Today I'm more hopeful than ever that better is coming.Trello has become known as the minimalist success in the project management world. To do better by how they open more doors to more students, how they deepen their commitment to student outcomes and how they help lead the world of higher education to a place that is more directly linked to true societal impact. Harvard has always been - alongside so many well resourced institutions of higher education - able to do better. I have always agreed with Reverend Gomes as a graduate but I also believe his expectation extends to the school itself. The point Reverend Gomes was making that day was that society needed graduates to carry the privilege of their education across all of the areas that nurture a healthy and thriving community, country and world. We need some of you to be poets and artists, to be activists and agitators.’ (and journalists, which is what I set out to be after graduation in part inspired by those words). I am here to remind you, on behalf of the society that lives outside these walls, that while many of you may pursue those more expected paths, we need others of you to pursue paths more neglected. And, I know, given the recent trends, many of you will soon hear about terms like investment banking and management consulting. Among you are minds eager to pioneer new discoveries in medicine or to be titans of industry. In your class there are surely aspiring Presidents and Nobel Prize winners. ‘Society looks to you as you look to your future. ‘Where you sit is a privileged seat,’ said the late Reverend Peter Gomes.

This was before smartphones, so I don't have a recording or anything. On my first day at Harvard University as an undergrad, at the welcome ceremony that marked our official entrance into the community, one speaker spoke words that compelled not just my attention on that day but in ways that linger still.

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