The Commencement Address I Would Give If Asked

Good morning to all of you — faculty, families, friends, and most importantly—you, the Class of 2026.

Today is a day of celebration. It is a day of caps and gowns, of cameras and proud parents, of names called and futures imagined and waiting. Congratulations! You made it. You cleared one important hurdle.

It’s your commencement. It’s an event to recognize the end of your college years, but commencement doesn’t mean ending. It means beginning.

And so today, as you prepare to step into classrooms and laboratories, hospitals and courtrooms, construction sites and boardrooms, union halls and public offices, I want to talk with you about something that rarely makes it into commencement speeches.

I want to talk about work. Not résumés. Not LinkedIn profiles. Not “finding your passion.”

But  about the work and the people that make our lives possible. The work of people who:

• Build and maintain our roads.
• Stock our grocery shelves.
• Staff our hospitals.
• Deliver our mail and packages.
• Harvest our food.
• Repair our power lines in the middle of storms.
• Care for our sick children and aging parents.
• Keep buses, trains, and airplanes operating, schools open, water clean, and cities moving.

Work and workers that are often invisible—right up until their work stops.

And I want to talk about something even more important: Whether those workers come home safely at the end of their day. Because behind every hard hat, every hospital badge, every steel-toed boot, every safety vest, every uniform—there is a human being: Someone’s son or daughter, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s parent.

Someone who kissed a loved one goodbye that morning with every expectation of coming home for dinner.

You probably already realize that for many, work is more than a paycheck. It is a calling. It is a source of pride, accomplishment, inspiration, and a service to others. It is also a critical factor in people’s health and well-being.

For others, work may be a necessity – to provide shelter, food, and a brighter future for their children.

But whether a calling or a necessity, workers deserve basic protections. Many of the workplace protections we now take for granted were not gifts bestowed by employers  who took pity on their employees’ sorry working conditions.

They were hard fought and won. Sometimes in courtrooms; sometimes in legislatures; sometimes in bargaining; sometimes on picket lines. Things that we often take for granted were the result of bitter struggles: the eight-hour day, exposure limits, protective equipment, machine guarding, workers’ compensation, the right to refuse dangerous work and the right to form a union.

The true measure of your career will be: Did people flourish because you were there? Were people safer because you spoke up? Were systems fairer because you refused to look away?  Did somebody go home at the end of the day because you cared enough to act?

The simple radical idea that workers should not have to choose between their jobs and their lives.

Those rights exist because ordinary people decided that human beings were worth more than production quotas. And they were willing to fight for that decision.

And now, graduates — that responsibility belongs to you.

• Some of you will become engineers. When you design a machine, don’t only ask if it works; ask if it’s safe for the operator and the person standing next to it.
• Some of you will become business leaders. When spreadsheets tell you that safety costs too much, remember that someone may pay with their limbs; their health; their very lives.
• Some of you will become health care professionals. Listen carefully to your patients. They often know what’s hurting them and why before the data does.
• Some of you will become teachers. Make health and safety a part of your curriculum – especially as your students head off to summer jobs.
• Some of you will become lawyers and policymakers. Never forget that regulations are not just red tape and paperwork. They are protections.

Some of you may not know exactly what you want to do. That’s ok.  You will discover it; sometimes over and over again. But wherever life takes you, I hope you remember that the true measure of your career will not be your title. Or your salary. Or the letters after your name.

It will be this: Did people flourish because you were there? Were people safer because you spoke up? Were systems fairer because you refused to look away?  Did somebody go home at the end of the day because you cared enough to act?

Graduates— I close now with these words:

You are entering a world that needs your intelligence. But even more than that— it needs your courage. Courage to ask uncomfortable questions. Courage to challenge convenient assumptions. Courage to put people before profits. Courage to remember that no deadline, no quarterly report, no innovation, no ambition—is worth a human life.

So, go. Build. Discover. Lead. Invent. Challenge. Disrupt. Dream. And keep yourself safe.

Class of 2026— the world awaits your work. Congratulations.