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Breaking Down Barriers
There are barriers that inhibit the achievement of the remarkable potential within each of us, within our university, within our city and within our society. Breaking down these barriers represents the greatest challenge to tapping all our human potential, be it individual potential, institutional potential or societal potential.
For each of us, these barriers take many forms. For some people, it's barriers between different parts of themselves—barriers separating the intellectual self from the emotional self, the physical self from the spiritual self. Only by integrating these parts of ourselves can we achieve our full potential.
For other people, their rate limiting factor is barriers between themselves and other people, a difficulty in forming the generative relationships that make each of us more fully ourselves.
To each of you graduating today, I say that I hope your time at Case has not only advanced your intellectual and professional self, but also helped you bridge across your personal barriers to more fully achieve your potential.
At the institutional level, Case is still working on breaking down the barriers that inhibit achievement of its full potential as a university—barriers between the graduate and professional parts of the university on the one hand and the undergraduate program on the other—between the arts, humanities and social sciences on the one hand and the sciences and technology on the other.
These are, of course, not the only barriers whose removal would create a more powerful environment for learning and discovery here.
Because we are also a microcosm of our city and society, we also have an obligation to attack the barriers that inhibit Cleveland and so many other cities: barriers between rich and poor, between white and black and other racial divides.
We have to attack every form of bias that divides us, whether racism, sexism, or homophobia—every one of which is based on the destructive belief that such barriers protect us rather than diminish us.
Just as each of us, in order to achieve our own full potential, needs to work to connect outwardly with other people as well as to integrate our own inner lives, so this university, to achieve its full potential, needs not only to bridge these many internal historical, academic and cultural divides, but also to break down the practical and the psychological barriers between us and other institutions.
These are the generative institutional relationships that can help make our university more whole, whether this is between the institutions in University Circle, the connectivity to all our hospital partners, or our many productive partnerships with other universities and companies around the globe.
In these four years we've shared together at Case, we've seen how these partnerships can help us recruit top students and top faculty from anywhere in the country or the world, and it is only by continuing to break down barriers that we can achieve our fullest potential.
Think about the impact on the city of Cleveland over these last four years of the thousands and thousands of hours of work and community service provided by our students, faculty and staff through our innovative curricula that bring medical, nursing, and dental care, social work and legal aid services, and a host of engineering and technical and cultural service programs to this community.
Think of the 100s of homes that have been purchased in the region by the people recruited here—including over 50 homes bought in the City of Cleveland by our employees through our unique homebuyer assistance program. Think about the impact of over $60 million in contracts that we've awarded to minority-and women-owned businesses in Northeast Ohio. Think about the many companies that have been started out of our faculty's research thanks to the remarkable technology transfer program that has grown during our time together.
Only great research universities have this incredible level of impact, and I want to thank each of you graduating today for your contributions not only to our campus, but to our city and region.
The breaking down of barriers between universities and cities was the theme of the international colloquium we hosted here four years ago, when you and I started our time at Case. As I stand with you today, I continue to believe that Case can be the nation's best model in achieving the full potential of a synergistic relationship between a university and a city.
It is an economic model that makes business sense. It is a social model that makes societal sense. And, I believe, it is a philosophical model that makes moral sense.
Now it's up to you, the graduating class of 2006, to take up the challenge—as individuals: to achieve your full potential by breaking down barriers within your own lives and in your relationships.
As alumni: to help Case achieve its full potential by breaking down barriers within the university and across institutions.
And as citizens of the world: to create symbiotic relationships within this city or wherever your journey takes you from here.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Life's most persistent question is: What are you doing for others?"
Graduating from this university brings great privileges but equally great responsibilities. As you all know in the depth of your hearts—serving the greater good, striving to make the world a better place—is ultimately what matters most. My hope for you all is that you continue to allow these ideals to inform everything you do in the years ahead.
Class of 2006—congratulations, good luck, stay in touch with us, and never stop breaking down barriers to achieve your fullest potential, both in your own lives and in your communities, so that you can continually make positive contributions to a world that now more than ever needs people of your remarkable character, capability and commitment.
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