May 27, 2021
Hello everyone. I am Doug Elmendorf, the Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Welcome to the graduation of the amazing Harvard Kennedy School Class of 2021. This class includes students from around the world, so I know that you are joining our celebration at many hours of the day and night. I wish you “good morning,” “good afternoon,” or “good evening.”
With the conferring of degrees by Harvard President Larry Bacow earlier today, the members of the Class of 2021 are officially graduates of Harvard Kennedy School. Congratulations! We are proud of you and excited for you. Congratulations as well to the families and friends of the graduates—to the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, spouses, partners, children, and all of the loved ones who have supported today’s graduates and helped to make this moment possible. This year has been especially hard for many families, so your continuing encouragement of the graduates deserves special recognition. I ask the members of the Class of 2021 to reflect on the people who have nurtured you and supported you. If they are with you now, please turn to them and give them your thanks.
We have gathered virtually for this graduation rather than in person because traveling and convening in large groups still pose significant risks to people’s health. I am so sorry that Harvard cannot offer its typical Commencement today, and I hope that you all will join us in the future when we can safely celebrate the Class of 2021 in person. I am sorry as well that members of this class have been able to spend only limited time, or no time at all, on our campus. Having to learn and interact online has made this past year and a quarter unusually difficult, but the Class of 2021, like so many people in our communities, rose to the occasion. You showed up enthusiastically to class sessions, bringing your whole selves and, in some cases, your families and pets as well. You found ways to build community with each other outside of class, undeterred by differences in geography and time zones. You should be very proud of what you have accomplished.
I want to pause here to recognize David Hicks, a student in the joint program between the Kennedy School and Harvard Law School, who passed away this month after a hard battle with cancer. Dave will be missed so much by all who knew him, and by those whom he would have served after graduation.
Around the world, many people have felt the pain of loss this year, as we continue to experience human suffering on a horrific scale in this pandemic. My heart goes out to everyone who is hurting and grieving—in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. I offer my deepest sympathy to all who have become ill or lost loved ones and to all who have endured the social and economic consequences of the virus. I also offer my profound gratitude to the health care professionals, first responders, essential workers, government employees, scientists, and all who have been serving others—in some cases, with the sacrifice of their own lives.
Our ability to endure the pandemic—as individuals and as a society—depends on our resilience. Resilience is often defined as an ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune or change. Misfortune is common, and change even more so, and this means that resilience—the ability to cope with misfortune and change—is enormously important. The ability of the Class of 2021 to learn and grow this year, despite the obstacles, is a testament to resilience.
Resilience depends on both individual characteristics and societal characteristics. Some of these characteristics can be influenced by our individual or societal decisions, while others cannot.
For example, a person’s resilience in the face of physical or emotional setbacks may depend partly on their age. As we grow older, our bodies can become more vulnerable to diseases such as Covid-19. Yet, age also brings experience, and some experiences increase our psychological fortitude, which can improve our ability to deal with illnesses and other difficulties. Many other individual characteristics can affect resilience as well.
But resilience is not just a matter of individual characteristics. A person’s resilience depends crucially on the characteristics of the society in which the person lives. These societal characteristics include both specific public policies and broader aspects of relationships between people.
For example, when someone becomes sick, can they take time off work and receive health care? If a person cannot take time off and get care, then society is not helping them to be resilient. When someone loses a job because of economic shifts, is other work or a public safety net available? If not, then society is not enabling resilience. Is someone’s life treated as fully worthy of respect and dignity regardless of that person’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or physical abilities? If not, then society is profoundly unjust and is undermining people’s resilience. When people’s lives and livelihoods are being hurt by changes in the environment, is society acting resolutely? If not, then resilience is being reduced rather than increased.
I urge the members of the Class of 2021 to build resilience in your own lives and to help build resilience in your communities, your nations, and our shared world.
Resilience will be important for you personally, because life can be hard, and public service, in addition to its deep satisfactions, can bring demanding challenges. Serving the public interest requires a commitment and sense of urgency to improving the lives of others, but it also requires patience and perseverance. In my long career in government, I saw at close hand that progress is often two steps forward, one step back—or sometimes one step forward and two steps back, before making adjustments and trying again to move forward. Being able to cope with setbacks is essential.
The obstacles to progress in the public sphere are many. Some obstacles are people who are self-serving, dishonest, or unjust in their treatment of others. In those cases, anger may be a natural reaction, but it often does not generate needed change by itself; instead, skills and knowledge must be brought to bear as well, and that takes time and involves setbacks. Moreover, many obstacles to progress stem not from bad intent but rather from complexity, uncertainty, and scarcity. In those circumstances, discouragement may be natural, but that also does not produce change; instead, rigorous analysis, mental flexibility, and adaptive action must be brought to bear—work that, again, takes time and involves setbacks.
So, in your lives of advancing the common good, being resilient will be hugely important.
Resilience is also hugely important for societies. When a society can recover from misfortune or change, and can adapt effectively, people can have better lives. And we might broaden the definition of societal resilience to include not only responding well to problems but also avoiding inflicting problems on ourselves.
This past year offers many examples of the importance of strengthening societal resilience through better public policies and through improving the way we treat each other.
Consider the tragedies caused by the pandemic. The extent of deaths and suffering in different places has depended in significant part on whether underlying living standards facilitate good health broadly, whether public health systems have been ready to step up, whether scientific expertise and safety measures have been widely accepted, and what other policies have been used. In other words, some places have been much more resilient against Covid-19 than other places, and that difference has mattered.
This past year has also brought tragic deaths and much suffering in the United States arising from racism against Black Americans, Asian Americans, and other people of color, and arising from bias and discrimination against women and members of other groups. Marginalized people in other countries have been subject to terrible violence as well. If society can reduce and ultimately eliminate racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination, the advance of justice will lessen the pain and grief we experience; we will create a more resilient society.
Attacks on democracy have intensified this past year in a number of countries. As Harvard’s deans wrote last fall, the success of democracy depends on “the right to vote, a free and independent press, checks and balances, the peaceful transfer of power, and the rule of law with equal justice for all.” When citizens and leaders stand by those crucial elements of democracy, accountability and social cohesion can make societies resilient in addressing challenges. But when citizens and leaders abandon those elements of democracy in hopes of short-term advantage, resilience is diminished.
Similarly, the climate crisis is a test of societal resilience. Over time, our degrading of the natural world is causing more illness and death, displacement of vulnerable populations, spreading of disease, intensified resource conflicts, and other damage. Moreover, the harms are often borne disproportionately by people who suffer from injustices of other sorts. A resilient society would act decisively to slow and buffer those changes.
For the problems I have mentioned and others, making society more resilient can create an enormous positive difference in people’s lives—and making a difference in other people’s lives is your enduring commitment, graduates. Please use the skills and knowledge you have developed during your time at the Kennedy School to help build resilience in our world.
Members of the Harvard Kennedy School Class of 2021, we will miss you very much, and we hope that you will stay in touch as alumni. We are excited that you will always be members of the Kennedy School community.
I used to watch a television show called The Amazing Race, in which teams of contestants race each other around the world. We are less able to travel around the world right now, but the sentiment with which the host begins each race still applies. He says to all of the contestants, and I say now to all of you: “The world is waiting for you. Good luck, travel safe, go!”
Thank you, and congratulations!