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ANNOUNCER: Please welcome the December 2023 graduates of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
[APPLAUSE]
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE MARCH NO. 1" PLAYING]
Please welcome the faculty of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
And please welcome Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy Program Directors, Senior Associate Dean Gustavo Flores Macias, and Dean Colleen Barry.
GUSTAVO FLORES MACIAS: My name is Gustavo Flores Macias. I'm a Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Brooks School of Public Policy. I'm truly honored to welcome you all to the Brooks School Commencement Ceremony. I hope that you're having a wonderful weekend.
We're gathered to celebrate the achievements, success, and bright futures of our Brooks School December 2023 graduates.
[APPLAUSE]
We wish to acknowledge that Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the [INAUDIBLE] Cayuga Nation. The [INAUDIBLE] are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. That confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York State, and the United States of America.
We acknowledge the painful history of [INAUDIBLE] dispossession and honor the ongoing connection of [INAUDIBLE] people past and present, to these lands and waters.
Before I introduce the Dean, I would like to offer a special thanks to the Brooks School commencement team, who arranged this wonderful celebration and to the Brooks School staff who have volunteered to make our graduation ceremony possible. Please join me in thanking them.
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Now, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce Dean Coleen Barry. Professor Coleen Barry is the Dean of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. She's a nationally and internationally recognized research scholar, educator, and leader.
Dr. Barry's research focuses on improving the health and well-being of the population through evidence-based policy. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Social Insurance. As the founding dean, Professor Barry has an influential role in building Cornell's newest school into one of international prominence. Please join me in welcoming Dean Barry to the podium.
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COLLEEN BARRY: Congratulations, graduates of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. It is wonderful to be here with you today and your loved ones to celebrate all that you have achieved. As we congratulate you, our graduates, I want to also thank those who have contributed to making this day possible.
First, congratulations to the proud family members and friends who are here today and who have contributed to making this day possible. Also, I want to thank those among your family members and friends who are not here with us today. Graduates, join me in thanking your loved ones for everything they have done to support you to reach this day.
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Let's also acknowledge our wonderful program directors, faculty, and our incredibly talented staff who have dedicated themselves to supporting you to thrive in your studies. Join me now in thanking them.
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And of course, I want to express my gratitude to our volunteers and our commencement organizers. Thank you all.
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Graduates, as you set off on this next exciting phase of your lives, I anticipate that you will take with you much of what you've learned in our classes. I hope you will also carry forward some sense of the core values of Cornell.
They are purposeful discovery, exploration across boundaries, free inquiry and expression, the nurturing of a community of belonging, respect for the natural world, and changing lives through public engagement.
We have aimed to thread these values through your experience at Cornell. And I would offer that these same values may be worth considering as you move forward into the next phase of your lives and your careers. Let me say a word about each.
The first is purposeful discovery. This is a very academic idea. Yet a willingness to inquire, to probe, and openness to being a lifelong learner sets the foundation, I think, for an endlessly fascinating life. Leave the classroom behind with this graduation celebration.
But I hope your openness to and embrace of discovery will continue. This connects closely to Cornell's second core value, exploration across boundaries. Ezra Cornell embraced a vision that we would be a place to find instruction in any study.
At the Brooks School, we've been committed to the notion that, in fact, the most significant problems we face as a global society cannot be solved within the bounds of a single scholarly discipline. Making meaningful change in our complex world requires us all to become boundary spanners.
You may find it strange that on this day, the day you're receiving your Cornell degree, your dean is encouraging you not to be constrained by it. That is exactly what I'm doing. You are being credentialed today by Cornell. But I don't want you to ever feel bound by it.
Our main goal has always been to train you to be critical, creative thinkers. Cornell's third core value is free inquiry and expression, not an abstract notion today on our college campus, a lightning rod even on the front pages of our newspapers and debated at dinner tables, including my own, around our country.
At their best, universities are vital institutions for protecting and advancing democratic principles, including the free expression of ideas, even those we disagree with. And schools like ours have a unique role to play in doing this work. This core notion was underscored for me during my own university study abroad experience in Chile at the age of 20.
This was a time when that country was just emerging from years of the Pinochet dictatorship. As a study abroad student, I learned firsthand the important role of universities in Chile in challenging censorship and combating political retribution. Universities and their faculties were among the first to be attacked, along with other institutions of democracy, like the free press, serving as early warning beacons of trouble ahead.
In Chile during the dictatorship, university faculty experienced state censorship, were dismissed from their posts, were arrested, and among the ranks of thousands of the disappeared. The idea of the university as frontline defense of free inquiry and expression had a profound and lasting effect on me.
And I was reminded of this again last year when Cornell matriculated a cohort of young women fleeing Afghanistan, seeking to educate themselves. At their very best, universities like Cornell can be the drivers, the mediators, and the critics of a continuously changing society. We do not do this perfectly.
Sometimes we stumble. At times we may be guilty of imperfectly applying our principles. Yet we continue to strive to live up to the notion that we can counter speech with which we vehemently disagree with more speech and that civil discourse matters. As you leave Cornell, I encourage you to seek out as many opportunities as you can to develop your voice and your views to engage in respectful discourse and also to hone your listening skills.
It is easy to be righteous and harder to acknowledge that we all have things that we can learn from one another. Cornell's fourth core value is contributing to a community of belonging. Think back across your time as a student at Cornell. Who have you helped, supported, made to feel more at home during these years of study?
How have you contributed to making Cornell, your degree program, The Brooks School more welcoming? And how can you take that same nurturing of belonging into the next phase of your careers? Let me return again to Cornell's founding idea of instruction of any person in any study.
