A Calling to Service, Courage and Grace

Thank you, Dr. Jackson, for that very kind introduction.

Its a real privilege and honor to be with you as we celebrate the Bethune-Cookman University
class of 2017! Congratulations to all of you!

In addition to the graduates, there are so many people deserving of special recognition today:
parents, grandparents, family members and friends of the graduates, thank you for your effort in
helping them get to this point. First Lady Florence Jackson, Chairman Petrock and Members of the
Board, Provost Walrond and members of the administrative staff and faculty, and the entire Bethune-
Cookman community, thank you for the important role you all play in making today possible for these
students.

Mayor Henry, thank you for those encouraging words, and thank you and the other state and local
elected officials for being here today.

AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak with you, and particularly with those who have disagreed
with the invitation for me to be here. One of the hallmarks of higher education, and of democracy, is
the ability to converse with and learn from those with whom we disagree.

And while we will undoubtedly disagree at times, I hope we can do so respectfully. Lets choose to
hear each other out.

I want to re-affirm this Administrations commitment to and support for HBCUs and the students they
serve. Please know this: we support you, and we will continue to support you. That is one reason
why we support restoring year-round Pell Grants. This commonsense solution will enable more
students to further their educations without taking on additional debt.

I am at the table fighting on your behalf, and on behalf of all students across this great nation.

I also want to acknowledge that we all arrived here today with different life experiences and different
perspectives. I view that not as a negative, but as a gift.

Anytime we meet someone new, we have two options: we can focus on differences that might divide
us, or we can choose to listen, to be receptive and to learn from others experiences and
perspectives. In my life, I have endeavored to do the latter, and as you leave this arena today, I hope
you too, will chose this posture as you set out on this new and exciting stage of your lifes adventure.
I am here to celebrate you and all of your achievements. We are all here to applaud your
perseverance and to encourage each of you to keep working to reach your full potential. And Im
here to demonstrate, in the most tangible way I know how, that I and the entire Administration are
fully committed to your success and to the success of every student across this great country.

That commitment to success is one I know I share with your President, Dr. Edison Jackson.

Dr. Jackson has long focused on creating opportunities for students and is an authentic advocate for
lifelong learning. Each of you who has had occasion to interact with or work alongside Dr. Jackson
knows he has a profound, deep-seeded faith and an abiding belief in the transformational power of
character, moral courage and purpose.

Dr. Jackson, thank you for your daily work to secure and make available a life-changing education for
the students you serve. Your career is a personal inspiration to me, and it is the embodiment of B-
CUs motto: Enter to Learn; Depart to Serve.

A CALL TO SERVE

Graduates, you have heeded the first charge in that motto, and today stand at the interval preceding
the second. I challenge you to leave this arena, faithful to completing the mission. The words are
simple, yet powerful: depart to serve.

It is good and right to pause today to celebrate your individual successes, but after that reflection, I
am confident you will find service more rewarding than anything else. In serving, you will always reap
more than you sow.

The degree conferred on you today is the culmination of time, energy and effort invested and
knowledge, experience and skills gained. However, the sum of your education here involved far more
than sleepless nights spent cramming for a big exam, hours invested putting the finishing touches on
papers, and time devoted to clubs, organizations and causes. The whole of your time at Bethune-
Cookman University your experiences, your relationships and your hard work has laid a
foundation for you to appreciate your responsibilities to your peers, your community, your country
and the world.

Today you transition from student to graduate. What may have seemed an eternity away the moment
you walked onto campus is now standing before you. Youll leave this place as the leaders who will
transform the world.

The tomorrow for which youve worked so hard to prepare has arrived, and its yours to shape. Your
actions will determine the type of world you create, enjoy and leave to your children and
grandchildren.
I posit that a fundamental component in that pursuit to shape your world can be found in personal
service.

