Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown
University of Maryland Eastern Shore Commencement Address
As Prepared for Delivery
Princess Anne, Maryland
December 16, 2011
Congratulations Class of 2011! You did it. Your experience and education from the University of Maryland Eastern shore has prepared you well for the future. This institution has shaped you into what your president refers to as, “men and women of character – grounded in inquiry, thoughtfulness, and culture.” From earning runner-up honors in the Federal Reserve Bank’s 2011 “College Fed Challenge”; to bringing your expertise to agricultural communities in Beliz; to conducting health screenings for local elementary students and running a Toys for Tots drive; and yes—to winning the NCAA Women’s Bowling Championship for the second time in four years (Go Lady Hawks!)—You’ve accomplished a great deal.
What you’ve done, in the years leading to today’s ceremony, took hard work, self-discipline, and sacrifice. As UMES celebrates its 125th year of education, your accomplishments bear witness to the dynamism and diversity of this outstanding land grant institution. For the fourth straight year, because of your achievements, UMES has been ranked in the top tier of America’s black colleges by U.S. News & World Report.
So today is an important day for you to celebrate your accomplishments with your friends and families who, I’m certain, are as proud of you as you are of yourselves—and deserve as much credit as you do.
A few years from now, you will look back on pictures of this day and see younger faces smiling back, dressed in your caps and gowns. But always remember, that today is only the beginning, one picture in a scrapbook or a desktop folder that is ready to be filled with more memories and grander accomplishments.
President Neufville; members of the Board of Regents and the Board of Visitors; faculty, staff, alumni, distinguished guests; family and friends; and to the Class of 2011—thank you for inviting me to share this special day with you. On behalf of Governor O’Malley and his family, as well as mine: Congratulations for a job well done!
Today represents a great achievement, but you are actually just getting started. Your graduation is the beginning of a journey that will shape who you are and what you will do with your life.
Now is the time—if you haven’t already—to figure out what motivates you, to define your life’s goals, and to determine the contributions and the difference that you’ll make in this world.
I remember when I was sitting where you are sitting today. It was 1984.
Ronald Reagan was President and our country was at the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.
I was days away from deploying with the 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division to West Germany (the Berlin Wall had not yet come down), serving with some of the most patriotic men and women that I’d ever met, from all four corners of this country.
I listened to Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Elton John, and Madonna on 33-rpm, 12-inch vinyl records. Does anyone remember those?
During my freshman year, the Space Shuttle Columbia flew the very first shuttle mission.
By my senior year, the Orioles, with “Iron Man” Cal Ripken, were the reigning champions of Major League Baseball and Washington didn’t even have a big-league team.
And here we are in 2011. A piece of the Berlin Wall is now in the Newseum in Washington, DC. I still listen to Stevie and Michael and Elton and Madonna, but now on my iPod—but I need my son and daughter to help me upload the songs. The Space Shuttle program flew its final mission after 30 years and 135 missions, 2 of which ended tragically.
And some say Washington still doesn’t have a big-league team.
Much has happened and changed since I sat where you are sitting today. But even then, just as you are today, we were about to join “the fellowship of educated men and women,” ready to make a difference in the world. And we asked ourselves how.
Since you began your studies here at UMES, many significant and historic events have occurred in our country and around the world.
We witnessed humanity at its most generous, as the world responded to an earthquake that nearly devastated the island country of Haiti.
We welcomed the Arab Spring, in the Middle East and North Africa, led by college students and other activists, using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to protest repression and censorship.
And this year we witnessed a new domestic activism with the Occupy movement.
We cheered the 110th Congress that elected Nancy Pelosi as the first woman Speaker of the House and eighteen months later, history was made again as Barack Obama was elected the first African American President of the United States.
And we endured the Great Recession—the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression—and while technically over, it will continue to challenge many of you as you enter into the work force.
Much has changed, yet one question remains the same: How will your serve your community and our country?
Your generation has been labeled in many ways. Generation Y … the Millennial Generation … Net Generation … But these are only labels that say nothing about who you are, where you’re going and what you’ll do when you get there.
Tom Brokaw already gave the honor of being called the “Greatest Generation” to your grandparents’ generation—the generation that fought in WWII and made our nation the world’s superpower.
Yet, as your children and grandchildren—and the historians, authors and anchors of their time—view you, they will look at what you did with your life.
And I believe they will see greatness from each and every one of you.
It was Dr. King who said: “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve; you don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace … a soul generated by love.”
Your generation is driven by the desire to make a difference. And not just any difference, but a big difference. My hope for you is that you will be inspired by Dr. King’s words and seek to achieve greatness and make a big difference through service.
I grew up in a home where the lesson of service was taught each and every day. My father taught his children that you need to serve others before you get around to serving yourself.
He was raised by his grandmother in a poor community in Kingston, Jamaica. He witnessed disease and sickness as a child ... and much of it was never treated.
When my father graduated high school, all he wanted was to become a doctor. He wanted to heal the sick.
My grandmother wasn’t a wealthy person, but she was a hard-working woman who understood the importance of an education.
She spent most of her working life toiling in the homes of wealthy people: cleaning their toilets, preparing meals for their families, and raising their children.
Yet, my grandmother scraped together enough money to send my father to college.
He attended medical school and for most of his working life, he treated patients in the poorest communities. Every morning I would watch him as he would eagerly head off to the office or the hospital anticipating another day in which he would make a difference in the lives of his patients.
