2004年毕业典礼致辞

朱迪·伍德拉夫，2004年5月16日

朱迪·伍德乐夫, CNN主播和资深记者, was the speaker 和 an honorary degree recipient at 澳门葡京博彩软件's 126th commencement ceremony on Sunday, 5月16日.

总统基督, 教务长Bourque, 杰出的教师, 受托人, 家人和朋友, 和 especially members of the 澳门葡京博彩软件 Class of 2004: What a great honor to be here on this special occasion at this special institution.

很荣幸能成为今天的获奖者之一:丽塔·科尔威尔, 西尔玛·戈登和帕特里夏·威廉姆斯. 我的入选证明了平权法案在北安普顿依然存在.

我知道今天的历史，你们之前的毕业典礼演讲者:约翰·F·肯尼迪. 肯尼迪，Alistair Cooke, Walter Lippman和Edward R. 默罗. 澳门葡京博彩软件大学花了40年才有一位女性毕业典礼演讲者, 但你已经弥补了失去的时间, 等, Maya Angelou, Marian Wright Edelman和去年, 马德莱娜·奥尔布赖特. 能被列入这样的名单真是太荣幸了.

And what an honor to speak at commencement as 澳门葡京博彩软件 graduates the United States’ first all-female class of engineers. 让我们为Picker工程项目的20名毕业生鼓掌.

我将做出一个承诺:这不会是有史以来最长的毕业典礼演讲. Research shows that that was a six-hour address given in the 19th century at Harvard — the first half was in Latin, 最后三个小时用希腊语. 然后，毕业生们接受了一项测试.

我确实对澳门葡京博彩软件有好感. I have known so many of your distinguished alumnae over the years who have made such enormous contributions in politics 和 journalism.

我还有一个非常私人的关系:朱正丽，澳门葡京博彩软件1998届的毕业生. 她今天和我一起来的，还有她妈妈，她妈妈从上海来.

冒着让她难堪的危险, 我要告诉你一些关于莉莉的事, 她是我们的中国女儿. She was an exchange student at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington more than ten years ago when she stayed with us for a semester. We had no idea she would become family: years later when she was married in the States my husb和 gave her away. But one of the enabling bonds on that journey was going through the college admissions process with this exceptionally bright young Chinese woman. 那是我们第一次知道澳门葡京博彩软件很特别.

她在这里度过了杰出的四年. 经济学专业, she l和ed a great job with one of the prestigious Wall Street investment banking houses; she spent the next two years working 110 to 115 hours a week. A life of abundant riches was to follow after this two-year apprenticeship; pretty heady stuff for the middle-class daughter of a Shanghai accountant 和 schoolteacher.

我碰巧认识那家公司的首席执行官, 他说莉莉是一个未来无限的宝藏. 然后, at the end of those two years she did the unexpected: she tossed aside a lucrative job offer to follow in her mother’s footsteps 和 teach school.

So every school day for the past three years she has commuted from Jersey City to the Bronx — three hours daily. 像她的同龄人一样, she is evaluated every year; she receives the highest grades for every category of teaching.

她为什么要这么做? 她在华尔街的一些前同事仍在问她为什么. 我问她时，她谈到教书的高尚. But she also cited her 澳门葡京博彩软件 experience; the "intellectual inspiration 和 influence" of her professors: "I kept thinking of them as my role models."

澳门葡京博彩软件, 这个年轻的中国女人解释道, gave her confidence: confidence that she could adapt 和 compete in a new l和; certainly confidence that she could do a job every bit as well, 确实更好, than most men; 和 confidence to go against the grain.

这不是全国教育协会的招募演讲, 尽管我希望你们中的一些人能响应这个崇高的召唤. I also hope some of you go into investment banking; for those of you who do, 代表克里斯特校长和澳门葡京博彩软件受托人, 永远记住你的母校!

但是莉莉的故事表明, 我相信, 你的智力/道德指南针在这四年里得到了磨练吗. 跟随它.

在过去几周与你们中的一些人交谈中, 这一点非常明显:梅根·塔格告诉我，澳门葡京博彩软件“把我们培养成了领导者.我们会做很多事情.妮可·伯克斯(Nicole Berkes)很欣赏她“学会了跳出固有思维模式”." Sienna Hunter-Cuyjet recalls the "homophobia 和 racial 和 anti-Arab sentiments after 9/11" that your class came together to deal with. 在这种情况下，正如利兹·利德尔所说，你的大二是一段“被悲剧包围”的时光." She 和 others spoke of the leadership example set that difficult year by acting President John Connolly.

Because of all this, 和 more, you are young women ready to encounter choices 和 make decisions.

这让我想起了另一位毕业典礼演讲者伍迪·艾伦的睿智建议. “人类比历史上任何时候都更面临十字路口，”他对毕业生们说. 一条路通向绝望和彻底的绝望，另一条路通向彻底的灭绝. 让我们祈祷我们有正确选择的智慧."

选择实际上要好得多, 但让我们花点时间谈谈你会遇到的一些难题.
你即将穿越的世界比你父母进入的世界要小得多. 你很可能会在法兰克福待上一段时间, 德国, 比如在肯塔基州, 或者在雅典, 希腊, 而不是格鲁吉亚.

We are a far more globally interdependent economy 和 — with a few exceptions — this has been good. 澳门葡京博彩软件 has prepared you; more than half of you studied abroad 和 some 7 percent of you are from other countries.

此外, 在经济上, 在政治上, 军事上和社会上, 美国是世界的领导者, 引领了潮流. 美国产品和美国文化无处不在.

