Poli Sci Commencement a Great Success
Thank you to the class of 2012 for helping make a wonderful Commencement ceremony this past weekend.
Please visit the “Memories” section of the BU Commencement website to see contact information for the photographer and videographer (available June 11th).
Below you will see Professor Kriner’s remarks from the ceremony. Best wishes for the future!
From Professor Kriner –
Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to be here and to share a few thoughts with you today. Sometimes students interested in possibly pursuing a Ph.D. ask me what the best part of academia is. There are a number of wonderful aspects to being a professor, but, truly, being here on a day like this, celebrating the achievements of those gathered on the floor before us, and having the opportunity to thank – with the new graduates – all of the parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and others who helped make this journey possible is one of the very best things we are privileged to do. Thank you all, again.
In thinking about how to use this last opportunity to say something to our majors before they head off into the world – some of them, I’m sure, feel like I’ve told them plenty already! – what most struck me was the dramatic changes across the globe and particularly within our own country that the class of 2012 has weathered during its time at Boston University.
When most of you arrived on campus in August of 2008, you did so in a time of uncertainty, but strangely also one of optimism. The economy was shuddering, but a wave of excitement and a clarion call for change also stirred the hopes of many. In 2008, political engagement seemed not to be a luxury, but a necessity. More than 50% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 headed to the polls, one of the highest percentages on record.
As the fall semester of freshman year progressed the economic downturn spiraled out of control into the sharpest recession in recent memory, financial markets lost half of their value, and the banking system teetered on the verge of collapse. The Economist ran a headline asking if this was the End of Capitalism?
In his inaugural address, President Obama warned that the road to recovery could be long and uneven. But few even in the administration anticipated just how sharp the global economic downturn would prove to be or how sluggish the recovery that would eventually replace it.
More broadly during your time at BU, democratic revolts toppled governments across the Arab World; the European Union totters on the brink thanks to crises in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy; oil markets have oscillated with each new development in the standoff between Iran and the West over its nuclear program; China continues its meteoric rise, and American foreign policy is pivoting toward the Pacific accordingly; and the United States has ended one foreign war in Iraq, while ramping up another in Afghanistan, which seems set to continue for some time.
In the face of such a turbulent world, one could argue that there are few more appropriate times to be a political scientist. During our time together, we’ve tried to understand these developments and to discern the factors causing them. Perhaps most importantly, we’ve all become aware that developments in what may once have seemed the far corners of the world can have tangible implications for our own lives and futures. Having studied some of the most complex relationships imaginable – between business and government, financial stability in Europe and presidential approval in the United States, public policies of a single nation and their sometimes global unintended consequences – we are confident that you will take the lessons you’ve learned with you and apply them to a myriad of new problems and challenges that await you on the horizon.
In Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, there still sits a beautiful mahogany chair that George Washington used while presiding over the Constitutional Convention. At the top of the chair, there is a half-sun with its rays peeking up over the horizon.
Benjamin Franklin is reported to have remarked to James Madison that “I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting.”
The United States has faced difficult times before, times when it seemed that the very fabric of our society was coming apart at the seams. A friend is reported to have told Franklin Roosevelt on the day of his inauguration “If the New Deal is a success you will be remembered as the greatest American president.” “If I fail,” Roosevelt replied, “I will be remembered as the last one.”
We may have averted a Great Depression; however, in many respects America does seem to be again at a crossroads. American economic power is being challenged by new rivals. Many of the key elements of the post-World War II global international institutional structure appear antiquated. A full decade after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we still seem unsure of exactly how to respond to the threats posed by non-state sponsored terrorism and how to balance the application of our limited resources in the best manner. Finally, despite hopes for a new post-partisan era, our very political discourse seems broken, as the brinksmanship over the debt ceiling and budgetary politics more generally clearly attests.
Returning to George Washington’s chair, at the conclusion of the constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin concluded: “But now I… know that it is a rising…sun.”
It will be up to this new generation of leaders that we see before us today to insure that that sun is still rising. Some of you may enter public service. Others may make a difference working for advocacy organizations or NGOs. Others may promote corporate responsibility by always conducting yourselves with the highest standards of personal integrity as you enter the business world. And all of you will undoubtedly play a key role simply be being informed citizens and sources of information for others – both critically important functions in our democratic system of government. We on this stage are all privileged in being allowed to play a small role in helping to prepare you to meet this challenge. And we will all await news of your future success and accomplishments.
Class of 2012, congratulations, and thank you!