Year
Class of 2002
Browse commencement speeches from 2002, including addresses by Condoleezza Rice, James Wolfensohn, and Fred Rogers. Each record links to the available source material, transcript, video, and archive context.
5 addresses 7 themes 5 highlights
Highlights from 2002
Records with stronger source signals, summaries, transcripts, videos, or visual archive material.
Condoleezza Rice Stanford University Returning to Stanford as a faculty member, Condoleezza Rice reminds the Class of 2002 of advice she gave them as freshmen and outlines three responsibilities of educated people: to search for truth, to be optimistic, and to affirm common humanity. She illustrates these with personal stories of heroes including civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and her own grandfather, who pursued education despite poverty. Speaking after September 11 and reflecting on the Birmingham church bombing of her childhood, she argues that the desire for liberty is universal and that the graduates' diverse experiences equip them to bridge divides. InfographicSummaryTranscriptOfficial source 
James Wolfensohn Massachusetts Institute of Technology World Bank president James Wolfensohn reflects on his own journey from Australia to MIT decades earlier and argues that the world is no longer a bipolar divide between rich and poor but an interdependent place. He contends that poverty and inequity anywhere—made vivid by the events of September 11th—affect everyone, and challenges graduates to make 'planetary equity' their central concern. He urges them to use their education with humility and to commit to social justice, development, and peace. InfographicSummaryTranscriptOfficial source 
Fred Rogers Dartmouth College InfographicOfficial source 
George Pataki Yale University Infographic 
Sumner Redstone Northwestern University Infographic Represented themes
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All 2002 addresses
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