Clinton asked Syracuse graduates to do charitable relief work.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) – Former President Clinton mixed motivational thoughts with world politics Sunday as he gave the commencement address at Syracuse University, urging graduates to take an active role in public affairs.
Clinton told students to ignore the headlines and focus on the trend lines as they embark on their careers.
“The trend line is, we are growing more interdependent. We cannot escape each other,” Clinton said as more than 19,600 parents and well-wishers looked on inside the Carrier Dome at the school’s 149th commencement.
“We reap enormous benefits and assume greater risks. Your job, as a citizen of the world, is to spread the benefits and reduce the risks. To move from an age of interdependence to a global community where we share values and benefits and responsibilities,” Clinton said.
The former president received a standing ovation as he entered the dome. He wore a blue and orange baseball cap trumpeting Syracuse’s NCAA men’s basketball championship victory.
After some humor and thanks to the basketball team for the “gift of a lifetime,” Clinton became more serious in his 25-minute address.
He reminded students how their world had changed since they entered Syracuse as freshmen in 1999. Not just in negative ways, such as the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, but also in positive ways, such as the sequencing of the human genome by an international consortium of scientists.
Clinton finished his speech by asking students to serve in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or in some other charitable relief work. “Not all the work of the world can be done by governments,” he said. Clinton’s appearance was the first time a former or sitting president delivered commencement remarks at Syracuse.
although both John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to graduates before their years in the White House, school spokesman Kevin Morrow said.
In other commencements Sunday:
– In Miami, actor Michael J. Fox urged the next generation of doctors to “care deeply” about medical research that will advance the treatment of incurable diseases during his address to the graduating class at the University of Miami Medical School. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991.
– In Williamsburg, Va., Queen Noor of Jordan and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher addressed graduates of the College of William & Mary. Noor told students that countries should work together to build peace through “true partnerships between people based on respect for our shared values, needs and fundamental human rights, and also on respect for our differences.”
Thatcher said the recent conflict in Iraq was a “just war to uphold what is right. I am proud that Britain stood by America in the conflict.”
AP-ES-05-11-03 1637EDT
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