(soft music) - Stanford University. (band playing) - [Announcer] Candidates and guests please stand for the President's party. (band playing) (audience clapping) ♪ Beautiful for spacious skies ♪ ♪ For amber waves of grain ♪ ♪ For purple mountain majesties ♪ ♪ Above the fruited plain ♪ ♪ America ♪ ♪ America ♪ ♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪ ♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ ♪ From sea to shining sea ♪ (audience cheering) - I greet you with grace and peace and I welcome you to
Stanford Universities. 130th Annual Commencement. (audience clapping) Here at Stanford, it is our tradition to begin our communal celebrations with an acknowledgement of
the land on which we stand and the peoples who steward
it across generations. Please now turn your
attention to the screen. As our students offer
this acknowledgement. (birds chirping) - Stanford sits on the ancestral lands of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe. - This land was and continues to be of great importance to native people. - Consistent with our values
of community and diversity. - We have a responsibility. - We have a responsibility. - To acknowledge and make visible. - The university's relationship. - To native people. (birds chirping) - In that spirit of honor and
blessing, let us be together. We gather at last, returning
home to mark this moment, we confess there were times we thought this day would never come. Days of struggle and strife,
uncertainty, and doubt. And this year more than
others, grief and loss. Yet despite it all, we have
made it this far by faith. And for that, we are exceedingly grateful. We are grateful for our
families and friends, our classmates and
colleagues who accompanied us and encouraged us who
supported and loved us. We are grateful for our
university service workers for staff and faculty who amid a pandemic held fast to our unwavering commitment to excellence in education. And above all else, we are
grateful for this community, this community right here,
right now, that is Stanford a diverse and vibrant community that has become stronger
through adversity, growing, ever more
together even while apart. And so may the lessons learned through challenge and
change shape our lives. May we never lose sight of
that which matters most, more by our most deeply held values. May we cultivate
community, pursue knowledge and forge justice, for our time together has instilled in us the
fervent belief and sure hope that our actions can and
do transform the world. For if not us, who? If not now, when? Amen. You may be seated. - Well, thank you Dean Steinwert. Graduates, Stanford faculty and staff, former and current
trustees of our university and cherished family members and friends. I thank you for joining us
on this very special day to celebrate Stanford's
130th commencement. (audience clapping) It is my great honor to
warmly welcome all of you whether you're here at
Stanford or joining us by at the live stream. As you can see, our commencement ceremony looks a little different this year, and so I'd like to begin
by asking you to join me in thanking everyone who has made our in-person celebration possible, in this most unusual year. And in light of public
health restrictions, this includes the groundskeepers, ushers, event planners and crew, as well as those who
are working our cameras in the live stream to make it possible for us to share this celebration with those who can't
be here with us today. Thank you all. (audience cheering) Graduates. You've persisted through a
time of extraordinary challenge but your years at Stanford
have also been marked by incredible achievement
and intellectual exploration. We're all so proud of
everything you've accomplished during your time at Stanford
and of all of the hard work and dedication that it
brought you to today. Today, we will award
2,171 master's degrees, and 1,103 doctoral degrees. (audience cheering) These numbers represents the hard work of students from around the globe. 1018 international students representing 89 countries
will receive degrees today. (audience cheering) Now some of our international
students are here with us in the stadium, but
many of you are watching from your homes around the world. For those who are
watching from afar today, your absence here is felt. I wish you were celebrating
with us in person but I look forward to the day when we welcome you
back, as Stanford alumni. (audience cheering) Graduates, during your time at Stanford our faculty and staff
have dedicated themselves to nurturing the potential in each of you. So I wanna take this moment to thank them for their ongoing
support and encouragement especially during this
most difficult year. (audience cheering) Your accomplishments are also
due in part to the dedication, to the loving encouragement and
to the extraordinary support of the family members and friends who've championed each of you in the years you worked toward your Stanford degree. Some of those family members and friends are here today
in the stands of our stadium. Many more are watching from
afar and around the world. These include your
mothers and your fathers, your siblings, your
grandparents, aunts, and uncles, your mentors and your peers, people who helped you get to Stanford and helped you through your
years here at Stanford. And so, I'd last like to ask all of our graduates to
join now in one of the most cherished commencement traditions
