Richards-Kortum's Nebraska Commencement Speech

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05/06/2019 Added

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Rebecca Richards-Kortum spoke to May 4, 2019 University of Nebraska-graduates. A Nebraska alum, Richard's-Kortum is the Malcolm Gillis University Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University.

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[00:00:00.292](clapping)
[00:00:03.390]Greetings to the regents, the faculty
[00:00:06.870]the staff and the guests
[00:00:09.540]and to each of the
[00:00:11.420]three thousand, five hundred and forty graduates
[00:00:15.110]in the University of Nebraska class of 2019
[00:00:18.860]congratulations, you just look amazing this morning
[00:00:24.530]and I am so excited to be here with you to celebrate
[00:00:29.940]this moment in your lives as you come across
[00:00:33.390]a really important finish line
[00:00:36.350]I'm an amateur marathon runner. I'm very slow but I'm very
[00:00:40.380]dedicated, and I spend a lot of time thinking about starting
[00:00:45.160]lines and especially thinking about finish lines
[00:00:51.160]thirty-four years ago, I sat where you are, the other side
[00:00:56.080]of this podium, along with my fiance, we were about to get
[00:00:59.530]our bachelor's degrees, and I know that despite the fancy
[00:01:03.880]stage and the shining diplomas and medals, it's a little bit
[00:01:08.530]terrifying to come to the finish line, just when you
[00:01:13.520]figure out the course, you have to find another race to run
[00:01:18.750]how do you find those things that you care about so deeply
[00:01:24.500]you want to invest your whole self
[00:01:28.750]when I came to UNL as an undergraduate, I planned to major
[00:01:33.460]in physics and you know, I didn't really know what I wanted
[00:01:36.690]to do when I finished. I thought maybe I would teach
[00:01:39.830]high school. Sophomore year, my boyfriend, who's now
[00:01:45.210]my husband, he told me, you know you really should switch
[00:01:48.500]to mechanical engineering 'cause you'd make more money
[00:01:53.405](Giggle)
[00:01:54.238]and I thought he might be right actually, so I made
[00:01:58.170]appointments. I made appointments to see the chairman
[00:02:00.590]of the physics department and also the associate dean
[00:02:03.860]of engineering. Now, I started with the engineering dean
[00:02:07.707]and when I told him that I was thinking of switching to
[00:02:11.020]mechanical engineering, he explained to me that engineering
[00:02:16.710]had very high standards, and he had noticed that women
[00:02:22.620]often found the curriculum to be very challenging.
[00:02:27.270]Now, he said not all women of course, you know some did okay
[00:02:30.810]but some found it really tough. Now, my GPA was excellent
[00:02:36.220]and I told him so, but his words made me question whether
[00:02:42.420]I belonged in engineering, maybe that wasn't the race for me
[00:02:48.411]now, fortunately the physics chair took a different approach
[00:02:53.070]he asked me if I liked physics, and when I said I did,
[00:02:56.472]he told me don't switch majors, in fact he said you should
[00:03:00.470]come and do research in my lab, so for two years,
[00:03:05.610]I worked in Dave Sellmyer's lab and it totally
[00:03:10.020]changed my life. I am a first generation college student
[00:03:14.910]and when I came here as a sophomore, I had no idea
[00:03:19.110]that university professors did research, I thought they just
[00:03:22.880]taught class, but once I discovered it, I learnt that
[00:03:27.860]I loved research. Now, eventually I found my way to
[00:03:31.330]bioengineering and the work that I do today but I don't
[00:03:35.010]think I would be here with you today if Dave Sellmyer hadn't
[00:03:39.620]taken twenty minutes to meet with me and say come run this
[00:03:44.420]race with us, I think you might like it
[00:03:48.600]I've thought a lot about what I learned from that experience
[00:03:52.410]and lesson number one is, the world sadly is full of people
[00:03:57.410]who will discourage you and tell you no without good reason
[00:04:02.580]they just wanna keep you off their course but instead
[00:04:05.880]of letting them shut you down, you have to keep searching
[00:04:09.830]for the people who will believe in you and you have to let
[00:04:13.790]their voices fill your head. Graduates, don't let
[00:04:17.713]narrow-minded, unimaginative people keep you out of your
[00:04:23.880]race
[00:04:26.450]Lesson number two,
[00:04:29.090]Dave Sellmyer, he had super powers
[00:04:33.160]and his super power is believing in people.
[00:04:39.090]Think about all the people who supported you and believed
[00:04:43.300]in you, as you made your way to today's finish line
[00:04:47.780]you might not be here without them, believing in people
[00:04:52.220]is the most powerful fuel in the universe
[00:04:56.800]and the great thing about this super power is we all
[00:05:01.150]posses it. Dave Sellmyer gave it to me and I am giving it
[00:05:06.470]to you. Graduates, use your super powers, use them to
[00:05:10.545]inspire the people around you to do their best.
[00:05:16.800]Now, even when you find the right race, there are still
