New Jersey Governor Corzine's remarks delivered at Stevens' Undergraduate Commencement, May 22, 2008
HOBOKEN , N.J. ― Well, good morning everyone. For a political science major it’s not bad to have an engineering degree to go along, particularly for a guy that couldn’t solve quadratic equations or figure out a first derivative. I think I am with very good company here today. And I am very pleased. It’s great to be in Hoboken . I only had to walk about six blocks down from 14 th Street to be here with you—and you had to work four long, hard years to get your degrees. So I am very grateful to join with all of you -- proud to be a part of this graduation. I want to thank President Raveche and Chairman Babbio, trustees, distinguished faculty, Rabbi Scheinberg, Reverend Bishop, parents, friends and, most importantly, all of you, the graduates. You are a terrific group of individuals with an incredible future. It’s also my pleasure to be here with Curtis Carlson, who is also an honoree and someone you should use as a role model as we go forward in his great contributions in patent and innovation.
Let me repeat though: The real reason all of us are here is to say congratulations to all of you. It really is a milestone, an outstanding achievement at a great university that you are receiving today. As one observer put it, the fireworks of your life begin today. (Maybe it happened last night.) Each diploma is a lighted match and each of you is a fuse. More modestly, all of us join in wishing you much happiness and great success in the life that you will live ahead. We’re all excited about the prospect that you will make a difference, not only in your own life but in everyone else in our community, and I must say, as a recent grandfather, I’m looking forward to your contributions to my grandchildren and the opportunity for the future to evolve. As Adlai Stevenson, who was an old fellow from Illinois where I grew up, invoked at a commencement some forty years ago that I attended, “When you leave here, don’t forget why you came.”
Your time at Stevens has surely given you a terrific exposure to the 21 st-century knowledge and skills that are necessary to compete in the world today, while offering you serious practice at critical thinking and disciplined reasoning, something that is absolutely necessary in the world today. You came for a good reason: It’s a great university. It gives you those disciplines and opportunity. Your preparation beckons you for a higher calling. The preeminence of the American experience has been built on the nation’s historic ability to create entrepreneurs who understood the leverage of science, math and technology. That’s been your focus. Entrepreneurs who translated equations and microchips into communications satellites, pharmaceutical formula, iPods and Facebook. I expect President Raveche would call that technogenesis. (laughter) I wanted to get that in—I’m always trying to butter up. (laughter)
The continued preeminence of America and our economic well-being will be borne of your generation’s ability to advance our understanding and application of science and technology. Your experience at Stevens will put you at the front line of that. There is a host of examples of great success of your predecessors carrying that forward. From Colonel Stevens steam engine to its successor the internal combustion engine. From Kitty Hawk to the Apollo program. Even this very day a landing on Mars. From the telegraph to the internet, America has lead the advance with innovation and invention. We are people filled with creativity and a search for curiosity in all of our doings. I’m proud to recognize that New Jersey has been inextricably linked to those advances. You’ll hear that from Dr. Carlson in a few seconds. From Edison ’s Menlo Park to the genius of Bell Labs to the super-think tank of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton —or right here at Stevens. America and New Jersey carried the mantle of the Industrial Revolution into the 20 th century, and again we will carry the age of technology into the 21 st.
But the real question, the real question for all of you is: Can we sustain our preeminence in the world that is changing and is learning to compete each and every day? We live in a world that’s moving at warp speed. All of you, I know, have studied Moore ’s law which captures the concept that computing power is increasing exponentially, doubling every two years. Capturing the opportunities and the advantages of processing speed, memory and digital resolution will take the minds of those like yourselves who are prepared and capable to capture that value.
Today, by most accounts, China produces more than two times the number of engineers we graduate in the US . Germany and India are not far behind. Across the world, people are committed to what you have studied: invention, innovation, entrepreneurship. Outsourcing and global competition are appropriately the subject of presidential debates and are of deep concern to the American people. America ’s universities comb the globe for scientists who discover the protocols to employ stem cells in the attack on life’s most devastating diseases. We go to Singapore to hire those that will research those elements. We need to make sure that it has an American content. I look with envy on the development of all electric powered cars and power stations that charge them, products that today are engineered and built in Israel . I can go on about long life solar panels, energy efficient desalinization or nuclear fusion. America and our world demand solutions for the problems of today’s 135 dollar-a-barrel oil. Only the exploration and the application and the innovation and the knowledge you’ve acquired will meet that challenge.
Yes, America has been preeminent. Still, America is preeminent. But the race is on. In this perspective I can only observe there is a high calling for all of you, the graduates. And make no mistake, our nation’s challenge is not only in the laboratory, the design rooms or hidden in computer code; it’s in the classrooms of our elementary and secondary schools across the country. Classrooms where there are far too few well-trained teachers to inspire the curiosity that you have, teach the lessons in math and science you’ve taken in. We need your help there as well. I hope there are Teach for America volunteers in this graduating class that we can transfer those skills. Again, I observe teaching is a high quality--a high calling.
So, Stevens graduates, you’ve chosen your path well. The opportunities are substantial, the purpose meaningful. American demographers project the demand for science and engineering professionals will grow at three times the rate of our overall economy in the next 25 years. The fastest growing professions – three quarters of them require what you’ve acquired – preparation in math and science. I’m an old washed up businessman and I can guarantee supply and demand is on your side. For a time society has often ascribed excess value and economic reward to finance, entertainment and real estate. But in the future, I suspect scientific and technological innovation will rule. From Franklin to Ford to Edison and Einstein and onto Gates, America ’s strength has returned time and again to the discovery, the ingenuity and onto the marketing of ideas and inventions.
The return to the embrace of the historic position of the United States in the world of science, I believe, will gain momentum as the guard changes in Washington . Change is at hand. In my thinking, science is basic to the human experience, and its necessity must be collectively embraced. You’ve already made that choice. It’s a high calling for not only Stevens graduates, but for New Jersey and the nation. Our nation and our future truly depends on it. Science speaks to the natural curiosity of man, marks our evolution, expands our limits and defines the grandeur of human experience. Stevens graduates of 2008: Follow in the great footsteps of your predecessors here at this institute and New Jersey ’s brightest innovators: Einstein, Edison and all of those who have created the platform -- the greatness of our nation -- as we go forward. As I said, as Adlai Stevenson implored, “Never forget why you came.” God bless you, thank you. Good luck.
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,040 undergraduate and 3,085 graduate students, and a worldwide online enrollment of 2,250, with a full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty of 140 and more than 200 full-time special faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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