You may choose to give back by mentoring or volunteering. You may pour your life into creating
equal opportunities for all, pursuing justice, tackling the toughest medical challenges, educating the
rising generation, donning our Nations uniform to protect and defend our freedoms or making a
discovery on the cutting edge of science, technology or engineering.

I know BCU has prepared each of you well for these tasks. The human heart is hardwired toward
service, and its embedded in the DNA of this institution.

No doubt you know Dr. Mary McLeod Bethunes amazing story very well, but let me share some of it
for those beyond this hall who dont. She was a visionary, a leader I admire and respect, and
someone about whom all Americans should know.

As one of 17 children born to parents who knew firsthand the horrors and injustice of slavery, Dr.
Bethune was the only member of her family to be educated in a formal school setting. For her,
education was a gift and an incredible privilege. She believed it was her sacred duty to use her
education to uplift others.

So in 1904, with a burning determination in her soul and a meager dollar-fifty in her pocket, Dr.
Bethune built a school from the ground up. Over the course of her incredible 79-year lifespan, she
fought for one singular and invaluable goal: to provide African-American children access to a quality
education, access they were otherwise unjustly denied.

Her commitment to service is what has brought us together today. This inspired daughter of slaves
refused to accept repulsive and systemic racism. She moved mountains, changing the lives and
futures of countless students and families across generations.

Just think about the impact of Dr. Bethunes selfless, singular focus. Then consider the influence that
you, as a graduate, could have on the lives of others both now and into the future. All that is
required for world-shaking change is your conscious and courageous decision to serve. Your path
here was shaped by others educators, parents, family members, neighbors and friends. Never
forget that. Through serving others, you can extend that legacy.

A CALL TO COURAGE

Later today I will have the honor of visiting Dr. Bethunes home and paying my respects at her
gravesite. I am moved by words in her last will and testament, where Dr. Bethune described what she
hoped her legacy would be.
The beautifully written testament cited love, hope and a thirst for education as the ideals she wanted
people to embrace in her memory. She concluded with a section titled A Responsibility to our Young
People, and made clear her unshakeable belief that the worlds fate belonged to the youth she
dedicated her entire life to serving. In it, she wrote:

Our children must never lose their zeal for building a better world. They must not be discouraged
from aspiring toward greatness, for they are to be the leaders of tomorrow. Nor must they forget that
the masses of our people are still underprivileged, ill-housed, impoverished and victimized by
discrimination. We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change
old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.

I note three core themes in her words:

First: aim high, aspire to greatness. Dr. Bethune believed, without wavering, that your potential is
limitless.

Second: take responsibility for your families and your communities and never tolerate inequality or
injustice.

Third: proceed with courage to change old ideas that hold others back.

These are charges and encouragements I echo to each of you today. Dr. Bethune believed
students you had an unlimited potential to affect positive change, and with good reason. Shed
done it herself.

As you leave, each of you will be called to embody courage in different ways and to rise to different
challenges. The way you answer those calls will determine not just the future of you and your homes,
but of your communities, this great nation and your world.

Your university serves as a reminder that every student, without exception, deserves a high-quality
education.

Some of you graduates are the first in your families to earn a college degree, and some of you have
overcome incredible personal hardships to reach this day.

Deondre Jamal Sanstad was the victim of an accidental shooting after his freshman year. His doctor
told him he would never walk again, but Deondre had different plans. Not only did he resume his
studies, he poured himself into his rehabilitation and got back on his feet. Today, Deondre stands tall
among you as a candidate to receive his degree, and is already taking the next steps to pursue an
MBA.
CaNetta General never really thought about attending college before landing at BCU as a non-
traditional student. But with help from the Palm Beach Urban League, she found her passion for
helping others through radio and television. This discovery fueled her confidence and commitment to
her studies, as her ambitions soared. CaNetta became involved with 14 organizations and
numerous other campus activities and today is an accomplished mass communications graduate.

Jahlil Yuzell Witt is graduating today with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, with a concentration
in Marketing.

