Today, I would like to talk to you about responsibility.

Responsibility to yourselves…your families….your neighbors….your Commonwealth…and your fellow students and this university.

I would like you to consider a few facts:

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts contributes $50 million every year to UMass Dartmouth…half a billion to the five-campus UMass system…one billion to the entire public higher education system including the university, state colleges and community colleges.

The Commonwealth contributes about $6,000 to each of you to make your college education possible.

Who is the Commonwealth? It is your neighbors, some of whom are sending their own sons and daughters off to the university, but most of whom either do not have kids going to colleague or are sending their kids to private campuses.

Each of your neighbors, through their taxes, are investing hundreds of dollars in you.

They do this because the greater community believes investing in your future will bring great benefits to the Commonwealth.

Investing in you may mean that you will start a business that creates hundreds of jobs, or perhaps you will become a teacher who shapes young lives, or an artist who enlivens our imagination, or a scientist who helps cure a disease.

It is your responsibility every day to prove that this investment in you is a wise one.

This is now your university…your community.

It is a community that is in a state of rapid evolution. We are growing in every way. We are becoming more diverse and need to accelerate that trend. We are a more residential campus. We have more cars. There is more research being done on campus.

You have an important role in determining what this university will be for the next four years. It can be just a place to socialize, attend class, and meet the minimum requirements to earn your degree.

Or, it can be a life-changing place where you take what you discover in the classroom, library, and laboratories and put them to good use on campus and in the surrounding community.

It is your responsibility to use your knowledge and talents to better the lives of your fellow students and the people living in cities and towns around here. Maybe you are the type to take on a student leadership position, plan cultural events, tutor inner city children, provide health care to senior citizens, design a business plan for a non-profit, feed hungry people at a soup kitchen, design and build a sola-powered house for Habitat for Humanity, help a fellow student improve their writing.

Wherever your talents and interests lead you, I promise you will have opportunities during the next four years to make a real difference in someone else’s life. By doing so, you will transform your own life. You will learn something about yourself. You may hear a calling that you never before considered.

Which brings me to the responsibility that you have to yourself and your own family.

Consider what you have invested in order to be here. You have paid a lot of money to be here. You worked a summer job to help pay your bill. Your parents have labored for years to save the money to get you’re here. You studied hard in high school so you would be qualified.

All of that sacrifice has provided you with an opportunity at higher education, an opportunity that is still rare throughout this world.

You now have a limited amount of time – about four years – to make the most of this rare opportunity.

Use your time wisely, always considering the responsibility that you have to the Commonwealth, your University and yourselves.

It is a matter of principle.

President Kennedy, just as he was preparing to leave Massachusetts for Washington said his personal success and the success of the nation would be measured by whether we demonstrated four qualities. In 2011, I think our success as a university, and your personal success as a student/citizen of this community can be measured the same way:

Did we demonstrate courage -- the courage to stand up to one's enemies… the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one's friend…the courage to resist peer pressure.

Judgment — about our own strengths and weaknesses, and the candor to admit them.

Integrity --  You will hear more about this from another speaker, but did we stay true to our principles.

Dedication – Did we spend our days committed to something bigger than ourselves, serving the community interest rather than our own interest.

Courage--judgment--integrity—dedication. It is our responsibility to teach, learn and live by these principles.

If we do, the next four years will be amazing.