we have here at Stanford I ask each of you to think of
all of those family members and friends who supported you
on this very special journey. And if you're here with us
in the stadium, please rise, if you're able, the
graduates, please rise. And whether you're here in the stadium or watching with your
loved ones from a far, please turn to your family
members and friends. And please join me in
saying these words to them. Thank you. - [Graduates] Thank you! (audience cheering) - To the family members and friends of our Stanford graduates. I say, thank you as well. And please be seated now graduates. To those family members and friends, thank you for entrusting your loved ones to our university in their time here. And thank you for all that you have done to ensure their success. To all of our graduates in
person and around the world, I'm delighted to celebrate you and everything you've
accomplished at Stanford. As you prepare to embark on this most exciting next
stage of your journey. You're entering the world beyond Stanford, during a time of historic change the pandemic has altered
our world profoundly. It's also affected each of
us on a deep, personal level. Some have lost loved
ones over the last year. Others have missed personal
milestones or celebrations. We've all lacked in person
contact with friends and peers. And while we're gradually emerging from the pandemic here in California and across the United States, I know that's not the case
in many parts of the world where the pandemic continues unabated. For all those who are still suffering the effects of the pandemic in our country and around the world, my thoughts are with you,
it has been a hard year. But in the face of this hardship,
our community kept going. To our graduates, I'd like
to say a few words today about everything you've
accomplished over the last year and how you have
strengthened our community even during this time of fragmentation. And then I'd like to share how I believe these experiences will
have helped to prepare you, as you enter the world beyond Stanford. First, you've strengthened our community by leaning on one another. Your friendships have grown stronger in the face of shared challenges. You've kept one another safe by embracing health and safety protocols like wearing masks and
participating in COVID testing. And you've reinforced our
community by working together to find new ways to pursue
the things that matter to you. Perhaps you've connected with one another through remote live performances,
online painting workshops or virtual artistic showcases. Maybe you've worked with
your team and your friends to develop new processes for lab research or found creative ways to advance shared research projects remotely. You may even have worked
with friends and colleagues to contribute to Stanford's
COVID 19 response. Maybe you helped develop diagnostic tests or assisted with clinical
trials or vaccination drives or perhaps you studied how to reduce the spread of disease and
incarcerated populations, or worked to improve our understanding of how past pandemics
exacerbated disparities and what steps can be taken
to mitigate these effects. Whatever your own
particular area of focus, all of you have found ways
to pursue your studies and to explore your interests through a difficult time, and
in working together to do so, you've also reinforced our community at a time when we were physically apart. Another way in which you've
strengthened our community even as you've navigated the pandemic is through your response
to racial injustice. In the aftermath of George
Floyd's murder last year, you pressed for change
in our broader society and here on our campus too. You shared your personal
experiences and your ideas for how Stanford needs to change. And as we've launched initiatives aimed at advancing a more just society and improving Stanford itself, your insights have helped guide our way. To our graduates, who've
played a key role in this work, I'm tremendously grateful
for your commitment to making our community better. Finally, at the same time as you've made our community
stronger over the last year each of you individually has also learned and grown and changed
through these experiences. The pandemic upended our
lives after the year we've had it may feel tempting to
turn your back on this time to forget about it as
you move to what's next. But living through this time
has also provided each of us with a once in a lifetime
opportunity to reassess, to think about what we really value and to shape the way we
want our lives to be. For graduates, this has
come at a crucial moment, as you prepare for the next
step in your lives and careers. You now have a rare opportunity
to reassess what interests relationships and pursuits give
you meaning and fulfillment and to design your life based
on what you truly do value. For some of you, this
reassessment may affirm the path you were already on. Perhaps your experiences
over the last year have solidified your decision to pursue further studies in your chosen field, enter a profession or
live in a certain part of the country or the world, but for others, your
experiences over the last year may have caused you to change course, perhaps the last year has shown you new ways to use your talents, to make a difference
in the lives of others. So as each of you prepares
to move on to new jobs, further studies or to other new adventures I encourage you to take time to reflect with your family, loved ones and friends. And I want you to ask yourselves, what have I learned
