Cutting The Ties

In May 2007, Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School of Public Policy and Management-Australia had its first graduating class. This pioneering group of public policy students, six in all, were joined by sixteen more grads in December 2007, this time including the first graduates in the school's globally renowned and top ranked information technology program. Graduates from these two classes subsequently went on to high-impact positions in industry, government, the social sector, and academia.

As the Executive Director of Heinz-Australia, I have the honor of giving the "Charge to the Graduates", a few parting (and, hopefully, inspiring) words provided to new graduates at the end of the ceremony. Included below are those Charges, each a small window into our hopes and dreams for the students who find a way to get through our program and prepare to take intelligent action to change the world.

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December 2007--Keynote Speaker: Hon. Alexander Downer MP, former Foreign Minister, Government of Australia

First of all, I’d also like to join in extending my thanks and appreciation to Alexander Downer. Our students need not look any further than their own campus for an example of visionary leadership in the public service. Your very visible support for Carnegie Mellon’s presence in South Australia continues to inspire our efforts to build an institution that has an outsized impact on the region.

I’d also like to add my congratulations to all of our graduates but particularly the pioneers of our first graduating class from the MSIT program.

Finally, I’d like to recognize all of the family and friends that are with us this evening. You are from this point forward forever tied to the worldwide staff, faculty, and alumni that constitute our family at the Heinz School…welcome!

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There is nothing I like better than waking up in the morning to a cup of coffee and a newspaper. But our “news from everywhere, all the time” world can make for a pretty depressing start to the day. Global warming, widespread poverty, ethnic conflict, pandemics, corruption, David Beckham’s knee problems—OK, granted there are some things that merit more attention than others!

But you get my point. It’s easy to accept conventional wisdom as fact—the world has never been more dangerous or as much in decline. But, as the famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said, “The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” Surprisingly enough, the facts tell us, for example, that the world has never been safer and that people are getting out of poverty at a faster rate than at any other time in human history.

If there were one critically important thing that this graduating class, at this time in history, could do to make its mark in the world, it would be to thoughtfully and rigorously test the conventional view while retaining the magic of possibility.

See, there have been times in recent history when conventional wisdom predicted an ice age, a global food shortage, and an imminent nuclear war. When the founder of IBM in 1958 declared: “there is a world market for about five computers.” When manned flight was considered impossible.

The shroud of uncertainty that seems to be all around us now is not new. It has always been so. And throughout history, those who have been willing to dispassionately separate facts from fiction, analyze them in new ways, and create the new possibilities that are always hiding in seemingly hopeless situations, from inventing new technologies to changing government policies have always made their mark in the world.

• CO2 levels are rising in the atmosphere due in large part to the increase in global economic activity that is allowing millions of people to escape the clutches of abject poverty. How do we proceed?
• Information technologies that allow us to get directions in an unfamiliar city can also be used to track our movements. What should be allowed and why?
• Companies can use information technology to allow employees to work from wherever they are in the world. But what is “leadership” in an organization where no one has ever met?

Each of you is now better equipped to think about these big issues, make balanced recommendations, understand the role of technology, and lead organizational progress. All Heinz School graduates who have come before you are now available to you for counsel and collaboration. And our faculty and staff worldwide look forward to supporting your future endeavors.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once put it, “the fierce urgency of now” is upon each and every one of you. It has been our honor and privilege to play some small part in your quest to take intelligent action that changes the world.

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May 2007--Keynote Speaker: Hon. Mike Rann MP, Premier, Government of South Australia

First of all, I’d like to add my congratulations to this group of pioneers, the first graduates of our campus here in Australia. I’d also like to extend my thanks and appreciation to the friends and family members that are with us tonight. In a variety of ways, big and small, I know that without your support, our graduates wouldn’t have gotten this far. My Mom still reminds me, twenty years after I graduated from Carnegie Mellon’s computer science program, about how many times I called her in the middle of the night when I couldn’t get any of my programs to work. Now my Mom is pretty smart, but at 2 o’clock in the morning, it’s pretty hard to say much of anything that helps except, “I love you, hang in there”. My guess is that at least few of you have gotten one of these calls.

For the past year, you’ve been talked to, talked over, talked about…I figure you’re about talked out. So I wanted to come up with a theme for my charge to you that is simple and, in that way, hopefully remotely memorable. So if you only remember one word from my charge to you this evening it’s this—“courage”. Let me explain what I mean with a little story.

My Dad drove me to Carnegie Mellon before my freshman year to help me move in. There wasn’t much to move really, just some clothes and a basketball and some music. But it gave us a little more time together and that seemed important.

Now my Dad never really gave me much advice when I was growing up except when I asked, which, as I look back, probably wasn’t often enough for my own good. But when we finished moving and I got ready to open the car door to walk back to my room, my Dad uncharacteristically said, “Can I give you some advice? Whatever you do, try not to sacrifice your integrity.” And with a slap on the knee that said, “get out of the car”, he sent me out into the world.

You see my Dad had been in wars that were real and the wars of working in government and business. And I think he would have considered the latter considerably more dangerous, at least for the soul. He knew that when I left that car, I would be embarking on a new phase of my life, one that he wouldn’t get to influence very much. For better or worse, his work was done. And he knew that there would be so many occasions to come that would test my assumptions of right and wrong, good and bad, strong and weak, particularly when I got a job in the “real world”.

I realize today that he was really telling me to have courage. Not the kind that wins medals on the battlefield but the kind that wins the respect of your colleagues, the admiration of your spouse, and the love of your children. He was telling me to be my very best authentic self in the face of the very real pressure to conform. Cut a corner here. Tell the boss what he wants to hear or ignore a tough decision hoping it will go away there. Pretty soon you’re not even really sure who you are anymore. Every single one of you is special. Every single one of you is prepared to make your difference in the world. Every single one of you has the courage, and the obligation to those who will count on you to show them the way, to just be your real self, every day.

Congratulations again to all of our graduates. It has been our honor and privilege to play some small part in all of the great things that you are destined to accomplish in the future. Now, you’ve all got your slap on the knee—go and make great things happen in the world!