PUBLIC SERVICE IS WRITTEN into Harvard Kennedy School’s DNA, Nicholas Burns, U.S. ambassador to China and a former HKS professor, told the crowd of graduating HKS students and their families in May as the speaker for the HKS Graduation Address. He urged graduates to confront the “seemingly overwhelming challenges” of the world they are heading out into and “find the collective vision, the collective faith, the collective courage to do something about it.” “The world needs change,” Burns said. “The world needs your help. Change the world, change it for the better, make it more humane, make it more just, make it more prosperous, make it more peaceful.” Burns, who taught at the Kennedy School for 13 years before returning to public service in 2021, spoke to an audience of 659 graduating students from 35 U.S. states and 87 countries, calling them “our planet in microcosm.” The student body is 56% international, one of the most cosmopolitan classes in the School’s history. Alluding to President Kennedy’s famous challenge to Americans—words that the Kennedy School has made its own—Burns reminded the graduates that their obligation is not to themselves but to humanity. “It’s, ‘Ask what you can do.’ It’s not, ‘What will I gain?’ It’s not, ‘What will I profit from?’ It’s not, ‘What’s in it for me?’ It’s, ‘Ask what you can do to make this a better world.’ The Kennedy School asks that you not just be involved in the world but to be great in the world.”

Bernie Sanders
“In our country today, we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society.”
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaking at the Forum in April
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Nina Totenberg
“For many politicians today, the word ‘shame’ does not register.”
Nina Totenberg, longtime NPR correspondent and 2024 Goldsmith Career Award recipient, at the Forum in April
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Ava Duvernay
“We don’t have to compete in the ‘oppression Olympics’ to see who is suffering more.”
Ava DuVernay, speaking at the Forum in April
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Kevin McCarthy
“History will be kind to me.”
Kevin McCarthy, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, at a Forum in April
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Marty Baron
“We don’t know all that much, and we may not even know what we think we know.”
Former Washington Post and Boston Globe editor Marty Baron at a Forum in March
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Elizabeth Koh
“How much do you feel you can say, ‘We’ve moved past a lot of the mistakes that were made in policing at the time?’”
Boston Globe reporter Elizabeth Koh, at a Forum on race, police, and the media, in February
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Banner photograph by Kayla Szymczak; Headshots by Martha Stewart.