Clinton tells graduating Syracuse students to join Peace Corps
President Clinton with Peru RPCV and MSU President Peter McPherson at 1995 MSU Commencement address.
Read and comment on this story from the Associated Press that President Clinton, in his commencement address at Syracuse University, asked 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. He also urged students to become involved in politics. "Your generation, to be fair, has gotten a bum rap. You do more community service than any previous generation of young Americans, and you should get credit for it," Clinton said. "But ... you are less likely to vote and participate in politics than previous generations of young Americans. And that's a big mistake because it does make a difference," he said. Read the story at:
* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.
Clinton tells graduating Syracuse students to participate in life
By WILLIAM KATES Associated Press Writer
May 11, 2003, 9:09 PM EDT
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Former President Bill Clinton on Sunday told nearly 5,400 graduating Syracuse University students to ignore the headlines and focus on the trend lines while taking an active role in public affairs.
"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 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.
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.
The former president received a standing ovation as he entered the dome in the chancellor's party at the end of the faculty processional. 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, mixing motivational thoughts with world politics during a 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 2001 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.
The former president told students it was his hope that as they went through life they would use their education to draw the distinction between the trend lines and the headlines.
He used the SARS epidemic as an example, pointing to how headlines have focused on the hundreds killed in China and Hong Kong and the tens of thousands of afflicted around the world.
The trend line, Clinton told his audience, was the successful response of the global medical and health communities, which came together through the World Health Organization and in a few short weeks identified the virus and how to fight it.
"The trend line is ... it was fought by international cooperation," Clinton said.
Another trend line, he said, is that many other infectious diseases still haunt humankind, as well as other unsolved problems, such as terrorism, poverty and global warming.
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.
He also urged students to become involved in politics.
"Your generation, to be fair, has gotten a bum rap. You do more community service than any previous generation of young Americans, and you should get credit for it," Clinton said.
"But ... you are less likely to vote and participate in politics than previous generations of young Americans. And that's a big mistake because it does make a difference," he said.
Clinton said he wondered whether students were willing "to make the sacrifice and undertake the burdens of public service and public participation.
"You must increase your involvement in American public affairs if you want the kind of world I have talked about today," he said.
Julie Klassman, of Boston, who graduated from the School of Arts and Sciences, said afterward that she found Clinton's words inspirational.
"It was nice to hear something of substance and not just rah-rah words of advice. He made me think about what he was saying. It's a speech I'll definitely remember," she said.
In other commencements Sunday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., addressed graduates of the University at Buffalo. Schumer stressed the importance of reforming the nation's education system by providing incentives for teachers, implementing higher standards for students and ensuring a college education is within reach for all those desiring it.
"This decade has proven that America _ with its free enterprise and democratic form of government _ is poised to lead the world into the next century," Schumer said. "But I am troubled when I read that other country's school systems are doing a better job of educating their children than we are."
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; President Clinton
