combat trafficking of human beings, defeat the drug and crime cartels, vanquish terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

And, we can work with people around the world on the hopeful things too—to lift people out of poverty in China and India and here at home. To cure polio and malaria in the next few decades—that is possible with your leadership. To create a future of energy independence for North America.

Fifty years ago next month, President John F. Kennedy, in a commencement speech at the American University in Washington D.C., said something really profound, moving, insightful and important.

When he spoke the following words a half century ago, it was if he was describing our world today, of fifty years later, for you--the graduates of 2013;

Here is what he said about the importance of being connected peacefully to others around the world:

“For in the final analysis, we all share this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s future, and we are all mortal.”

So, as you graduate today, go out and make our community strong. Keep America great and powerful. Seek the “newer world” that the poet Tennyson saw in his dreams. Take care of the sick and elderly. Help the poor. Build a strong economy here in Massachusetts. Make this a safer, more peaceful, more hopeful world.

For we are not a collection of lonely, isolated people disconnected from each other here in Boston. We are a commonwealth here in Massachusetts—a true community of villages, towns and cities. We support each other. We live and work to build our free and democratic civil society.

Four centuries later, we still remember the vision of the Pilgrim leader, John Winthrop, to build the “City on a Hill” here in Massachusetts.

And so, from this campus today, from this Hill in Wellesley, go out and make us proud.

Congratulations to all the graduates for your hard work, your perseverance and the great accomplishment of receiving your diploma today.

We wish you the best of happiness and success.

And, we look forward to your many accomplishments as you live and write the history of our time here in our great community of Massachusetts Bay.

Thank you very much.