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157th Commencement at Fordham U
Retired
AOL Time Warner CEO Gerald M. Levin told more than 10,000 graduates
and their families at Fordham University's 157th Commencement
that technology is important, but love and compassion create a
better world.
Levin told graduates to strive to love not only their families,
but also those who struggle daily to overcome hunger and poverty.
"Each
of us has not only a mind that can conceive of a world better
that we have and haven't,” said Levin, who received an honorary
doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa. "We also have a heart
that can show us how to seek that world. And we have a will, a
will that can enable us to try.”
Levin explained to the graduates that although technology provides
the world with the means to heal itself, it is not enough to make
us see the common humanity that binds together all the people
of the world.
"This
sometimes cruel, often callous, always imperfect world of ours
needs you very badly,” said Levin. "It needs the knowledge, the
expertise that you have been getting here at Fordham. It needs
your faith, your hope and hard work. Even more, it needs your
love, your compassion and commitment to shine forth for all of
us and show us how to live as well as survive.”
Levin recalled the example set by his late son John, who "chose
to invest his life in a classroom not far from here in the South
Bronx where he awoke the talent and dreams of students seeking
to escape the nightmare cycle of discrimination, deprivation and
despair.” Levin remembered that his son "loved in a way that causes
ordinary men and women in every corner of the world to stop ignoring
the injustice and start fighting.”
In presenting Levin's honorary doctorate, Paul B. Guenther, chair
of Fordham's Board of Trustees, noted that "in the information
age, a new kind of business leader is needed, one who can recognize
the opportunities implicit in technological discoveries and at
the same time appreciate the challenges that come with such opportunities.
In a remarkable career that spans four decades, Gerald M. Levin
has demonstrated both the strategic vision and the skills necessary
to bring diverse interests and personalities together in the pursuit
of a pioneer project.”
Also receiving an honorary degree was Theodore Cardinal McCarrick,
Archbishop of Washington, D.C., who was presented with an honorary
doctorate of humane letters. The Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx, S.J.,
dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, noted "when Ted McCarrick
left the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University at the end of
his sophomore year to attend St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie,
fellow members of the Fordham College Class of 1954 predicted
that someday he would be an archbishop. Today, 50 years later,
Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, past Archbishop
of Newark, founding bishop of the diocese of Metuchen, returns
to Rose Hill, his classmates' expectations more than fulfilled.”
John D. Feerick, retiring dean of Fordham Law School, received
an honorary doctorate of laws.
Sister Francesca Thompson, O.S.F., associate professor of African
and African American studies and assistant dean/director for multicultural
programs at Fordham, received an honorary doctorate of fine arts.#
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