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REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:		University of Mississippi Commencement, Oxford, Mississippi
DATE:		May 10, 1997
"Nothing Ever Happens Once and It's Finished"

	Chancellor Khayat, Trustees, faculty, distinguished guests, parents and members 
of the class of 1997:   Congratulations.  Congratulations for working hard.  For making 
your parents proud.  And for convincing the Board of Trustees that Ole Miss needs a Fall 
break.

I know that all of you will take time today to thank your families for their love and 
support that got you to this day.  You should also thank hard working people all over 
Mississippi - citizens you will never meet - who pay taxes to maintain this great public 
university.

I am honored to come to the University of Mississippi - this place of great history; 
of intellectual achievement; and two of the best tennis teams in the SEC.

Being in the Tad Smith Coliseum, I'm reminded how important sports are to a 
great university life in this country.  I have never made an apology for their special role in 
creating a sense of community.  There is no greater feeling than being young on a 
Saturday in the Fall and walking  with friends to a football game on a great American 
university campus.

I know exactly how you feel at this moment.

I'll never forget my own college graduation.  In the air, you could feel the sense of 
accomplishment, excitement, and the most chilling feeling of all - the absolute fear that 
the commencement speech would never end.

They say Salvador Dali gave the shortest speech ever.  He said, "I will be so brief, 
I have already finished."  Then he sat down.  While I can't beat that, I do understand that 
a commencement address does not have to be eternal to be immortal.  As a former 
Governor liked to say, "Commencement speakers should think of themselves as the body 
at an old-fashioned Irish wake.  They need you in order to have the party, but nobody 
expects you to say very much."

And, because that's what graduation speeches are really about - giving advice - in 
the spirit of David Letterman, as you head out into the world, let me offer you Donna 
Shalala's top ten pieces of advice for Ole Miss graduates.

10.  Be diplomatic.  When your parents ask you how long you think you'll be 
living at home after graduation - lie.

9.  Be direct.  When an interviewer asks, "What is your long term goal?"  Say:  
Early retirement.

8.  Face Reality.  When your alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m., it's not a nightmare - it's 
a  job.

7.  Be patient.  Wait at least 24 hours after graduation before asking your parents 
for money.

6.  Listen to voices of experience.  Robert Frost said:  "By working faithfully eight 
hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day."

5.   Be good Americans - vote, pay your taxes, and above all else, rewind your 
videotapes before you return them.

4.  Be an optimist.  When you think your anxiety has reached an all-time high, 
remember the famous maxim:  Things can always get worse.

3.  Be loyal.  Wherever you live, make sure you can watch Ole Miss beat 
Mississippi State.

2.  Be honest.  When relatives ask you what you're going to do the rest of your 
life, tell them the truth:  You have no idea.

1.  But in all seriousness - and without the David Letterman drum roll - my 
number one piece of advice is:  Remember, you are a part of history.

Three years ago, John Grisham came here and explained why he went to law 
school instead of joining the Peace Corps.  I joined the Peace Corps and skipped law 
school.  Now I live in a city called Washington - where everyone is a lawyer, and lots of 
people write fiction - mostly about themselves.

As Chancellor Khayat mentioned, before I decided to make Washington my home, 
I was Chancellor of a  Big Ten university.   That's that other great conference.  There I 
experienced lots of long hours; late night pizzas; and people longing for a real job.  In 
Washington, my life is still long hours; late night pizzas, and yes, people longing for a 
real job.  

So, William Faulkner was right in Absalam, Absalam when he wrote:  "Nothing 
ever happens once and it's finished."

Our lives repeat themselves because what we do is often a mirror of who we are.

I come today with political values and beliefs deeply rooted in my past.  My 
religion; my heritage; my working class background; and my activist days in the 1960s.  I 
was at a university very much like this one when, in 1966, Robert Kennedy came to Ole 
Miss to heal old wounds, and to encourage young people everywhere to "put their talents 
to work in the service of the American dream."  That dream was my dream, and now it is 
your dream.

So I have to change - but only slightly - the words Chancellor Khayat spoke at his 
inauguration just over a year ago.  My message to each of you is this:  I come as a 
stranger, but I am one of you.  Because before region.  Before race.  Before age.  Before 
gender.  Even before history - there is humanity.

We can - and should - hold on to our individual cultures and traditions, but, we 
are linked to each other - and to our creator - by the joys we experience; the losses we 
endure; the yesterdays we remember; and the tomorrows we imagine.

