August 6, 2005

Commencement a day filled with hope, promise

"Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality."

Those words come to us from medical pioneer Dr. Jonas Salk, whose dreams, imagination, and courage gave hope to a troubled and fearful world in the middle of the 20th century.

We are gathered here today at a very hope-filled moment in the lives of these students. They are hoping they will soon receive their degrees.

Perhaps to say they are "hoping" for this is an understatement. I should say they are most definitely counting on receiving their degrees, or they would not be spending a summer Saturday sitting here in Elliott Hall wearing black robes, square caps and listening to speeches.

What these students are probably hoping is that my speech will be short so they can get on with the real reason they are here.

Hope truly fills this beautiful hall today. These students are harboring great hopes for their future. The family and friends who have joined us here are united through the hopes and dreams they have for the lives of these graduates.

Commencement is a time of realizing goals, celebrating accomplishments, dreaming dreams. It is a time of wonderful hope for tomorrow. It is a marker in our lives – a turning point.

No one who is here today will ever forget this occasion.

Congratulations to this class on your success.

Of the many billions of people with whom we share this earth, you are among the fortunate few who have had the opportunity to study and learn at one of the great research universities of this world.

Sitting all around you are your friends and family who have supported your goals throughout your lives. They have always believed in you. There may have been moments when their faith was tested. But they have always believed.

This is their day, too.

No one succeeds alone. And no success is ever really meaningful unless it is shared with those we love.

Congratulations to all of you whose faith and support has made this day possible for these graduates.

This is not only an important day in our university calendar. It is a significant day in our summer. With commencement and a new fall term almost upon us, it might seem as though summer is now ending. But, in reality, today is just the halfway point.

As of today, 47 days have elapsed since the start of summer, and 47 days remain before the autumnal equinox and the beginning of fall.

No one likes to see summer's end. But there was a time not long ago when fear and even panic lurked around the edges of every summer for people in this nation and around the world.

It was 50 years ago this spring that the dreams, imagination and courage of Dr. Jonas Salk and others brought an end to that with a vaccine for a dreaded disease named poliomyelitis.

The amazing story of the polio vaccine has significance today for you graduates as you enter a difficult world and a future of unknown but surely incredible opportunities.

Albert Einstein noted years ago what you too will discover during your lives: "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

Polio was a scourge of the first half of the 20th century, attacking suddenly, without warning, especially targeting children and young adults.

The first major polio epidemic hit the United States in 1916. Twenty-seven thousand people suffered paralysis from polio that year, and 6,000 died. The numbers increased as the decades went on. By 1952, in that one year alone, 57,628 people were stricken with polio in the United States.

Polio was a summer epidemic. The warm days of August were a most dangerous time. I well remember my parents worrying that this disease would strike one of us as we played outside.

Theaters, swimming pools, and beaches closed. When people should have been able gather together to enjoy the waning days of summer, fearful mothers kept their children at home.

News stories told of Boston on some summer mornings in the early 1950s when medical personnel showing up to work at Children's Hospital found waiting lines of cars bearing sick children and frightened parents who had assumed the worst during the dark of night. Doctors and nurses went from car to car to determine who needed care and who could be sent home.

Many people with us today can remember those summers of fear and dread.

On April 12, 1955, the world heard among the most exciting and society changing announcements in medical history. Dr. Jonas Salk had developed a polio vaccine that had been put through extensive trials involving almost 2 million children, including his own – and it worked.

As the vaccine was rapidly released to the public, children were lined up in schools for inoculation, and polio cases in the United States dropped by 85-90 percent within several years.

In 1961 Dr. Albert Sabin developed an oral polio vaccine.

By 1963 the total number of new polio cases in this nation had dropped from nearly 60,000 10 years earlier to 396. The last case of polio in the United States caused by wild poliovirus was reported in 1979.

This was an accomplishment almost beyond measure, giving hope and promise where people had been filled with fear and despair.

"Hope," Salk said, "lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality."

Salk's courage emerged throughout this process as he failed time and again in his research, which stretched over many long years. But he always continued pursuing his goal. He is reported to have failed in his research up to 200 times.

That is nothing compared with inventor Thomas Edison. Edison tried more 2,000 experiments before he was able to get his light bulb to work.

Upon being asked how he felt about failing so often, he replied: "I never failed (even) once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process."

Salk and Edison both understood what you graduates will learn as you leave here and pursue your dreams.

There will be many setbacks on your road to success. But the only time we ever truly fail is when we quit and give up.

The story of the polio vaccine is not about an individual working alone.

Like all great accomplishments, this was a collaboration, a success built upon the work of others. Salk worked with a team of researchers.

And what he accomplished was only possible because of earlier, breakthrough discoveries by other renowned scientists such as Dr. Karl Landsteiner, who discovered that a virus causes polio; and Drs. John Enders, Frederick Robbins and Thomas Weller, who developed a way to grow poliovirus in tissue culture.

Indeed, while Salk did not patent the vaccine, saying it no more belonged to him than the sun belongs to any one person, he was criticized by some in the scientific community for not sharing credit for the vaccine widely enough.

The 20th century was the most amazing times of scientific and technological development in human history. And I believe the 21st century will be even more stunning.

What you graduates will accomplish in this century will come from working together and building on the successes of those who came before you.

Sir Isaac Newton said: "If I have seen further … it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Finally, this history of the battle against polio is a story of community service and volunteerism.

Volunteers stepped forward in large numbers to help provide the physical therapy and care the many thousands of polio victims needed in the first half of the 20th century. And an organization that came to be known as the March of Dimes provided substantial financial support for the research that led Dr. Salk and his colleagues to success.

Their work was financed largely by individuals, everyday people, Americans who sent in their nickels, dimes and dollars to fight this disease.

Beginning in the 1980s, Rotary International stepped forward in the worldwide fight against polio. Rotary members have now contributed $500 million to fight polio across the globe. Rotary volunteers have administered the oral vaccine.

Thanks to this and other efforts, last year only 480 polio cases were reported on the face of the Earth.

This is the most educated generation in the history of the world. And you graduates are among the best and the brightest of you generation.

You not only have an education. You have a Purdue education. It stands for excellence wherever you will go.

It is my hope that you will use your leadership to assume responsibility for other people and your community. It is my hope that you will take part in service that will impact the 21st century as enormously as the last hundred years were changed by individuals joining together in the fight against polio.

Albert Einstein said: "The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who … see in service to community their highest life achievement."

In San Diego, at the Salk Institute, a memorial captures the vision of Jonas Salk through an inscription of his own words: "Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality."

It is my hope today that each one of you will dare to make your greatest dreams come true. You might just change the world.

On behalf of the Board of Trustees, the administration and our faculty, congratulations to each of you, the Class of 2005.

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