Today is a great day for us all. They say that "a number 2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere," and they have taken you, the graduates, from every state in the union and from some 100 other lands to Schoellkopf Field here this morning. We congratulate you and salute you for that, and we know that it has not been easy. There is an old saying that dates back to the 1960s: "Be realistic. Demand the impossible." And Cornell has demanded that of you. It even demands that you sit through a final lecture on Commencement day, presumably just in case you missed something along the way.

But, of course, you are used to lectures far longer than even I intend to give. The only way you can get a Cornell degree is the old-fashioned way: You earn it. And all of us know the determination, the energy, and the hard work that a Cornell degree requires.

"What is so different about a Cornell degree?" those of you who have never studied here might ask. The students will tell you that Cornell is "walking up a 50degree incline in 10-degree weather to get a 30 percent on a prelim." It's the only place where people correct the graffiti on the walls. And, taking a bit of liberty with Cornell's famous motto, it's "a place where any person can worry about passing any subject." But the graduates have made the grade, and I speak with pride and deference to them this morning. You are about to receive those hard-earned Cornell degrees, while I still have another year to go.

Class of 1994, you've earned not just any degree, but a Cornell degree. We're proud of you. We congratulate every one of you. And we thank you for all you have contributed to Cornell.

Each of you has a story to tell of personal achievement. Let me share just two: Among today's graduates is Helene Rosenblatt, who is completing the degree in human ecology that she began 53 years ago -- her first attempt having been interrupted by World War III. And we salute her for the perseverance that represents. Also graduating today is Mary Jo Fink, who is completing her master's degree in the School of Hotel Administration. Mary Jo was diagnosed with cancer nine weeks ago and has endured two major operations and chemotherapy. She wrote me, in the midst of all that, to say how her classmates, the faculty, and the deans had sent flowers, cards, a painting of the campus, a video, and more to remind her of where she belonged.

I am living to come back at the end of May to be able to walk with my class.... With a disease whose cure is 90% attitude, I feel I owe Cornell my life," she wrote. And I am delighted that Mary Jo has indeed been able to come back for this special day.

Like Helene Rosenblatt and Mary Jo Fink, many others are here today, in large measure, because of the encouragement, the love and the support they received along the way. One group has been particularly important in that regard: the fathers and mothers, step-parents, siblings, spouses and children of the graduates. The families here today richly deserve the pride they feel in the graduates.

Most of us do not tell our families often enough how important they are. I want to do that this morning. On behalf of the graduates, let me say to their families: We're proud of you. We're grateful to you. We love you. Please stand, families of the graduates, so that we may all recognize you and applaud you.

Others have also figured prominently in the success we celebrate today. I want to acknowledge their contributions by recognizing those among them who are retiring or completing their terms of service this year. Retiring from the Board of Trustees are Lilyan Affinity, Stephen Fillo, Isaac Kramnick, Judith Monson, Nancy Richmond, Harvey Sampson, along with Judy.Van Dermark, who resigned for health reasons earlier this year. Retiring from the faculty are 19 professors who represent a collective 543 years of service, and retiring from the staff are 43 dedicated men and women who together represent 1,049 years of service. Please stand, all trustees, faculty members, and staff members who are retiring or completing terms of service so that we may applaud you and thank you for your many contributions to these graduates and to Cornell.

The images blur as one tries to fix the outlines of the past few years: Hillary Clinton explaining the President's health care proposal in Barton Hall; Hans Bethe explaining the significance of the Manhattan Project that produced the first atom bomb, with Carl Sagan serving as host; sledding down Buffalo Street on old mattresses during the Blizzard of '93, and doing it again just this year; quiet walks through rainsoaked gorges; snowdrops blooming in the spring sunshine on Ruth Uris Slope, before being buried once again by snow; the friendships you've made with students, faculty, and staff -- these are part of what you've become.

Yet, for all its challenges and all its opportunities, life at Cornell is scarcely typical of the real world. Here you have had clear objectives and specific tasks, distribution requirements and course sequences that have given you a road map to help you reach your goal. Here you have had a ready-made community of friends and a wealth of services to buoy you up and give you the support and encouragement you may have needed. Here you have had hope that your efforts would lead not only to a degree, but also to a challenging career and a rewarding life, to which a degree will provide entry. It has been a distinctive environment, and you have prospered here.

But now you leave this placid lake of scholarly inconclusiveness for a threatening ocean of demanding choices. Those of you who heard Dave Barry speak in Bailey this spring may be wishing you had taken his advice: "Stay at Cornell," he told you. "There are no jobs out there anyway. Tell your parents you're sophomores. They're old. They forget."

But it's too late now for that advice. Unless you bolt quickly, you're about to graduate. No longer can you follow a road map or drift with the current and assume that you will reach your goal. Decisions must be made. Questions loom. And a single question looms above the rest: "is there life after Cornell?" My answer is "Yes, but only if you consciously build it." "Get a life," you tell the roommate who does little except study day after day. "Get a life," you tell a parent who has failed to notice that you no longer need quite as much oversight as you did when you were four. "Get a life," you tell the friend who worries more about your lifestyle and schedule than about her own.

But what does getting a life require? What is it I am asking you to build? A successful life, it has been said, will have at least three parts: "Something to do. Someone to love. Something to hope for."

