President Bill Clinton will deliver the keynote address at Loyola Marymount University’s undergraduate commencement ceremony, LMU President Timothy Law Snyder, Ph.D., has announced.
President Clinton’s nephew, an undergraduate student, is participating in the commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 7, 2016.
“President Clinton is one of the great statesmen of our time, and he will address our students as they embark on the next stage of their lives,” Snyder said. “His commitment to improving the lives of other people, during and beyond his career in U.S. politics, embodies the ethos of becoming women and men with and for others. President Clinton will inspire our graduates as they seek to lead lives of meaning, purpose, and global impact.”
Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, graduated from Georgetown in 1968. He has waived his speaking fee for the commencement.
“In conferring this honor LMU does not endorse all of Mr. Clinton’s past or current policies nor condone all his actions,” said Rev. Allan Deck, S.J., rector of the LMU Jesuit Community. “Rather, the university recognizes the extraordinary service he has given to civil society and his lifetime connection to Catholic and Jesuit higher education as a Georgetown University alumnus. LMU, precisely because it is a Catholic and Jesuit University, seeks to follow the inspirational leadership of Pope Francis in promoting a culture of encounter that requires an openness to meet people cordially where they are rather than negatively in a judgmental way.”
William Jefferson Clinton was elected president of the United States in 1992, and won re-election in 1996. During his eight years in office, Clinton presided over the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history, initiated the most significant college opportunity programs since the GI Bill, expanded the federal work-study program, as well as developed new tax credits and scholarships to make education more accessible. Clinton signed major legislation including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. He won approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement and pursued policies that led to the decommissioning of over 1,700 nuclear missiles in the Soviet Union.
Upon leaving office, he founded the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit focused on improving global health, education, and economic opportunity. The foundation sponsors several projects around the world, including the Clinton Global Initiative, which brings international thought leaders together to find solutions for worldwide challenges.
More than 1,400 Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees will be conferred at LMU’s undergraduate ceremony; 700 graduate degrees will be conferred on Sunday, May 8. Both commencement ceremonies will be streamed live at www.lmu.edu.