Elizabeth Dole, former presidential candidate and the first woman to direct two federal cabinet agencies, called on Duke University's graduates Sunday to avoid the cynicism of politics and help make government more relevant to the citizens of the nation.

"For representative government is exactly that -- representative," said Dole, who graduated from Duke 42 years ago. "If politics seems irrelevant, then it falls to you to make it more relevant. If it appears lacking in civility, then your task is to help civilize it."

Dole, who withdrew as a Republican candidate in the presidential race last October, acknowledged her interest in the White House in her opening comments by thanking Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane for her introduction and noting "Madame President ... does have a nice ring to it. Oh well."

Before stepping to the podium, Dole was awarded the Doctor of Human Letters honorary degree. Also accepting an honorary degree was Andrew Young, first black congressman from Georgia since Reconstruction, former ambassador to the United Nations and two-term mayor of Atlanta.

Approximately 3,500 undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees were awarded before a crowd estimated at 15,000 in Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium. Among those on hand were former President Jimmy Carter, his wife Rosalynn and former First Lady Ladybird Johnson. Granddaughters of the Carters and Johnson were among the graduates.

Dole said that to its harshest critics, "our nation's capital is a chamber of horrors. To many of those holding office, it is a pressure cooker. To me, Washington is nothing more or less than a mirror held up to the people and the process it represents. If it is less civil than it might be, isn't that a reflection of a society coarsened by tabloid values?

"No doubt to many of you, Washington may seem an alien place, a city of hot air, shrill voices and manufactured controversies. Perhaps you have lost interest in today's virtual reality politics, where more and more candidates without ideas hire consultants without convictions to run campaigns without substance."

Dole said that in her eight years as president of the American Red Cross, "I saw the evil that humans can inflict on one another -- saw it in the dim eyes of starving children in Rwanda and in the paralyzing grief of parents in Oklahoma City. I have felt the hopelessness and despair of families who have lost everything to a tornado's brief, terrifying violence.

"But I have also been uplifted by the extraordinary power of human generosity -- of a kindness not legislated by any Congress or Parliament, but mandated by faith and in neighborliness and, yes, occasional saintliness."

Dole quoted from a poem by Robert Frost, written in the 1930s when she said hardship shadowed America and fanaticism stalked the globe: "My object in living is to unite, My avocation and my vocation. ..."

"I have never heard a more eloquent summons to the purposeful life -- or a more compelling argument for a faith that serves your country and your conscience," Dole told the black-robed graduates sitting before her. "You take from this ceremony much more than a diploma. You take with you the responsibility for writing the next chapter of the American story. What we become as a nation will depend in large measure on what you become -- and what you believe.

"I hope you never forget those who have gone before, nor those who will come after. For heaven and the future's sakes, don't get jaded. Don't fall victim to cynicism. Remember that life is not meant to be endured, but enjoyed. Retain your curiosity, and though you may get wrinkles, you will never grow old. Be brave. Take risks. Above all, be yourselves, for therein lies the greatest gift you can return to those who have given so much that you might join the Duke family."

Dole is the past president of the American Red Cross and former White House aide who has worked with five U.S. presidents. She spent five years as a member of the Federal Trade Commission and served two years as an assistant to President Reagan. In 1983, she joined Reagan's cabinet as secretary of transportation -- the first woman to hold that position. She also served as secretary of labor in the administration of George Bush.

A native of Salisbury, Dole went to Duke as a student in 1954, during a time when women and men lived on separate campuses. A short time later, she began moving into leadership positions within women's student government.