thank you so very much. i am absolutely delighted and honored to be here with all of you for this commencement. i want to thank dr. steinberg for this honorary degree. i want to thank my longtime friend and longtime member of the board here, roger tilles. i want to thank all of you associated with this great university. and i especially want to thank the faculty, the administration, but most of all i am here to say congratulations to the class of XX. you have worked hard to get here. you have studied, you have taken exams, you have spent four sometimes more years getting your bachelors degrees. many of you are getting a graduate degree after having been in the world of work. you have an astonishing number of degree programs. c.w. post offers some 235 degree programs and so represented in this audience of graduates are so many different talents and experiences and i am so proud to be among the very first to wish you well as you leave this beautiful campus as you travel in a hundred，a thousand different directions and as each of you works hard to hold onto the sense of possibility and achievement that you have so richly deserved and earned.
