It is a great honor for me to be here on this day of celebration for you and your families. I am grateful to President Petillo, the Board of Trustees, the administration, and the faculty for this recognition.
I feel a true kinship with Sacred Heart’s mission to prepare people to “make a difference in the global community.” In the early 1960s, the Most Reverend Walter W. Curtis, Bishop of Bridgeport, established this university and charged it with the sacred responsibility to promote the common good through leadership and service. On the SHU shield, there is a bridge icon, representing the university’s commitment to service and promoting understanding among diverse people.
I grew up in the 1960s. I was inspired by leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy. At six years old, I cut school so I could watch JFK’s inauguration on TV. In that speech, he issued his now-classic call to action: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Like so many of my generation, I wanted to answer that call. When I was 13, I wrote to JFK’s brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, and told him of my desire to enter public service. He wrote me back and said, “What will matter most is the consistent interest in making a contribution to the fulfillment of our highest national goals.”
I never forgot his words — but I didn’t go into public service. As I grew up in that decade, things changed. Both John and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, as was Martin Luther King, Jr. There were race riots in Detroit and Newark. In Chicago, where I grew up, I went to a pre-season high school football practice with my shirt over my mouth, because on the next field, police with tear gas were battling protesters at the Democratic National Convention. Then President Nixon resigned in disgrace in the wake of Watergate. In short, I became disillusioned.
But I never lost my desire to serve. I went into my family’s business believing that I could make a difference through our work. And I’m deeply proud of our firm’s work for greater good throughout our 65-plus years in business.
Edelman led the campaign to get the Vietnam Veterans Memorial built; did communications for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11; and decades later, helped open the 9/11 Museum, where I’m a proud board member. We’ve worked with CVS on its decision to stop selling cigarettes in its stores; Starbucks on its initiative to provide 100,000 jobs to disadvantaged youth; and Wal-Mart in its effort to bring more fresh food to so-called “food deserts” in urban and rural areas. We provided pro-bono counsel and on-the-ground expertise to Orlando after the nightclub shooting and to Dallas after the police shootings there.
Public service is part and parcel of our business. Service should be part of every business and every life — not something approached separately. I learned this from my parents, who were part of the Greatest Generation. They were the children of immigrants, and they depended on traditional values of family and faith as they built a business and raised three children. They served on multiple boards of community organizations and were generous with their time and money for numerous causes and charities in Chicago.
I sit firmly in the Baby Boomer generation, coming of age in the late 1970s. We saw the fall of communism, deregulation and low taxes, and a booming economy. But we also saw businesses begin to outsource job overseas; the rise of automation that threatened jobs; and a greater disparity between rich and poor. Volunteerism declined, and the best people no longer went into government.
In all honesty, my generation was too self-centered. We operated on the principle of “me before we.” We thought we needed to choose between working for personal profit versus for the public good. And we chose the easier path.
Your generation’s early years have been particularly trying. Many of you were children on 9/11. You were teenagers when the Great Recession hit a decade ago. Maybe some of your parents lost their jobs. Or they lost their confidence in the American Dream when they lost their homes. The combination of these events led to the world of today: less tolerant and open, more fearful for our security and suspicious of outsiders, a retreat into tribes.
Today, your generation is inheriting challenges as important as any we’ve seen in our history. Foundational American tenets and beliefs are under siege. Democracy is being threatened by populism, nationalism, and the rise of authoritarian leaders. Cooperation and collaboration are diminished by partisanship. And truth itself is under attack by fake news and people’s rejection of media — more than half of people in this country do not access news at all through mainstream media.
It’s not surprising that you blame my generation. In a new study by Bain, more than half of Millennials blame Boomers for making things worse for their generation. What is surprising is that so many Boomers agree. One-third said policies created by my generation made things worse.
The biggest challenge of all is an epic downfall of trust in institutions that began decades ago. For 18 years, the Edelman Trust Barometer has measured people’s trust in government, business, media and NGOs around the world.
Here’s a shocking finding. In this country, the informed population — the college-educated and higher-income audience — now has the world’s lowest levels of trust in these four institutions, lower than Brazil or Argentina or Russia. Our trust in our country plunged 23 points in a single year.
This situation is not sustainable. It’s urgent that you help turn it around. Marketers call you Post-Millennials, Generation Z, or Digital Natives. I propose a new name: “The Significant Generation.”
“Significant” is defined as 1) “having meaning” and 2) “having or likely to have influence or effect.” You can, and you must, be Significant — both publicly and privately.
Whether you are receiving your degree today in arts, science, business, health, or education, you have a choice to make. You can just go to work — or you can make your work a force for change. You can be Significant.
Role models for your generation are people like Henry Timms, who runs the 92nd Street Y and created #GivingTuesday; Margo Georgiadis, the CEO of Ancestry.com, a genealogical research service that’s now unlocking insights into medical conditions that run in families and ethnic communities; Antonio Lucio, chief marketing and communications officer of HP, who called on all of its agencies — including Edelman — to increase the number of women and people of color on their creative teams; and Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose brilliant musical Hamilton reinvigorates American history for a new generation while celebrating the beauty of multiculturalism. These people combine successful business with serving society. They are Significant.
If business is your destination, understand that its role has changed. You should push your company to lead on social problems and form a compact with the public on issues like sustainability, data and privacy, gender equity, and the impact of technology on employment.
I hope some of you will choose to go into government. We need you more than ever to help rejuvenate the institution so that voters will believe again in their leaders as honest and reliable public servants. Commit to effectiveness and transparency; work across political parties and in tandem with business.
If you are not ready to join government now, consider doing it later in life. My friend Ned Lamont has had a long, successful business career and now he is running for governor of Connecticut this year. Linda McMahon, the administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration — and a longtime supporter of Sacred Heart — brilliantly transitioned from the private to the public sector.
If media is your calling, I want you to commit to need fair and balanced reporting that will educate and inform. Use new models of storytelling, short-form so they are shared, long-form for context, with strong visuals but always grounded in facts. This is how we fight the plague of fake news.
If you choose non-profit work, realize that NGOs should focus not on criticism but on finding solutions. Solve our sustainability issues, further international understanding, be the champion of the underserved — and be open to partnering with business.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a new, broader, more inclusive model of public service, fit for your generation. It’s not something you do in your spare time. It’s embedded into your work and your values.
As Adam Smith explained it in “The Wealth of Nations”: benevolence is often in short supply, but self-interest is not. He wrote, “By pursuing his own interest, [an individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”
Your Significance can begin here in Connecticut. This state needs you. Hartford is the poorest city in America. In recent years, Connecticut has hemorrhaged the headquarters of long-established businesses, such as GE and MassMutual, and Aetna is now threatening to leave Hartford. Between 2015 and 2016, nearly 40,000 people left this state — and nearly 8,000 of them were young people like you.
You can help turn this around. Start your business here. Establish your tech start-up here. This state currently has a 12-to-15 percent gap in four-year high school graduation rates between white students, and black and Hispanic students. Help close that divide — teach or mentor.
Whatever you do, aspire to something great for yourself — and great for society. Be governed not by fear, but by what is possible. There is always turmoil in the world. Look beyond it. Let optimism and faith be your companions for your journey ahead.
Most of all, trust one another. The future is open to each of you, but you cannot go it alone. Be Significant — together.
Thank you, and congratulations to all of you.