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A time for unreserved celebration
Virginia then and now
How Virginia has moved forward
 

Jamal, thank you for that great introduction.  I look forward to finishing my political career before you start running for office.

It is truly a treat to be here, General Peay, and to all. I have looked forward to this invitation; [I] consider it an honor to be with you today for a few minutes. 

I do have a high regard for The Institute.  Have ever since I moved to Virginia in 1984. It is a powerful institution in the Commonwealth and in this nation.  It is an indication that Virginia is doing some things right when it comes to higher education.  And you all are to be greatly, greatly celebrated for persisting through a challenge that was designed to mold your intellect and character to this day.  I am thrilled to be with you.

A time for unreserved celebration 

Graduation speeches are a little bit difficult. I’ve given a few.  I am standing with you, and Jamal mentioned it correctly, on one of the most memorable days of your life.  But I have no illusion that the speech I am gonna give is gonna be a memorable part of that memorable day of your life. 

I have graduated three times; high school, college, law school.  And I can’t remember a single thing that anyone of my graduation speakers ever said.  And I was the graduation speaker as my [own] high school graduation. 

So let me begin by saying the one thing that I think might be most memorable about this speech.  The members of the VMI Corps of Cadets know that one of my roles is as Commander in Chief of VMI’s corps.  With that role I have the authority to grant amnesty. This power and authority should be used sparingly and with great care. 

In fact, the first time I granted amnesty was when I had been Governor just a few months; I didn’t get the wording right and General Peay informed me later that I had granted a much broader category of amnesty than he had actually hoped that I would.  So I’m gonna be careful about this part of the speech. 

I recognize the extraordinary contributions which the Corps has made to the Commonwealth this year and in fact during the time since I have been Governor.  First, 800 of you did march in very, very onerous conditions during my inauguration in Williamsburg in January of 2006.  Second, The corps performed on October 19 at the celebration of the 225th anniversary of our nation’s victory at Yorktown. And that performance was outstanding. 

Third, your color guard has performed in London and then again in Jamestown to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Virginia and the founding of this nation.  You recently participated in the re-opening of the Capital after its 3-year renovation.  And then when Queen Elizabeth visited less than two weeks ago, the combined cordon of corps members from VMI and Virginia Tech was inspirational to all. 

Based on that very significant litany of achievements and many others, by the powers vested in me as Commander in Chief of the VMI Corps of Cadets, I grant amnesty to all cadets with penalty tours and confinement.  Additionally, additionally I will ask that General Peay grant whatever special privileges he deems appropriate for the entire Corps of Cadets for this year’s exemplary performance.  All right, that’s the memorable part of my speech.

For the remainder of my comments I just want to reflect with you about this moment in time in Virginia and the  role you will inherit as you now go out beyond VMI to serve this Commonwealth, this country and the world. 

Virginia then and now 

I’ve had occasion to really wrestle with this because we’ve been thinking about this 400 years of Virginia and it’s a good opportunity for all of us to step back and think about where we’ve come, to the extent we’ve succeeded, why we’ve succeeded and then to hold on to some things going forward that will enable us to continue to succeed.  

And, in fact, one of the points of reflection that has most grabbed my mind in the last few weeks has been reflecting about Queen Elizabeth’s visit because when she was 31 years old she came to Virginia in 1957 to celebrate the 350th Anniversary.  I won’t ask, by show of hands, everyone who was [born in] 1957 or before to raise their hands today, but many in this room were living and working and doing all kinds of things in Virginia during the Queen’s first visit.  And it was interesting to have her back 10 days ago and to reflect on how far we have come in Virginia since 1957. 

In 1957, many of you would not have been here.  You wouldn’t have been here because public education in Virginia was not open to folks whose skin color wasn’t white, largely.  You wouldn’t have been here because much of public education in Virginia was not open to women.  And many of you wouldn’t have been here because, in 1957, our support for public higher education was so small in Virginia that rates of attendance, the percentage of our youngsters attending college was less than half the national average. 