about myself this year? What are my values and
how have they shifted in the last 15 months? What matters most to me and
how can I use this knowledge to shape the life I want to lead and to contribute to the world? As Stanford graduates, you have so many
opportunities in front of you. It is up to each of you to decide what to do with everything
you've worked so hard for. Graduates, I'm so proud of
everything you've accomplished over your years here
and of the persistence grace and commitment to others that you've shown over the last 15 months. I hope these experiences
have helped clarify what's truly important
and meaningful to you. You have gained the
knowledge and the skills to pursue a life that
conforms with your values and the strength and tenacity
that have brought you through the last year, will
help you in that pursuit. And that brings me to
today's commencement speaker Atul Gawande. (audience clapping) A surgeon, writer and
public health leader. Atul Gawande uses his platform to advance health system
solutions that produce better care and better lives for people everywhere. A tool graduated from Stanford in 1987 with majors in biology
and political science. Not only is he a Stanford alum he's also a Stanford parent. After Stanford, he studied
philosophy and politics as a road scholar at Oxford and later earned his medical degree and masters in public health from Harvard. He's a practicing endocrine surgeon at Brigham and women's hospital in Boston and a professor at the
Harvard Medical School and T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has founded and chaired organizations focused on innovations in health systems making surgery safer globally, and also COVID 19 testing
and vaccination services. He also served as a member of the Biden Transition
COVID-19 Advisory Board. In addition to his roles in
medicine and public health, Atul has been a staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine since 1998. He's also written for New
York times bestselling books. He's the winner of numerous awards including a MacArthur Fellowship,
the so-called genius award and the Louis Thomas Award
for writing about science. In 2010, he was included
in Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people this is clearly someone
who sets the bar very high. But most importantly,
across his many roles Atul has been a champion
for humanism in healthcare. He writes movingly about
the challenges, complexities and larger ethical
issues of modern medicine and explorers how we can
better approach questions of medicine and care. He's advocated for practical
solutions to the challenges of modern surgery and urge
doctors to connect patients over their priorities and values not just their medical needs. He's also written about the current state of care in developing countries. In all of his work, Atul brings energy, insight and concern for others as well as a vision for
how things can be better. His example shows what you can accomplish when you lead with humanity and values and use your voice to create real change. Please join me in
welcoming Dr. Atul Gawande. (audience cheering) - Congratulations graduates. (audience cheering) Thank you all. Thank you, President Tessier-Lavigne, thank you to the faculty and thank you to all of you
students for inviting me. I can think of no greater
honor than being asked back to your Alma mater, to speak at graduation especially this graduation. In May, I celebrated the graduation of my own child from college from Berkeley College of
Music, not that Berkeley. And it was such a beautiful milestone. But I have to admit it was deflating to have to mark it from our family room, Hunter sat on the couch in cap and gown watching the virtual ceremony, waiting for their name to appear after a tough year of virtual music school without ensembles, without performances. To think that a month
later, just one month later we could be here together
with you is thrilling. The past pandemic year
blew up all of our lives. So many suffered. The Corona virus has
taken millions of people from this planet and it made
tens of millions more so sick, they had to be in the hospital
in order to keep breathing. Those with the least
wealth and opportunity, those who couldn't retreat
behind their screens suffered most, but no one
escaped loss of some kind. The disease grounded our
planes, it closed our borders. It shuttered workplaces in schools. It took away our ability to
come together, to hear music, to break bread, to hold
weddings and funerals to simply let children play. It did this for an entire year. For much of the world,
the worst is not passed. In the first few months of 2021 more people died from
the Corona virus pandemic than in all of 2020. We are so to live in this country, which has supplied such
remarkably effective vaccines and in such quantities
that we're now giving away hundreds of millions of doses globally. (audience clapping) Vaccines reached so many people that against all expectations, we can gather here like this
to cheer for you at graduation. Whoa! (audience cheering) I remember my graduation, one sunlit day like this years ago, I remember the joy of precessing into the stadium with my friends. I remember scanning the crowd
to look for the smiling faces of my family members. And I remember the annoying question everyone asks new graduates. "So what now for you?" And I had an answer, more school. And your answer might be the same or it might be a job, a