然而,, 同时, 美国的政策, 甚至是美国人, 在全球范围内受到越来越多的谩骂. 美国，而不是恐怖主义，常常被视为对世界和平的最大威胁.

在温和的阿拉伯国家, 我们的盟友, 奥萨马·本·拉登, 一个明显的杀人犯, 比小布什更受欢迎. Bush; a recent Pew study found the percentage of people in Muslim countries who feel that suicide bombings are justified, 飙升.

American cannot lead — 和 you will have more difficulty in playing a prominent role in any international field you pursue — if this persists. 梦想之地的国际政策——这样做，他们就会效仿, 不管人们相信什么——都是幻想.

请允许我插话. 一个, do not let my profession elude its responsibilities: the number of foreign correspondents on the three commercial networks has been cut in half over the past couple of decades 和 on September 11, 2001, 没有一个CBS, ABC or NBC correspondent in a predominately Muslim country; 和 then we wonder why we don’t underst和 one another.

也, 不管你对伊拉克战争有什么看法, 不要重蹈越南战争的覆辙, 我们在谴责战争的同时也谴责了战士. 这种方式可能会被证明是一个悲剧性的错误，就像越南那样. But we should honor those brave young men 和 women — most from working-class families — who are serving their country in uniform.

Another crossroads of sorts revolves around the notion that you will have much to celebrate 和 worlds to conquer. 两个真正的. 今天的机会比以往任何时候都多. 抓住他们. 也玩得开心.

三十多年前，当我坐在你的位置上准备离开杜克大学的时候, 我从来没有想过我会采访总统和总理, 周游世界，报道重大新闻, 报道超过一代人的每一次重大总统选举, 参加全国辩论, 和, 以一种悲剧的方式, 当美国总统被枪杀时，我就站在15英尺外.

这是令人兴奋的事情. 我一直很幸运.

但也知道你的心会碎. 我的经历或大或小. 我丢了作业, 我在故事上被打败了, 我犯了错误——这很伤人, 因为在我的工作中，他们通常是公开的. 更重要的是，我还有一个严重残疾的孩子.

What 澳门葡京博彩软件 has prepared you for — 和 what 我相信 Duke helped do for me — was to instill or sharpen the fiber, 的弹性, 从挫折中振作起来的勇气. 但也会有挫折.

对于那些有这种倾向的人来说，这是一个将事业和家庭结合起来的问题. 你能做到吗?? 当然. 几个世纪以来，女性一直在做这件事, 多亏了女权运动, 今天你有更多的可能性. 在过去的40年里, women have gone from making 59 percent of what men make to 77 percent; although that’s welcome, 这也是不可接受的.

然而在过去的几年里, 企业和其他机构正在使它变得更加困难, cutting back on flex-time 和 job-sharing 和 other arrangements that disproportionately help working mothers. 如今，第一个孩子会使母亲的收入减少7%.5 percent; the second child by another 8 percent. 这是不可接受的.

It also is unacceptable that our family 和 medical leave policies are so limited; this imposes a special burden on lower- 和 middle-income working-class families; over three-quarters of low-wage workers have no paid sick leave. 这些负担落在妇女身上最重.

不要接受这些趋势. 用你的声音和你在这里学到的技能来改变他们.

对于那些希望兼顾事业和家庭的人，我还有一点建议:我强烈推荐这样做. 我和我爱的男人结婚将近四分之一个世纪了, 幸运的是，我们有三个了不起的孩子, 一个小小的警告, 两个是青少年. 我的家人是我生命中最美好的事. 但有一点是不变的:我每天都很累. 你也会的.

Finally, there is the matter of service to others; that has been a way of life at 澳门葡京博彩软件. 我相信你们每个人都希望继续参与人民和社区的活动.

对你们大多数人来说，这将比你们今天想象的要困难得多. 会有干扰, 竞争要求, 工作的要求, 家庭的追求, 需要一些自由的个人时间.

但要找时间. You know — much better than do the troglodytes of my generation — the value of technology to enrich our lives. 但是信息高速公路从来没有辅导过一个贫困的孩子, 给一位体弱多病的老人送外卖, 运送残疾人士, 或者和有危险的青少年一起打球或看电影. Those experiences enrich your lives too; they fashion your character, which forms your destiny.

你享有特权和机会. 大约40年前，在另一场毕业典礼上，罗伯特. Kennedy told Berkeley graduates: "You can use your privileges 和 opportunity to seek purely personal pleasure 和 gain. 但历史会评判你的, 随着时间的流逝，你会对自己做出评价, by the extent to which you have used your gifts to lighten 和 to enrich the lives of your fellow beings."

你，比大多数大学毕业生，更应该明白这一点. It was the dream of Sophia 澳门葡京博彩软件 that with this college 和 its alumnae "[women’s] wrongs will be redressed, 他们的工资调整后, their weight of influence in reforming the evils of society will be greatly increased…their power for good…incalculably enlarged."

我和你们一起庆祝今天取得的伟大成就. 我有点羡慕你们面临的巨大挑战和选择. 开始之前, 最后一个请求:记住马克·吐温的话, 谁说他14岁的时候, “我父亲太无知了，我几乎无法忍受他在我身边. 但当我21岁的时候，我惊讶于这位老人竟然学到了这么多...."

仪式结束后, 去找你的父母, 谁为你感到骄傲, 甚至告诉他们他们学到了多少，感谢他们的支持和牺牲. 然后给他们一个大大的拥抱.

祝贺你. 谢谢你！.