Most of you, certainly, will find something to do. Dave Barry not withstanding, the job outlook is brighter this year than it has been for quite 'a while. Many of you have succeeded in your job search. Others will be going on to graduate or professional school, to the Peace Corps, and many other activities. You've worked hard for these degrees, and the world owes you a chance to use them. My guess is that it will give you not one chance, but several chances, all life long. But how are you to choose?

The author Robert Bella describes three types of work: First, there's the where the goal is simply earning a living and supporting your family. Then there's the career, where you trace your progress through various appointments and achievements. Finally, there's the calling, the ideal blending of activity and character that makes work inseparable from life.

Of course, some jobs become careers, and some careers become callings, but whichever you find, change is inevitable. Whenever anyone comes up with a better mousetrap, someone immediately comes up with a better mouse. So welcome change. Embrace challenges. Dream dreams, but pencil in deadlines beside them. Never stop learning. Keep in mind some larger goals. And soon you will have a true calling -- something satisfying and meaningful to do.

Second, getting a life means finding someone to love. "Ah, that's easy," you say. "There are 20 of my sorority sisters and 50 of my classmates whom I adore. My boyfriend and I are serious -- we've talked about marriage and starting a family."

But the reality is not quite so easy. Friendships are forgotten over the years, the casualties of distance and time. Marriages entered into with the promise of springtime wither and fade if not constantly nurtured and renewed. All of you here have parents. Most will also have children. And both groups will need your help, your support and your love. Our nation is falling apart because our families are falling apart. No matter how many or how few members your family embraces, I hope you'll take time to burnish the love that is so vital to its strength and yours. But families are places, not only for refuge, but for nurture. By loving those closest to us, we can learn to love more broadly, and that, too, is vital. We are, for all our differences, citizens, not just of one nation, but of one planet. Amidst the clamor of our single-issue politics and single-interest groups, we must restore a larger sense of common citizenship, of wider friendship -- across the years, across the races, across the oceans, across the classes -- that can redeem life from separatism and self-interest, from triviality and abstraction, from torpor and loneliness. Our hearts require friendship and love as surely as our bodies require food. Cherish those connections, especially to those closest to you today.

Our own Urie Bronfenbrenner, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and of Psychology, Emeritus, has said, "The family is the most powerful, the most stable, and, by far, the most economical way of making and keeping human beings human." How wonderful if all 5,900 of you here today would pledge yourselves to be champions of strong, stable, loving, nurturing families.

Finally, getting a life means building into your life after Cornell something to hope for. If life requires hope, then some will say that we have been born at the wrong time, for this is an age in which hope and heroes have died. Some say that yours is the first generation that cannot aspire to a life better than your parents enjoyed. Can we really hope for new worlds to conquer, or is there only turf to defend? For all the gloomy prognoses, you enter a world that offers at least some encouragement. It is, in fact, far better than the one your parents inherited when they crossed the threshold to adulthood. And there are at least three grounds for hope:

First, with your graduation today, the world is renewed. We are neither captives nor automata nor victims of a predetermined fate. The late tennis champion Arthur Ashe once said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at, whatever cost."

With all your skills, you, the world's newest professionals, can provide new solutions, new zest, new boldness, new insight. You can make a difference. With your graduation today, the world is born again.

There is a second reason for hope: knowledge, hard-won and humanely used, can improve the human condition, not immediately, but slowly, haltingly and over time. But there are conditions: It is not knowledge applied in thoughtless abstraction that improves the human condition. It is not technology, imposed without reflection, untempered by the experience of history, that will enrich our existence. I hope Cornell has given you a healthy skepticism of untested generalities, of unbending ideology, of simplistic solutions casually applied. These are the things that weaken our society. But understanding patiently sought, reason carefully cultivated, and knowledge humanely applied - these are the things that improve the lot of humankind. And that, too, is a source of hope.

There is a third reason for hope: Humanity, for all its lethargy, selfishness, and arrogance, can be transformed by idealism. William Carey, who served some years ago as head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, once offered three postulates of democracy: "Not that man is good, but that he is capable of good; not that he is free of corruption, but that he is desperately sick of it; and not that he has made the good society, but that he has caught an unforgettable glimpse of it." Lives of emptiness and self-absorption can be transformed by that unforgettable glimpse of the good. This is the message of every religion and of every true humanist. This is the hope that undergirds all the rest. This is the hope that brings change, that mobilizes support, and that encourages effort, galvanizes creativity, and inspires commitment.

So is there life after Cornell? Yes, there is, if -- and only if -- you will make it. So get a life. Determine before you leave this familiar campus to commit yourself to something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. These are the pieces from which you may craft a life after Cornell.

By tomorrow morning this huge stadium will be empty. You will have left this friendly hill and departed for every corner of the Earth. By then, if not before, you will have forgotten most of the words I have said. But if you remember nothing else, please take with you these three simple words: work, love, hope. For with them you can build a life of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. With them there is life -- abundant life -- after you leave Cornell. There is an old Gaelic blessing with which I like to send each graduating class into the life that exists after Cornell, and it seems particularly appropriate this morning, for its message is one of work, love, and hope:

May the sun shine gently on your face.
May the rain fall soft upon your fields.
May the wind be at your back.
May the road rise to meet you.
May the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand,
Until we meet again