trip, a move back home. But the truth was that none of us knew what was ahead for us. How really? How could we? Many of my classmates would have careers doing work that did
not even exist in 1987, when we stood where you are sitting. For example, I had classmates
who'd make their mark helping the people of
a post-communist Russia and Eastern Europe, and a post apartheid South Africa, none of which was more than
a fever dream back then. My tech friends would later take jobs with names that would have
been in comprehensible such as App designer, driverless car engineer, data scientist, chief
information security officer, blogger, or for that manner, peloton instructor. In medicine, friends later worked in unimagined fields like genomics, face transplantation and
MRNA vaccine production. (audience cheering) No less fantastical, in public health I have
friends who would work to implement the country's
first health reform program to seek universal coverage signed into law by America's
first black president. (audience cheering) My classmates would also have
personal life experiences that were equally unpredictable,
though more familiar. They'd fall in love,
they'd fall out of love. They'd navigate sickness and injury. They'd grow families and
they'd lose family members. A few died way too soon. What now? Is the question you will
ask your whole life. Entering medical school, I had a plan. I like plans. I wanted to do public health
research and practice medicine. So I planned to train in primary care the specialty fifties interests, and as a bonus that had the
shortest residency program. But then my clinical rotation in surgery appended my tidy scheme,
what I saw captivated me the surrealness of opening the bodies of living people drew me in
instead of pushing me away. And so did the surgeons, all of them ordinary flawed human beings with imperfect skills,
incomplete knowledge and yet the confidence to nonetheless act and to take accountability
for whatever outcome resulted. People say in moments like
this, follow your passion. But how many of you
even know what that is? I didn't. I had my share of enthusiasms,
but sitting where you are I wouldn't have called
any of them my passion. I had no idea which
enthusiasms would endure and which would fade. Over time however, I came to
be able to tell the difference between the things that merely absorbed me the way that TikTok videos do now, and things that energized me. Seeing the difference took awhile. Coming to Stanford from
rural Ohio was mind blowing. It exposed me to a wider
range of things to do and to be than I'd known. During freshman year, my
roommates and I signed up at KZSU for a late night
slot spinning records. A professor gave me a
job in his laboratory working on a devastating retinal disease. I learned to play electric guitar. I volunteered to stuff envelopes for a presidential campaign. Many of these interests came and went but I came to recognize when
something truly energized me. The radio show, for example,
was not such a case. Our slot was Tuesdays from 2:00 AM to 5:00 AM. After two or three shows the
fun of our on-air rep RTA and championing our latest new wave heroes waned dramatically. I began sleeping in and I totally flaked out on my roommates. On the other hand, I consistently
lost time in the lab. Likewise, for my late night discussions with my political science friends I ended up taking so many policy and political theory electives
that I added a second major to my biology major. I wasn't good at anything, yet, but I found a few things
I was willing to work at long enough to get better, and I learned to pay
attention when that happened. More recently, I attended
a talk by Dr. Bob Wachter, who now chairs the Department
of Medicine at UCF. Answering a question from a
graduate student seeking advice, he said something that stuck with me. He said, "Say yes to
everything before you're 40 "and say no to everything
after you're 40." And looking back, this was
pretty much what I'd done, I'd realized. In your formative years, you don't know you can't know what will
ultimately matter to you. What will grab you by the shoulders and awaken you and stay with you. So you have to be open to
trying stuff, to saying yes, as you do pay attention to what fuels you and what doesn't. You wanna pull apart the experience and figure out specifically what lifted you and what sapped you. And then you wanna do all
you can to organize your life to do more of the first
and less of the second. With me for example, I found I was endlessly interested
in getting under the surface to understand how the
systems we depend on fail. The flaws of the complex
systems inside our bodies, and also inside our society
that cause suffering. I had experiences that revealed to me the love of getting my hands in there, to tinker with the systems and figure out what was possible to fix. Knowledge was one thing
but execution was another, and I found, I cared about both. In further experiences, I learned that I love
dissembling the story of what happens when people
try to fix systems failures how they succeed and how they don't. For a long time that meant I was pulled, in three directions, to surgery, public health and journalism. Over and over people told me to choose, "These things didn't fit together." They'd say. And for a very, very long