Many of you have younger brothers and sisters who are in school, in K-12 schools around the Commonwealth.  In 1957 Virginia was at the bottom of the nation in the percentage of our youngsters, school age, who actually attended school.  Those statistics about where we were in 1957 with respect to education had a dramatic impact on what economic opportunities would have been available to you in 1957. 

If you had been here graduating, going out into the Commonwealth, this is what you would have faced:  Virginia’s per capita income was about 20% less than the national average.  We were 36th in the nation, a back-of-the-pack state just 50 years, during the lifetime of so many of us here when it came to education and when if came to economic opportunities that were open to you.  And that’s why many Virginians in that generation chose to leave Virginia.  We were exporting people, not importing young people at that time.  50 years later.

How Virginia has moved forward 

2007. 2007.  We’ve opened higher education opportunities to women, to minorities, to folks from other countries who attend our schools. Many of you graduates here represent other nations. We don’t - we’re not at the back of the pack in terms of our percentage our youngsters that attend college. In fact, our college attendance rates are significantly greater than the national average. Our K-12 education system is recognized as one of the best in America, with high success on SAT’s and AP scores and other measures of success. 

The economic opportunities that you have available to you if you stay in Virginia -  Virginia is no longer a back-of-the-pack Commonwealth.  Our per capita income isn’t less than the national average; we’re 9th in the nation in per capita income with a per capita income 20% higher than the national average. No state has moved that much over the course of the last 50 years as Virginia has, or has made that big a jump forward.

And one of the best pieces of evidence of this came earlier this year as 2007 began. Education Week magazine did a survey and they asked this question, “Where in America will a child born today have the best chance of life success?” And they ranked each of the 50 states and they ranked Virginia Number 1 in the nation.  I venture to say that in anyone’s wildest dreams in 1957 no one would have predicted that we would have made that degree of jump forward.  And that’s a reason to be very, very excited about the opportunities that you now have before you. 

Why have we made the jump?  What was the difference between 1957 and 2007? And why have we gone from a poor performer, back-of-the-pack state to a front-of-the-pack state?  I would submit to you that there are two reasons and understanding these two reasons will also help us for the next 50 years as we try to stay strong. 

The first reason is this: Virginia, in the last generation, realized the power, the power of investing in education.  Those who founded this university in the 1830’s understood that education will be the path to success.  From the creation of the Community College system to the curriculum reform in public education to our investments in higher education, we’ve embraced the notion that education will help us rise and will help us succeed. 

I believe that VMI - and I hold VMI out as an Exhibit A when I talk to governors or folks all over the country in terms of we’re a state who gets it right.  Because what VMI says is you have particular, unique values here; the citizen-soldier concept, inculcating people with those strong senses of character and dignity and service to others. 

We also aren’t ashamed or aren’t afraid to have a small public university. We’re in a world now where a lot is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it’s one size fits all, but we understand the value of a small institution like VMI and support it.  We have large institutions, small institutions, institutions of all kinds. VMI and the unique aspects and parts of VMI are a demonstration of the wisdom of Virginia investments over the last 50 years in higher education.  That’s the first reason we’ve made the jump from back to front.
The second reason is this:  We’ve broken down the barriers that were dividing us 50 years ago.  We’ve broken down the barriers that kept people out of opportunities either because of the color of their skin or sex or income levels they had.  And we’ve opened up the playing field so that we can really be a community, a Commonwealth.

That original notion - a Commonwealth where all we hold we hold in common for the good of the entire population.  No society, no school, no state, no nation, no culture can ever be all that it can be if it allows itself to be divided one against another.  That was shown so powerfully amidst the tragic time just a few weeks ago at the sister institution that  I know  you care deeply about -- Virginia Tech. 

As I was overseas trying to come back for the Virginia Tech Convocation service, what I was struck by and what gave me a tremendous sense of spirit was seeing the students on the Virginia Tech campus -- from all corners of the Commonwealth, from all states and all corners of the world expressing, in a unified way, how powerfully they felt about their university and how much of a community they believed they were. 

They were not going to allow a tragedy to divide them one from another or pit students against administrators or any group against any other group.  We have broken down barriers between us and that has been the second reason why we have been able to succeed and jump forward in the last 50 years.