So, not only am I one of you.  As Americans we are one.

Today, every road leads to Oxford.  And every hope your parents and I have for 
the future is a hope for your future.  Because, more than anything else on this earth, I 
believe in you - and your generation.

But our hope for you will not be fulfilled until we complete this century's most 
important task:  Building an American house that can never be divided by race or 
religion.  At a time when blacks and whites still see the justice system through very 
different eyes.  When churches are still burned and synagogues defaced.  And when 
inequality still plagues our boardrooms and our neighborhoods.  The time has come for 
every corner of our nation to end what Faulkner in the "The Bear" simply called the 
"curse" of race.

We should do this because it is right and just.

And we should do this because when the doors of opportunity open; when no 
person's creativity and intelligence is held back; when the engine of freedom is linked to 
the entrepreneurial spirit - our entire nation prospers.

 The fact is, race is not a southern dilemma.  And race is not a northern dilemma.  
Race is an American dilemma - and we must solve it together.

That is why I don't believe it is for me to tell you where Ole Miss or the south 
should go from here.  Those decisions are for you to make - just as they must be made in 
every other community across this land.

But I will say that the great dream of America - that we all be judged on our 
talents, respected for our common humanity; and welcomed in the American Promised 
Land - is not yet realized.  And until it is, the words of poet T.S. Eliot can be a warning 
for the 21st century:  "Time past and time present are both perhaps present in time future."  
We want to learn from time past - but not be a prisoner of it.  We want to appreciate time 
present - but not be satisfied with it.  We want to reach time future - but not regret what 
we might have changed.  

This is not to say that over the past 30 years we haven't made enormous progress. 
We have.  Not only have laws changed, hearts have changed.  When he was Lt. Governor, 
Paul Johnson, Jr. tried to keep James Meridith from registering at the University of 
Mississippi.  But when he became governor of this great state he said, "If we must fight, 
let it not be a rear guard defense of yesterday, but let it be an all out assault on our share 
of tomorrow."  That's what the south has done over the last 30 years.  

You turned toward a new day and found your share of the American Dream.  The 
south is no longer perceived as trying to catch up with the rest of America.  The south is 
America.  An America of growing wealth and prosperity.  An America of expanding 
opportunity.  An America led by sons of the South like President Bill Clinton, and 
Mississippi's distinguished Senator Trent Lott.  An America respected and emulated 
around the world.  

But also an America still plagued by poverty, infant mortality, and millions of 
children living without health insurance.  

The question is, as we enter the 21st century, how will we re-write the fate of this 
other America?  I've already suggested one answer:  By continuing the racial progress 
we've already made so that no person is either locked out - or made to feel left out - of 
the American dream.

But I have another answer.  

As many of you know, when William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature, 
he gave one of the most memorable acceptance speeches ever.  I'm going to paraphrase, 
slightly, what he said.  `We are immortal, not because we alone among creatures have an 
inexhaustible voice, but because we have a soul capable of compassion and sacrifice and 
endurance.'

In other words, we survive by helping others to survive.

You are about to enter a world where you will no longer be judged by your grades, 
but by your character.  By the promises you keep, and the changes you shape.  By the love 
you give and the help you repay.  By the examples you set, and the challenges you meet.  
By your guts and your heart.  These are the standards by which we will judge each one of 
you - no matter what profession or dream you choose.

The great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called "September 
1913."  In it he said, "Romantic Ireland is dead and gone."  Despite these words, his 
poem was not about despair.  It was a poem about letting go - and about seizing 
tomorrow.  Seizing change.

At the doorstep of the 21st century, you must be your own messengers of change - 
honoring the past while having the compassion, sacrifice and endurance to re-write the 
future.

As you begin this long journey, I promise you it will be both enormous fun and 
serious business.  Thirty years ago, I sat in a seat much like yours - not knowing exactly 
where life would take me, but promising myself that, I would never play it safe.   I've 
kept that promise.

As you prepare to leave Ole Miss, my deepest hope is that you won't play it safe 
either.  That you'll stand your ground - and when necessary, stand conventional wisdom 
on its head.

I wish for you the best of everything - and that all your dreams come true.

I wish you compassion, sacrifice and endurance.

I wish you good health, great friendships, and love.  

I wish you uncomfortable but exciting lives.

And I wish you fun.  Yes, I said fun in the years ahead, and many visits back to 
campus when the "oak and maple leaves in their full autumn glory flutter throughout the 
Grove."

Congratulations and God speed.   Thank you.

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