Garry Trudeau, creator of the Doonesbury comic strip, once said that commencement remarks and speeches were invented in the belief that college students who are about to graduate should not be released into the world until they have been properly sedated. It is not likely that you will remember a lot of what I and others say today, so I will try not to say a lot but perhaps focus on the important.

First, and most important, I would like to extend my best wishes to everyone receiving a degree today.  Congratulations!   This is truly a day to celebrate. It is a day to celebrate the perseverance and hard work of the graduates.  And it is a day to celebrate the support of friends and family who have helped to make your achievements possible. Please join me in expressing heartfelt appreciation for those, some of whom are here today, who have stood with you in pursuit of a dream symbolized by today’s commencement ceremony.

Commencement is also a milestone for NJIT faculty and staff as well.  And so it is a privilege to recognize those whose hard work, efforts, and concern for our students is the foundation of what our graduates have achieved at NJIT, and the great things they will surely accomplish in the future.  Please join me recognizing NJIT’s faculty and staff for their contributions to your success.  

The great essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.” That statement reflects the spirit of NJIT as a university dedicated to education, discovery, and innovation in an extraordinary array of scientific and technological disciplines.  Whether you choose to enter the workplace or to continue your education, you have been well prepared at NJIT to go where there are no familiar paths, and do not hesitate to go there.

Be inspired by the NJIT graduates who have blazed trails before you, and who have found innovative ways to create dramatic improvements in the quality of life for the people of our nation.  Today, these trails are being blazed in fields as diverse as materials science, telecommunications, biomedical engineering, transportation, and community development, to name a few.  But these fields also extend to distant frontiers.   Tom Myrick, who graduated from NJIT in 1984, is chief engineer at the company that designed the rock abrasion tool for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.  That tool, now in use on Mars, is key to studying the geologic history of that planet, and to searching for evidence that abundant water and possibly life may have existed there.

As NJIT graduates, many of you will participate in groundbreaking and even breathtaking technological and scientific advances, perhaps even as dramatic as design of the Mars rovers. While your discoveries and innovations will be of great importance in and of themselves, the social context of your work will be equally significant. We have long stressed this aspect of science and technology at NJIT, and we have given it even greater emphasis in identifying excellence, integrity, civility and diversity as cores values that guide our behavior and establish a common purpose.

We share with you a deep desire for your personal success that an NJIT education can provide.  One of our goals has been to equip you with the knowledge essential for you to be economically productive and successful and to be intellectually fulfilled.  But value integrity as highly as personal advancement; balance self-interest with a larger awareness of human needs. Acting with integrity, adhering to values, requires that you think carefully as to how your actions will affect an individual, or your local community, your country, or the world.

Like no other campus in America, NJIT students come to Newark from all walks of life and from many cultures and nations. This exceptional diversity energizes the character of the NJIT community. We hope you have learned from it to value and foster civility as well as sensitivity to the view points of others and respect for the talents of all, regardless of race, gender, color or creed.

As unfolding international events make clear, the great challenge will be for us to persevere in upholding the values of diversity and civility in a world too often troubled by intolerance.  But your experiences in the classroom, in the laboratory, and through social interaction demonstrate that the quest for knowledge and advancement of the human condition is a bond far stronger than any force that threatens to divide us. We are confident that our graduates know that integrity, diversity and civility are the bedrock of a prosperous global future and are up to the challenge of ensuring that future.  

As you complete an educational milestone in your path toward success, do what you enjoy and enjoy what you do

Thank you and congratulations to the NJIT Class of 2004!