time, they were right, they didn't fit together. All I saw was that each separately added something that fed me and eventually each fed the other. Surgery showed me the
day-to-day reality of illness and our inadequate health systems. Writing, let me investigate the flaws and ways to address them, and public health training showed me how to design systemic solutions and deliver them at population scale. For example, to deliver a team
checklist for safer surgery that's now been adopted worldwide, and saved more people
from death and disability than car accidents inflict. Or to design a structured
conversation between clinicians and patients with
serious illness to ensure that treatment plans incorporate people's priorities for their
lives, besides just surviving. Or to build mass vaccination centers and COVID testing
programs to help us escape from this pandemic. Every few years, I faced a
pivotal choice that scared me. One was deciding to train in surgery instead of internal medicine. The training was eight years
instead of three years. My wife, Kathleen, we met here at Okada house was pregnant
with our first child. Surgery was not a natural
cultural fit for me. My mentors in public health thought the direction was baffling, but still there have been that poll during three months on service. So I told myself that I could transfer
out if it didn't work. And I said yes to surgery. Three years later, I
also said yes to writing yes, a blog on the side. And then during a two year research period with only light clinical duties, I said yes to a chance
to write longer pieces for the New Yorker magazine. A few months after I returned
to full hospital duties a publisher offered me the chance to expand those pieces into a book. And I remember the day at
the hospital that I said yes, into the phone and accepted the contract. It was later when I got home that night, it was late when I got home that night I had three children by then
and they were asleep upstairs. And suddenly I was flat on my back in a panic on the living room floor. What did I just commit to doing? How in the world was I going
to deliver during residency? Kathleen, my wife had
thought it was crazy too but she reminded me that I had already demonstrated the energy to stay up an extra hour or two each night or to steal time between
operations to write. So I stilled my pounding heart, I kept making time for what
energized and motivated me and kept trying to remove
time from what beat me down. And this meant doing
things that didn't fit with my plan or the images
that others had of me, but I never regretted it. I've had great luck and privilege just to have the opportunities I've had, like even trying to do
surgery or to write. Simply by being in this community, you too have had choices and exposures
that few others have. Most people face far tighter
constraints on their life but I've seen that even
patients facing the end of life the tightest constraint of all, have had room to assert their
priorities in their lives besides just living longer, to maximize time for what lifts them up and to try to limit what brings them down. The other half of Bob
Whacter's advice, however was, say no to everything after you're 40. By that he meant that by that age, you should know enough about yourself, but what really matters
to you to focus on that. In fact, you have to
say no to focus on that. As you get older, this
will become your advantage. You begin to know yourself,
your capabilities, your gaps, what motivates you well
enough to commit to efforts that can run a long time to realize, years decades, if necessary. You even become willing to work for goals that will not be achieved
in your lifetime. I wanna return to COVID for a moment. This plague forced us all
to see our lives anew. Under crisis, we had
to pair our lives down. We had to jettison what
could be jettisoned, and we had to keep what truly mattered. We had to try living in new ways. We had to figure out how to endure. For me, dealing with the
uncertainty was the hardest part. How long would this plaque last? How bad would it get? What troubled me most though, was the fact that so much of the uncertainty was human made instead of virus made. The pandemic was and it
still is a spreading fire, experts actually figured out
rather quickly, how to stop it with wide testing, masks,
avoiding indoor crowds use of good ventilation and
ultimately with vaccination. But knowledge is one thing,
and execution is another. Those communities that came
together across political lines, to acknowledge the
threat and fight the fire were able to stop the fire. Our nation did not come together. The fact that we could not collectively summon the commitment required that we've had key leaders
who saw political opportunity and undermining that commitment, has been distressing beyond words. Leaders have a choice. They can move ahead by driving
division and stoking fear or they can move ahead by binding us together
and confronting our fears. The divisive path generates
attention more easily and generates more
immediate gratification. That means we will always have those who will take the divisive path. The fact that that path is ultimately dispiriting
for people, however, while the other path raises our spirits up gave me confidence about which
eventually would prevail. That confidence has
been shaken to be sure, but we stand here together today because enough of us have come together across political lines and increasingly across countries to take up the vaccines