Every evening he would come home and I could see the personal satisfaction he had in knowing that he helped others who were less fortunate than he.
My father shared stories of his patients. Little Jonny who just got his cast removed and would be back on the baseball diamond soon. Mrs. Smith who was responding well to treatment and would soon return to work so that she could continue providing for her family. My father loved his patients.
One day after I had gone off to college, I returned for Thanksgiving break and noticed a filing cabinet in the basement in my parents’ home—the one that I had once seen in my father’s medical office.
Being the curious college freshman that I was—and long before the days of the HIPAA and other privacy protections, I opened that filing cabinet. I noticed the names of many people who my father shared with me and our family around the kitchen table, like little Jonny and Mrs. Smith.
As I dug a little deeper, I noticed that the files were invoices. And many, if not most, of them had never been paid. And it was then—in the first year of college—that I finally and fully realized the lesson that my father had taught me and my brothers and sister as children.
My father spent years seeing patients—evenings and weekends, house calls and hospital rounds—because all he wanted to do was to heal the sick and to serve those in need.
My father dispelled the myth that all medical doctors are wealthy. But what he didn’t earn in money was more than made up for in the difference he made in the lives of his patients. For my father, service is what life is all about.
My father is 87 years old today and still sees patients one day a week.
I followed my father’s footsteps, not in becoming a doctor, but nonetheless by choosing to serve. I chose to serve our country in uniform and later to serve Maryland as a public servant. Because I tried to follow my father’s example.
Each of you must find your own way to answer the call to serve.
Today, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore will confer upon you a degree, but it’s up to you to reach into your heart for grace and to search your soul for love, to serve your neighbors and those around you.
History will look back on your generation, and ask: What difference did you make in this world? How did you serve your neighbor, your community?
And while you may be determined to make a big, meaningful difference in this world, remember the words of Dr. Marian Wright Edelman, who founded the Children's Defense Fund: “We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.”
Meaningful service can be the small daily differences that we make in people’s lives. Joining the prison ministry where you worship and teaching an inmate to read once a week. Volunteering once a month at the women’s shelter to mentor or counsel a young woman on how to interview and dress for a job. Giving blood at the local blood bank every 56 days so that you might save a person whose life depends upon that gift of life.
Remember that acts of service to others are not at odds with your personal ambitions; your self-interest and the common good are not mutually exclusive pursuits.
But in those pursuits don’t allow who you are to be lost to what you do. Never let the title “lawyer,” “politician,” “nurse,” “plumber,” “journalist,” erase the title “mother,” “father,” “brother,” “sister,” “neighbor,” “friend.”
As you make your mark in our world, remember the values that we share. The values that draw upon your childhood and the lessons of our past. For it is these experiences that will help shape your service.
We value hard work, and therefore we should expect each of us to champion a strong work ethic. And although the link between work and reward is not always obvious—and is never guaranteed—it is no less true that our world rewards hard work, and smart work. It’s a fundamental characteristic of our American culture.
We value individuality, and therefore we should expect each of us to cherish and respect the dignity of every individual within our society. Just as a digital photo develops as millions of individual pixels come together into focus, forming a clear picture, our world is clearer when we embrace each individual as an essential part of the larger picture.
We value diversity, and therefore we should expect each of us to promote and celebrate all of its forms.
You are a generation that isn’t defined by ideological labels—that is more open and understanding of different creeds, beliefs, lifestyles and experiences. We will look to you to continue tearing down the manufactured divisions of race, gender, religion, nationality and sexual orientation.
Today we’re calling upon you, as the inheritors of the world that we’ve readied for you, albeit not to perfection, to turn your values, our values, into actions and actions into service. Service that will benefit and improve—if only a little—the world in which we live.
So when you leave here today and tomorrow arrives, I challenge you to ask yourself, how will I choose to serve? How will I make a difference?
Will I work for our government or a non-profit to help bring the Chesapeake Bay back to its pristine form? We need the best and the brightest to protect our environment.
Will I teach in an underperforming school to educate and develop the creative potential of some of our most at risk children? We need the best and the brightest in our classrooms.
Will I establish a small business in the heart of my community and sponsor a little league baseball team?
Will I join the Peace Corps? Will I join the Armed Forces? Will I teach my children by setting a good example of service?
I would be remiss if I left this podium without offering two pieces of personal advice.
My first: Don’t be afraid to fail. The writer Samuel Beckett said, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
You will never learn to succeed or to truly appreciate success unless you’ve ever failed. More than that, you will never learn what you are capable of unless you’ve ever failed. Bill Gates failed to graduate from college—he went on to found the most successful company in our country, Microsoft. J.K. Rowling, with a child and without a job, failed to get her original manuscripts published by twelve publishing houses, but succeeded with the 13th, and like you, I went to the theater this summer and spent $20 on the seventh Harry Potter movie.
My second piece of advice: Life is short—live well.
Don’t forget to take time for yourself and for your family and friends.
Continue to play—in the park, on the court or on the stage.
Stop to smell the roses. Plant a few if you can. Give a few if you know what’s good for you.
Travel and explore your world. You never know what you can find and appreciate right here at home until you’ve discovered what lies out there away from home.
So let me finish by saying good luck Class of 2011. Live well, serve, and be great.
