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Warm winds ripped through Cowell Stadium as 2,400 students gathered on May 28 for the 128th Commencement ceremony, gowns billowing like tiny blue parachutes, hands darting out to retrieve flying mortar boards. Spirits were high as former Senator George Mitchell, who had recently brokered an agreement aimed at ending the violence in Northern Ireland, took to the podium the day after the Irish voted on the proposal, and just as exit polls indicated the majority had chosen the path of peace.

"By itself the agreement does not guarantee peace; it makes peace possible," Mitchell told the crowd of some 20,000 people. "The people of Northern Ireland remain divided along sectarian lines, and they mistrust each other. But they share a fervent desire not to return to the bitterness and violence of the past, which for so long has filled their lives with fear and anxiety, with death and destruction.

"You graduates have been attending school for many years; nothing I say in a few minutes can add much to what you already so know, so my message is short and simple: wherever you go in life, whatever you do, you'll be part of a society, a neighborhood, a community, your state, our great nation. And in that society, do something in and with your life.

"To you graduates real fulfillment in your life will come not from leisure, not from idleness, not from self indulgence, not from thinking only about yourself. Real fulfillment will come from striving with all your physical and spiritual might for a worthwhile objective. I hope that each of you is fortunate enough to find such an objective in your life."