MRS. OBAMA: Wow. Thank you all. Thank you so much. (Applause.) Thank you. “Dr. Obama” — I like that. (Laughter.) I think I’ll have everybody at home start calling me that. (Laughter.)
Thank you. I am so honored to help you celebrate this wonderful day.
And thank you, Ally; thank you, Dr. Knapp, for your generous introduction. I Tiffany Earrings want to thank Russ Ramsey, Chair of the George Washington University Board of Trustees.
And congratulations to the extraordinary young men and women of the Class of 2010! (Applause.)
You guys, you should be so proud of yourselves and your incredible accomplishments. But let’s not forget all the people who also share in that pride — again, your moms and dads, and brothers and sisters, your friends, grandparents, mentors — all of whom took this journey with you in ways both seen and unseen. So this is their day, too. So let’s give them another round of applause and thank you. (Applause.)
Now, I’m here today for a reason — and not just because it’s a quick commute. (Laughter.) I am here because, as you’ve seen, eight months ago, I used you all in great ways. I issued a challenge to the students, faculty, staff, and trustees of GW. I promised you that if you performed 100,000 hours of service to the greater Washington community this school year, that I’d come and speak at your commencement.
Well, I am a woman of my word! So congratulations on this remarkable achievement. Thank you for the incredible contributions that you’ve made to the lives of so many people.
But I will say that if I had known that you’d complete more than 3,300 hours on the first Tiffany Necklaces of the challenge — (laughter) — I’d probably have picked a higher number! (Laughter.)
Each month, you sent me just wonderful letters updating your progress. “Dear Mrs. Obama, we’re at 19,000 hours.” “Dear Mrs. Obama, we’re at 46,000 hours.” “Dear Mrs. Obama, we’ve at 73,958 hours.” (Laughter.) Yes, I got every minute of detail. (Laughter.) And soon enough, I realized, “Uh-oh, I better start working on that commencement speech!” (Laughter.)
But more impressive than the fact that you did it was really how you did it. Your letters were filled with, oh, wonderful stories of holding food drives, and beautifying parks, and making care packages for our troops and writing postcards to their families.
You helped your neighbors in Foggy Bottom dig out after “Snowmageddon” — an effort spurred by Ally.
And led by junior Eden Sutley, you helped more than 1,000 — hey, Eden, yay for Eden — (applause) — you helped more than 1,000 World War II veterans from her home state of Louisiana come to see the monuments on this Mall and visit their fallen friends at Arlington.
You hosted about 200 local senior citizens for GW’s eighth annual Senior Prom. And yes, I Tiffany Rings the photos, and it looked like they were showing you all how to dance. (Laughter.)
GW law students — (applause) — you showed a greater commitment to community and public service careers than ever before. GW medical students — (applause) — they ran their own clinic in Anacostia for our neighbors most in need of medical aid, and so many students wanted to do it that you had to hold a lottery. And more than 500 of you spent Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Roosevelt Senior High School here in D.C. You repainted the classrooms, and revamped the athletic facilities, you updated the library. You all restored an entire school. And just think about that. What was just a few hours to you is going to make the difference for thousands of young lives for years to come.
And those are just some of the stories that I’ve read in your letters. But what you may not know is that the people whose lives you’ve touched, they also sent me letters.
One was from a local retirement community for veterans and their spouses. On September 11, the day that I issued the challenge to you, more than 100 of you hopped on a bus and spent the day there.
And the letter described in moving detail how you altered your plans to stay an extra hour so you could keep talking with an original Tuskegee Airman; how you decided to set up regular visits with the veterans; how you started a monthly intergenerational discussion group. I mean, the letter went on and on about just how incredible you were. And it described just what your efforts meant to those veterans. But it also showed me what theirs meant to you.
And that’s what you guys have done, simply because this university decided to play a role in the life of its neighbors. You have made immeasurable differences in the life of this community and to your country. And you should be so proud, because we certainly are.
And for every act of service that you performed for the community here in D.C., you committed yourselves to serving the greater global community, as well.
I’m talking about the more than 200 of you who took your winter breaks abroad — building a school in Guatemala, community center in Peru, comforting the sick in Ecuador; the freshman who spent his break in Ghana helping prevent blindness; and the students who helped Sudanese refugees settle in Tennessee; stepping in one night to teach when the refugees’ English teacher didn’t show up — a class that the refugees called their very best.
So even as you’ve buried yourselves in your books, becoming thoughtful and educated scholars — so Tiffany Money Clips, they did that, right” — (laughter) — you’ve also immersed yourselves in your community, becoming active and engaged citizens.
You have fully joined a generation of activists and doers. And when you think about how your generation has come of age, that’s pretty astounding. I mean, you all have seen so much. Just since you were in middle school, you’ve witnessed terrorism touch our soil, you’ve seen the cost of war reach into our communities. You’ve watched unimaginable devastation and suffering in the aftermath of a tsunami; a hurricane; an earthquake. You’ve felt the wrath of a recession that’s changed your towns and even your families.