Jahlil was born to a single mother who struggled with drug addiction. At a very young age he entered
the foster care system, where he was subjected to a never-ending cycle of neglect and abuse.
Despite the extraordinary challenges he faced throughout his upbringing, he exceled at his studies at
B-CU and went on to become Mr. B-CU, Mr. Sophomore, and he even developed a motivational
program called From Blocks to Books dedicated to inspiring and empowering young people. Jahlil
also writes and performs music. After graduation, he plans to relocate to Atlanta to pursue his dream
of starting a record label.

Each of these students stories is one of courage. These stories speak to how BCU rises to meet the
unique needs of every student it serves. We should aspire to make all of Americas educational
institutions mirror that model a singular focus on the needs of individual students.

Our nation has made remarkable progress since Dr. Bethune founded this University, but addressing
inequities in our education system remains a very real challenge. Empowering students with the
opportunity to pursue the best possible education has been my focus for the past three decades.
America is simply too great a country to deny any child this equal opportunity.

Your courage will be needed to confront this challenge as you raise families, pursue careers and
lead in communities across the nation. I hope each of us will leave here today challenged to ensure
no child is denied the benefits of a quality education.

Many of you have already shown courage in this regard by pursuing teaching as a vocation. I want to
take a moment to highlight and honor each of you who are graduating from the College of Education.

Not coincidentally, this is National Teacher Appreciation Week. I hope each of you will take a moment
to reach out and thank a teacher who was impactful in your life many of them no doubt with us
here today. I expect many of you are here in part because, somewhere along the line, a teacher went
out of his or her way to make sure you succeeded.

Please join me now in personally thanking and applauding each of you who have served, serve or
will serve, as an educator.

A CALL TO GRACE
Education broadens our horizons and enables us to confront realities wed never before anticipated.

We should welcome these opportunities with open arms. We should embrace the chance to grow
and to serve. We should pursue these opportunities with humility, with perseverance and with grace.

That is my final challenge to you: approach the unanticipated, the unexpected, the unforeseen with
grace.

Spend just a few minutes watching your favorite cable news channel and youll experience the
startling polarization happening across the United States. On social media, groups and individuals pit
themselves one against the other, not to discuss and debate the merits of deeply held beliefs, but to
see who can yell the loudest, score the quickest political points or best silence the others voice.

The natural instinct is to join in the chorus of conflict, to make your voice louder, your point bigger
and your position stronger. But we will not solve the significant and real problems our country faces if
we cannot bring ourselves to embrace a mindset of grace. We must first listen, then speak with
humility to genuinely hear the perspectives of those with whom we dont immediately or
instinctively agree.

These verses from Colossians have been a guide for me: Be wise in the way you act toward
outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation always be full of grace,
seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Those words are as relevant today as when they were first imparted.

They are exhortations with the power to transform our approach to life, our commitment to our
neighbors and our discourse with one another.
Elie Wiesel, who survived the horrors of Auschwitz, put it well: For me, every hour is grace. And I
feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.

I will admit many in my generation havent done a great job when it comes to dealing with one
another in grace. You have an opportunity to do better, to lead the way towards a new era of
engagement in our communities.

IN CONCLUSION

You leave this place today with many obligations, but I hope youll consider the three challenges Ive
presented:

A call to service.

A call to courage.
And a call to grace.

Years from now when someone asks you, Why do you serve? you can respond, Because a great
woman a great leader a great American Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune inspired me.

When you face the challenges of your day, you can say, I was courageous because Dr. Bethune
showed me the way.

And when some pursue dissention, you can engage in debate with grace and poise, just as Dr.
Bethune did.

Each of you has a story of your own, waiting to be written. You make us proud and more than that,
you give us hope.

You have achieved something special today. I am humbled by the opportunity to be with you, to
share in this momentous occasion in your life, to cheer on your past and continued success.

Congratulations, and may God continue to bless our nation, Bethune-Cookman University and each
of you, the Class of 2017.