Hilary Rodham Clinton Receives Honorary Degree
About This Item
Hillary Rodham Clinton at SFSU Commencement: First Lady Clinton delivered the commencement address; the Clinton Presidential Library catalog lists the speech for 5/27/1995, and contemporary coverage recaps the remarks. Clinton Digital Library (https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/55170), SFGATE (https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Hillary-Clinton-tells-grads-at-S-F-State-Thank-3146354.php) Annette Bening, a graduate of San Francisco State University (B.A. '80), in the background.
- Identifier
- TP-ATA-2084
- Date
- May 27, 1995
- Context
Key Highlights from Hillary Clinton’s SFSU Commencement Speech (May 27, 1995)
On why SFSU mattered:
“This university takes the education of all people seriously—women, minorities, immigrants, refugees. Everyone who is willing to work hard and accept responsibility is welcome here.”
On substance over style:
“The question for all of us is, do we define ourselves by our style or by our substance?”
On resilience and perseverance:
“You have paid your dues… Experience teaches, and you have brought your experiences to this campus.”
On education as opportunity:
“If we sound the retreat on education, we deny opportunity.”
On service and character:
“Service is about building character… walking the walk and building a civil society that lives up to its ideals.”
On materialism:
“Materialism is dictating our tastes and desires, our values and dreams.”
Credits:
The key points of the commencement address was put together with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model by OpenAI.
- Geographic Coverage
- San Francisco, CA
- Temporal Coverage
- 1995
- Type
- Still Image
- Source
- San Francisco State University Archives
- Rights
- Public
- Views
- 404