Now, that’s a whole lot to bear for any generation. So, no one would have blamed you had you chosen to hunker down and turn inward; if you had simply focused on making sure that your own lives were secure.
But so many of you have done the exact opposite. Instead, you’ve dived in. You’ve reached out. You have volunteered and applied to organizations like Teach for America and the Peace Corps in record numbers. In fact, this year is the second year in a row that GW led universities of this size in the number of undergraduate alumni serving in the Peace Corps. (Applause.)
So for every ill of this interconnected world, you’ve tried to find a way to make good. Where there’s hate, you’ve tried to heal it. Where there’s need, you’ve tried to fill it. Where there’s devastation, you’ve tried to rebuild it.
You guys can’t be stopped. You don’t know the meaning of the word “can’t.” And every time someone’s tried to say to tell you that, you’ve replied what — “Oh, Yes We Can.” (Laughter and applause.)
In fact, you remind me of something President Wilson once said. He said, “Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that’s the way I know I’m an American.”
Even so, you’ve probably also run up against people who love your idealism, but warn you to lower your sights; to scale back your ambitions a bit; to settle for something less.
And you know their hearts may be in the right place. They may be worried that you’re in for a letdown Tiffany CuffLinks you realize that it can take years and even decades for your best efforts to bear fruit. See, we live in a culture, after all, that tells us that our lives should be easy; that we can have everything we want without a whole lot of effort.
But the truth is — and you know this — creating anything meaningful takes time. And sometimes, the only thing that happens in an instant is destruction.
And I say this because during our trip to Haiti, Jill Biden and I, we got to visit the people there, and there amidst so much misery and destruction, all of which occurred in a matter of minutes, it is so easy to ask: After so much ruin, how can anything rise again” After so much loss, how can anyone still have hope?
But let me tell you that everyone I met during that visit — doctors, relief workers; Haitians, Americans, citizens of the world — they were focused on the task of answering those questions. Yeah, they were exhausted and they were heartbroken. But they were equally unyielding in their determination to help that country heal, and fully aware of how many years that would take.
And by the way, I also met with President Preval and his wife, Elisabeth, who’s a GW graduate herself. And she just went on and on about how GW, the community, has been there at the forefront of the efforts to help Haiti from the very beginning.
But the point is, everyone I encountered during my trip embodied a Haitian proverb that I learned which says that, “little by little, the bird builds its nest.” And your generation is doing its best to live by this idea.
You see, as impatient as you may be to get out there and change the world — and that’s a good thing — you’re equally patient for that change to come. As idealistic as all of you may be, what your generation has lived through has also tempered you with a deep realism.
You understand things that perhaps your parents and I even don’t always have to consider when our world was still separated by walls of concrete and communication.
That we are no longer isolated from what happens on the other side of the world. That it’s in our best interest to look beyond our immediate self-interest, and look out for one another globally. That so many of today’s challenges are borderless, from the economy to terrorism to climate change, and that solving those problems demands cooperation with others. And more than any other generation, yours is fully convinced that you’re uniquely equipped to solve those challenges. You believe that you can change your communities and change the world. And you know what, I think you’re right. Yes, you can.
So today, graduates, I have one more request to make of you, one more challenge, and that is: Tiffany Key Rings going. Keep giving. Keep engaging.
I’m asking you to take what you’ve learned here and embrace the full responsibilities that a degree from an institution like GW gives you. I’m asking your generation to be America’s face to the world. It will make the world safer, it will make America stronger, and it will make you more competitive.
Now, you didn’t think I’d show up here without another challenge, did you” (Laughter.)
I know that some of you may be thinking, well, “Hang on, Michelle. I’m in debt, I’ve got to find a job in a tough economy, and now you want me to what?”
And I know there are parents out there thinking the same thing. “Hang on, Michelle. I just shelled out six figures to get my kid to this day, and now you want her to do what?” (Laughter.)
I’m just asking you to keep being you, to keep doing what you’re doing. Just take it global.
Yes, that can mean serving in the world’s most broken places. Or it can simply mean surfing foreign news sources to get an idea of how other young people see things in other parts of the world.
It can mean continuing your own personal and professional growth by traveling far and wide. Or it can mean reaching back to convince the students behind you to try study abroad programs, especially students from communities and backgrounds who might not normally consider it.
It can mean seizing that overseas opportunity with a company. Or it can mean staying here and fixing the world by doing business with the world, and, at the same time, creating opportunity in your own community.
This class of graduates in particular has a leg up, because at GW, you’ve already been trained to think this way. Nearly half of undergraduates here study abroad. As Zoe said, you can’t walk a block without running into the State Department, or the World Bank, or any number of NGOs and faith-based organizations. And all around you, every day, are classmates and friends from more than 130 different countries. So for you, it’s as easy as falling out of bed, even if some of you stay in bed until noon. (Laughter.)
But so many Americans either don’t have those opportunities or simply don’t consider them.