So how do we keep it going?  I submit we do the same two things.  We continue to embrace the power of wise educational investments and take successful institutions like VMI and do all we can to help them continue and to be successful, not in our view but as you choose, as you administrators and alums and students choose. 

You know the path this university should be on.  And we need to do all we can as a state to help you continue to do just what you’ve done since 1839.  And we need to do the same thing broadly across the spectrum. 

And so I would ask of you as you go out you be voices, you be voices for the power of education.  Be good parents and stress education of your own youngsters. Be great PTA members.  Run for school boards.  Some of you will be teachers.  Be fantastic teachers or professors.  Some of you will be policy makers and legislative bodies or I suspect we’ll have some governor’s out here. Embrace the power of this experience at VMI and all that it has taught you and endeavor to do in the next 50 years what we’ve done in the last 50 and make our education system continue to be so very strong. 

The second thing you can do is break down barriers.  We had to break down barriers between ourselves in the last 50 years and there is still some of that to be done.  We can do better at working across regional lines or party lines or racial lines.  But increasingly the barriers that we have to break down today are less barriers between ourselves than the barriers between us and others around the world, between the Commonwealth and between our country and between that global community of nations. 

We live in a global world in a way that no other society ever has.  And that’s indicated by folks in your class and other’s who attend VMI.  You are commissioning members, not just of the American military from your class, but members of the military of other nations. 

In searching for talent and great students, in searching for economic opportunities we have to do all we can to break down those barriers between our nation and the rest of world.    To those of you who are being commissioned as members of the military, I applaud you and I applaud General Peay’s focus on increasing the percentage of those commissioned from VMI -- a very worthy endeavor.  I would say to you, you may be under the province of the Department of Defense in your role as commissioned officers going forward, but it’s not just defense, not just defense that you will be playing.

Part of your role is offense.  Part of your role is to be an advocate and a promoter for the values of this country to convince people in all corners of this land and all corners of the globe of the power of the ideals of this nation. And to continue to remind people why our country is so great.  The citizen-soldier model may have been a model first about the commonwealth and then about being a citizen soldier of a nation, but increasingly as you wrestle with the concept of citizen soldier we are all becoming citizen soldiers of the world. 

And you in commissioned service will be citizen soldiers of the world.  Those of you who are not commissioned will have the same opportunities if you’re in business or academia or public service; you’ll be working with and collaborating with people all over the globe in a way that would not have been imagined by your own parents or by generations even 10 years ago in the commonwealth.  And so breaking down those barriers and continuing to reach out all around the globe is a responsibility that we’ll all have to stay strong. 

That can sound like a new challenge, and I will say this and conclude.  We’ve all read the books like “The World Is Flat” and other articles about the new global world and how different it is than [in] times past.  And those book and thoughts are true certainly, but in another way this isn’t new. 

Think about those 104 [settlers] who came to Jamestown 400 years ago.  They were English venture capitalists coming to a place they knew not, looking for economic opportunities.  It was about global trade and a sense of adventure and reaching out.  And on those few square miles of Jamestown Island began the great American story; the intermixture of European culture, Native American culture and African culture.  All in those few square miles that story began, which has played out over the course of 400 years. 

And so in some way the need to break down the barriers and reach out to all is not a new challenge.  It’s a challenge that’s been with us since the very beginning of our Commonwealth.  You may not be like those explorers in a position where you’re gonna find a new world or draw a new map.  There isn’t much geography left on this globe that hasn’t been explored so that may not be your lot. 

But I am here to tell you that there are still new worlds for you.  There are new world of research and innovation and knowledge.  There are new worlds of entrepreneurship and innovation and economic opportunity.  There are new worlds of brotherhood and fellowship and reconciliation among peoples.  And just as those settlers 400 years ago went out to find new worlds; those new worlds are there for you. 

We need a society of adventurers.  We need a society of people who are open to those new worlds.  And with the training you have received here at VMI, there is no one on this planet who is more qualified, more qualified to be those adventurers than you. 

God bless you and Godspeed.  Thanks very much.

 

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