and fight the fire. (audience cheering) The difference between these two paths is worth remembering as we each encounter that what now question in our lives, that question about what we individually will commit to next. All of us are seeking
how to express our worth, and everyone does have worth equally with everyone else as human beings. We do just by being here in this world. To discover how to express that worth, you just have to keep saying
yes until you found it. And if you do that, you will find it. But the better choices
are not often the easiest or most enjoyable ones. The most meaningful goals
are usually slow to achieve. They're also usually the
ones that bind people together rather than push them apart. That feeds not only your purposes,
but feeds their purposes. For turns out that the beautiful secret, of how our species is
made is that we are often most energized, when we help
others express their worth. That truth is easy to
miss behind our screens watching the news when
separated from one another but it is the reason why we all, all of us here have gathered and why we hold such confidence in you. And this truth is why we believe you and your entire generation are the reason our better angels will prevail. Thank you. (audience cheering) - Well, thank you so much, Atul
for those wonderful remarks. We so appreciate you being
part of this celebration today. Now, Dr. Gawande has
urged all of our graduates to say yes to everything, at least those who are
under the age of 40. So to those of you who are under 40, I ask what is your answer to Dr. Gawande? Is it yes or is it no? - [Graduates] Yes! - I can't hear you, what is it? - [Graduates] Yes! - Come on, you can do better than that. Stanford graduates. - [Graduates] Yes. - Okay, great, thank you. Well, thank you again, Dr. Gawande, you have a committed crowd here. (laughing) And now I'd like to invite the provost to please join me to present
the candidates for degrees. (audience cheering) - Mr. President, first
I would like to mention that because of the unusual
circumstances of the pandemic we were not able last year
to honor the recipients of the 2020 university awards. We will honor them more fully when we convene the in-person celebration of 2020 graduates. Yes, but for now, let me
acknowledge the recipients. Sue Crutcher and William S.
Talbot were the recipients of the Kenneth M. Cuthbertson award for contributions to Stanford University. Harry J Elam, Jr., Liam
McGregor and Emily Polk were the recipients of the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for distinctive contributions
to undergraduate education. And Samer Al Saber, Aditya Grover and and Allyson Hobbs received
the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching. (audience clapping) Now, there is more information about the award recipients
and it can be found on the commencement website and the recipients of the 2021 awards will be recognized at tomorrow's ceremony. Mr. President, I now have the honor to recognize all those who have
completed their requirements for master's and doctoral degrees. They will be presented to you
by the dean of their schools. Thank you. (audience clapping) - Will the candidates from
the School of engineering, please stand if you are able. (audience clapping) Mr. President, I present to
you those who have completed the requirements for the
degrees of Master of Science, Engineer and Doctor of Philosophy. - Thank you, Dean Widom. By the authority vested in me by the faculty and trustees
of this university, I am delighted to confer
publicly upon you, the degrees for which
you have been presented and to admit you to their rights, responsibilities, and privileges. (audience cheering) - Will the graduates from the School of
Engineering, please be seated. (audience clapping) - Will the candidates
from the School of Law, please stand if you are able. (audience clapping) Mr. President, I present to you those who have completed the requirements for the Degrees of
Doctor of jurisprudence, Master of the Science of Law, Doctor of the Science of
Law and Master of Laws. - Thank you, Dean Martinez. By the authority vested in me by the faculty and trustees
of this university. I am delighted to confer
publicly upon you, the degrees for which
you have been presented and to admit you to their rights, responsibilities, and privileges. (audience clapping) - Will the graduates
from the School of Law, please be seated. - Will the candidates from the graduates of School of Education, please stand if you are able. (audience clapping) Mr. President, I present to you those who've completed the requirements for the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctorate in Philosophy. - Thank you, Dean Schwartz, by the authority vested in me, by the faculty and trustees
of this university. I'm delighted to confer publicly upon you, the degrees for which
you have been presented and to admit you to their rights,
responsibilities, and privileges. (audience cheering) - Will, the graduates from the
Graduate School of Education, please be seated. (audience clapping) - Will the candidates from the School of
Humanities and Sciences, please stand if you are able. (audience cheering) Mr. President, I present to you those who have completed the requirements for the degrees of Master of Arts, Master of Liberal Arts, Master of Science, Master of Fine Arts, Doctor of Musical Arts
