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Graduates Urged to Face New Global Challenges

Chilean president calls on commencement audience to embrace international responsibilities

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos speaks at commencement.

Students graduating from Duke University will face global challenges similar in importance and magnitude to those Americans overcame decades ago during the Civil Rights movement, Chile's president told graduates and guests at the university's commencement ceremonies Sunday.

Ricardo Lagos, who received a Ph.D. in economics from Duke before embarking on the career that led to his 2000 election as Chile's president, recalled in his commencement address how one of his first impressions as a doctoral student was the segregated restrooms he encountered at the Raleigh-Durham airport in 1961. Americans are "rightfully proud" about overcoming legal segregation, he said, and they now face similar challenges in enhancing justice and the rule of law internationally.

"If there are no rules, then it will be the rules of the most powerful," he said, saying Chile, the United States and others must continue working together to strengthen trade relationships and international law. "If globalization is here to stay, how can we make sure that our world will be a better world?"

Lagos emphasized that the United States and Chile share the values of human rights and democracy.

Introduced by President Richard H. Brodhead as "a profile in courage" for his resistance to the regime of Augusto Pinochet, Lagos was among five recipients of honorary degrees. The others were environmental advocate John H. Adams, Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann, university president Freeman A. Hrabowski III and humanitarian and former president of Ireland Mary Robinson.

Duke awarded more than 3,800 undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees at the morning ceremony in Wallace Wade Stadium. It was Duke's 153rd commencement and the first presided over by Brodhead, who assumed the presidency on July 1. He told the graduates that their degrees in various disciplines indicated "what human needs you are now armed to address." He called on them to emulate the honorary degree recipients as "an example of the kinds of things you can do later on."

Dressed in traditional caps and gowns, the graduates were seated on the football field according to their degree programs. They waved at and, in some cases, chatted by cell phone with their families and friends in the stadium, who in turn juggled their cameras, water bottles and programs under the sunny skies and cheered as the degrees were awarded. The event highlighted a weekend of commencement activities organized by schools, departments and programs.

Rob Painter, the student speaker, humorously discussed his reluctance to leave the university, saying he wanted to cling to the bronze statue of Benjamin N. Duke on East Campus before realizing there are "only two kinds of people who can remain at Duke forever: one, brass tobacco magnates and; two, Coach K." After "living together in what is essentially a medieval castle," Painter said graduates now must move ahead, cherishing "each other and our memories."

Painter, a Chapel Hill native active in theater and performance groups, urged his fellow graduates to help others and "give yourself over to your passion." Graduation is "a scary prospect but it's also exciting," he said, and everyone should resolve to make the most of their lives. "Just don't settle, please," he said, concluding by joking that he might sell miniature bronze copies of the Benjamin N. Duke statue for "five bucks a pop."

Peter M. Nicholas, Duke's outgoing chairman of the Board of Trustees, responded by saying "I will carry a little of that bronze as I leave today as well."

Filled with colorful robes, music from the Duke Wind Symphony and other traditions, Sunday's ceremony under sunny skies brought thousands of visitors to the local area. Along with visitors attending the simultaneous commencement at the University of North Carolina -- Chapel Hill, they filled nearby hotels and restaurants, providing a boost to the local economy. Less visible were the added security personnel keeping a watch on Lagos and other dignitaries.

"This turned out to be one of the smoothest graduation exercises for us," said Duke Police Chief Clarence Birkhead, who earlier in the week announced his own plans to leave Duke to become the police chief in Hillsborough. "We had to cooperate with a number of different agencies, but everyone worked together and it turned out well."