Intrinsic in this is the idea of creating belonging that bridges people who have very different life experiences. You have observed and experienced this as you've gotten to know the other students in your programs. As you move forward in your lives, I hope you'll continue to take time to create communities of belonging that allow you to engage meaningfully with people with whom your lives and perspectives differ.
The fifth core value of Cornell is respect for the natural world. Being here surrounded by the beauty of the Finger Lakes even on this chilly, but not snowy day, we are reminded of the importance of preserving and protecting our environment. At the Brooks School, we have prioritized environmental and sustainability policy as a core area we will grow in in the years ahead.
As alums, you should hold us to that commitment. A few of you came here to Cornell to study environmental policy. For the rest of you, I would still ask, are there ways you can contribute to the sustainability, the biodiversity, or simply the beauty of the world that we're living in?
Finally, Cornell's sixth core value is changing lives through public engagement. This commitment to engagement with the world reflects the land grant mission of Cornell University. And it's core to what schools like ours should be all about. At the Brooks School, we have established public engagement as one of our three core founding pillars.
In every phase of your careers, I encourage you to ask yourself, as I ask myself, how is what I'm doing today contributing in a concrete way to making the world a better place? When I was considering whether to accept this job as inaugural dean just a couple of years, ago, I actually took the time to look up and read Cornell's core values.
It mattered to me whether the university's values resembled my own. I share them with you, graduates, for a reason. Management guru, Peter Drucker, extolled the virtues of having a mission statement to guide one's career, a simple statement that speaks to what you're all about. I might suggest a core value statement.
Your core values may change at different stages of your life and your career. And that in itself is fascinating to observe. Before I end, I want to say a word about your time here as Brook School students. You are among our very first graduates. When you started at Cornell, depending on the length of your degree, the school either hadn't been established yet or it was just getting off the ground.
It's amazing to me to think about how much has changed in this short time. I hope you feel the same pride I do to have been here at the very beginning. It is not often that an Ivey League University decides to start a brand new school. We are part of something special.
The Brooks School will be here in 100 years, long after all of us are gone. Institutions endure. And the founding ideas and values of the people who were here at the start matter. All of you, our Brooks School graduates, have contributed to our founding years. And you will continue to do so through your achievements as Cornell alums.
We have prepared you for this important work ahead to improve people's lives, to reduce suffering in the world, and to make the world more prosperous, civil, equitable, and healthier. As you do this work, you will be living up to the investment made in you by your professors, and coaches, and faith leaders, and your families.
I want to close with an invitation. In the years ahead, come back and spend time on our beautiful campus. Cornell and the Brooks School will always be your home. Watch how we grow and change. Resist the urge to feel sad about that change, but rather take it for what it is, progress.
Take advantage of the opportunity to visit and check in with your professors and our staff to experience how proud they are of what you're doing with your lives. There is no greater pleasure for us than to watch you thrive in your careers. Find ways to stay connected to your classmates. They offer a powerful network.
Become mentors to future classes of Brooks School students. Come back again to Willard Straight Hall, this building with so much complicated history. And remember this day, your graduation day, what it took to get here, what you accomplished through your course of study, and how you used your degree to make the world a better place.
Feel proud of yourself and know that we are very proud of you. Congratulations to each of you, our Cornell Brooks School graduates. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
GUSTAVO FLORES MACIAS: Thank you, Dean Barry. This time, I would like to call your attention to the awards and honors listed in the program. Congratulations to those graduates. And we will now present the Brooks School December 2023 graduates. Graduates, please follow the guidance of our staff to walk across the stage and receive your certificate.
A photographer will take photos of each graduate after they are congratulated by Dean Barry. We ask all guests to remain in your seats during the awarding of the degrees. We will present the students receiving their degrees grouped by program in the following order; Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Policy, Bachelor of Science in Policy Analysis and Management, Executive Master of Health Administration, Executive Master of Public Administration, and Master of Public Administration.
I would now like to introduce Professor Sharon Sassler, Director of Undergraduate Studies, who will lead us in honoring our graduates with Bachelor of Science degrees.
SHARON SASSLER: [READING NAMES]
Please join me in round of applause for both our Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Policy graduates and our Bachelor of Science in Policy Analysis and Management graduates.
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Next, Professor Sean Nicholson, Director of the Sloan Program, will introduce the Executive Master of Health Administration graduates.
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SEAN NICHOLSON: [READING NAMES]
Please join me in a round of applause for our Executive Master of Health Administration graduates.
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Next, Professor Matt Hall, Director of the Master of Public Administration Program, will introduce the Executive Master of Public Administration and Master of Public Administration degree graduates.
MATT HALL: [READING NAMES]
Please join me in a round of applause for our Executive Master of Public Administration and Master of Public Administration graduates.
[APPLAUSE]
I would now like to welcome Dean Colleen Barry back to the podium.
COLLEEN BARRY: It is my great honor to present the graduating class of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Please join me in congratulating our graduates.
[APPLAUSE]
Now, please stand as you are able to join our graduates in the singing of the Cornell Alma Mater. You will find the words in your program.
Far above Cayuga's waters with its waves of blue, stands our noble Alma Mater glorious to view. Lift the chorus, speed it onward, loud her praises tell. Hail to thee, our Alma Mater! Hail, all hail Cornell!
Far above the busy humming of the bustling town, reared against the arch of heaven look she proudly down. Lift the chorus, speed it onward, loud her praises tell. Hail to thee our Alma Mater! Hail, all hail Cornell!
[APPLAUSE]
Celebrate the achievements of our Brooks School graduates, alongside Deans and faculty members, with the reading of our graduates' names.