and Doctor of Philosophy. - Thank you, Dean Satz. By the authority vested in me by the faculty and trustees
of this university. I am delighted to confer
upon you the degrees for which you have been
presented and to admit you to their rights,
responsibilities, and privileges. (audience cheering) - Will the graduates from
the School of Humanities and Sciences, please be seated. (audience clapping) - Will the candidates
from the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, please stand if you're able. (audience clapping) Mr. President, I present you to you. Those who have completed the requirements for the Degrees of Master of Arts, Master of Science Engineer,
and Doctor of Philosophy. - Thank you, Dean Graham. By the authority vested in me by the faculty and trustees
of this university. I am delighted to confer publicly upon you including my daughter, Ella,
whom I'm so very proud. (audience cheering) The degrees for which
you have been presented and to admit you to their rights, responsibilities, and privileges. (audience cheering) - Will the graduates
from the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental
Sciences, please be seated. (audience clapping) (audience cheering) Will, the candidates from the graduate School
of Business, please stand if you are able. (audience clapping) Mr. President, I present you those who have completed the requirements for the Degrees of Master of
Arts in Business Research, Master of Science in Management, Master of Business Administration
and Doctor of Philosophy. (audience cheering) Thank you, Dean Levin. By the authority vested
in me by the faculty and trustees of this university, I'm delighted to confer publicly upon you, the degrees for which
you have been presented and to admit you to their rights, responsibilities, and privileges. (audience cheering) - Will the graduates from the School of
Business, please be seated. - Will the candidates for
the School of Medicine, please stand if you're able. (audience cheering) Mr. President, I present to you those who have completed the requirements for the degrees of Master
of Arts, Master of Science Doctor of Medicine and
Doctor of Philosophy. - Thank you, Dean Minor. By the authority vested
in me by the faculty and trustees of this university, I am delighted to confer
publicly upon you, the degrees for which
you have been presented and to admit you to their rights, responsibilities, and privileges. (audience cheering) Will the graduates from
the school of medicine, please be seated. - Well, thank you, Dean Minor. And thank you to all of our deans. Again, to our graduates on
behalf of Stanford University congratulations to you
on this very special day. You have graduated from the
family of Stanford students and you've joined the
family of Stanford alumni. (audience clapping) From this day forward,
wherever you go in the world, whatever path you explore
and whatever contribution you seek to make, you will
remain forever, Cardinal and forever a part of
the Stanford community. In closing, as you start
a new journey as graduates of Stanford, I hope you will let today serve as a true commencement,
a beginning, not an ending. You have persevered
through an extraordinary and challenging time. Now is the moment to
take what you've learned and use that knowledge to shape
the life you want to lead. I urge each of you to follow
your talents, your interests and your values, to discover
your own unique path and to build a life of
meaning and of purpose. Congratulations, 2021, graduates. (audience cheering) ♪ Where the rolling foothills rise ♪ ♪ Up t'wards mountains higher ♪ ♪ Where at eve the Coast Range lies ♪ ♪ In the sunset fire ♪ ♪ Flushing deep and paling ♪ ♪ Here we raise our voices ♪ ♪ Hailing thee, our Alma Mater ♪ ♪ From the foothills to the bay ♪ ♪ It shall ring as we sing ♪ ♪ It shall ring and float away ♪ ♪ Hail, Stanford, Hail ♪ ♪ Hail, Stanford, Hail ♪ (audience cheering) - 2020 graduates, Congratulations. (audience clapping) It's an honor to be marking
this moment with you today. When I finished my doctorate degree my parents were in a different
country watching at 9:00 PM. My mother cheered so loudly,
the neighbors came over. So if your family has
an impromptu celebration with the neighbors it could be a very vocal, loved one. I was hoping to actually
for the benediction today to recite two verses of the Quran and I will follow it with the translation. (audience cheering) (reciting in foreign language) Oh, people you have received
advice from your creator, a cure for what is in your hearts, guidance and compassion
for people of faith. Say in God's grace and
mercy, let them rejoice, that is far better than whatever material
wealth they can gather. This past year has been
full of challenges, lessons, lost in healing, new insights and new communal bonds. What we gained in love, compassion, friendship and knowledge
is far more valuable than any material possession. Class of 2021, you took your last test and you handed in your last assignment. The tests that are to come are tests of purpose and integrity. May you have humility when you succeed, and the courage to stand up
again when you fall short. You carry with you the hopes and dreams of everyone who loves you. Let that love be your strength and light and carry you through the best of times and the most difficult of times. Amen, thank you. (audience cheering) (band playing) - [Robotic Female Voice] For more, please visit us@stanford.edu.