[00:05:20.800]gonna be times when it just feels hard, times when all you
[00:05:25.430]can think about is how much you hate running and how good it
[00:05:29.820]would feel to stop. How do you keep believing in yourself
[00:05:35.080]and persisting through those hard hard miles.
[00:05:39.560]About a year and a half ago, I was coming up on what
[00:05:42.910]I thought was the finish line for the biggest race of my
[00:05:46.360]career. Together with a team of engineers and doctors
[00:05:51.700]and entrepreneurs, I entered a contest called a hundred and
[00:05:55.390]change. And the rules were simple, each team had to describe
[00:06:01.188]how they would solve a critical problem of our time
[00:06:05.620]one lucky winner would receive one hundred million dollars
[00:06:10.130]from the MacArthur foundation to implement their plan.
[00:06:14.003]Our team pitched a plan to end preventable newborn death
[00:06:18.296]in Africa. At current rates of progress, it's going to be
[00:06:23.840]nearly one hundred years before a baby born in Africa has
[00:06:28.468]the same chance of surviving as one born in north America
[00:06:33.680]and our team, we proposed to close that gap not in a hundred
[00:06:38.570]years, but in a decade. We proposed to deliver affordable
[00:06:43.770]technologies to African hospitals. Now, the MacArthur
[00:06:47.940]foundation got over two thousand entries, but we made it to
[00:06:51.810]the final four and we spent a year traveling across Africa
[00:06:57.380]to make our plan better, and about eighteen months ago,
[00:07:02.370]we found ourselves on a very big stage in Chicago,
[00:07:06.090]about to give our final presentation as part of a shark tank
[00:07:09.640]style face off. We were up against three amazing teams
[00:07:15.163]including the Sesame street workshop
[00:07:19.150]now, I have never been more nervous for a presentation
[00:07:23.150]in my entire life, but our team, we nailed our talk
[00:07:28.540]and when I walked off the stage, I literally just burst
[00:07:32.360]into tears, I was so relieved. After all the teams finished
[00:07:37.880]the judges told us they would call us in two days with the
[00:07:41.380]result of the competition. Now, two days later, we got the
[00:07:46.840]call and sadly, it was not the news we were hoping for
[00:07:52.080]big bird had peed out the babies
[00:07:56.290]but the news, it wasn't all bad, the judges, they were so
[00:08:00.710]impressed with all the losers, they decided to give us each
[00:08:04.990]fifteen million dollars as a consolation price.
[00:08:09.860]Now, I have to tell you we were heartbroken. We were
[00:08:16.350]absolutely crushed by this news. I was so sad I had to adopt
[00:08:22.280]a rescue puppy and I cried tears into his fur then I adopted
[00:08:28.240]another dog. (giggle) of course I knew it was ridiculous to
[00:08:33.800]be so sad about winning fifteen million dollars but we cared
[00:08:37.900]so deeply about solving this problem and we knew we needed
[00:08:42.400]more than fifteen million dollars to do it.
[00:08:45.480]As a runner, it felt like we got to where we thought was the
[00:08:49.630]finish line and somebody said, oh, you still have six more
[00:08:52.840]miles to go. And everybody knows that the hardest part of a
[00:08:57.550]marathon is the last six miles. You hit that wall at mile-20
[00:09:03.180]and you just wanna stop. The first two times I ran
[00:09:07.304]a marathon, I had to take walking breaks starting at mile 20
[00:09:12.950]so my third marathon, it was the marine corps marathon,
[00:09:16.460]I was determined to break through the wall
[00:09:20.150]and I decided I would literally fill my head with voices
[00:09:26.550]of people who encourage me. I made a very special playlist
[00:09:31.360]and it was timed to play voices of encouragement when I knew
[00:09:35.521]I would need them most. I asked my daughter who was thirteen
[00:09:40.364]at the time, I asked her to make me some mp3s that I could
[00:09:44.640]play every mile starting at mile 20, and she just wanted to
[00:09:49.120]know one thing, she said can I swear? (giggle)
[00:09:54.800]so here's what I heard at mile 21
[00:09:58.410]Victory is the only thing that can keep you alive
[00:10:01.780]believe in that voice that says you can run faster,
[00:10:04.980]you can go harder, you can go longer. So rise
[00:10:09.640]and shine because it's time to win.
[00:10:15.200]The very next song that I chose for my playlist was this
[00:10:20.197](music)
[00:10:22.892](clap)
[00:10:29.300]each mile over the last six miles, I listened to hail
[00:10:33.558]varsity, and it is impossible to walk when that tune is
[00:10:39.330]blasting in your ears. I made my time go, I did not stop
[00:10:44.520]but I discovered ,I discovered that this great university,
[00:10:50.630]it has become part of my DNA, it is there to motivate me to
[00:10:57.930]a personal best whenever I need it the most, and now, it's
[00:11:03.130]also part of your DNA.
[00:11:06.170]And the weekend after we got the bad news about
[00:11:08.520]the hundred million dollars, I laced up my shoes and I went
[00:11:12.960]for a long run, and I listened to my daughter's voice
[00:11:16.890]and I listened to hail varsity, and I remembered I am a
[00:11:22.890]graduate of the University of Nebraska
[00:11:26.990]and now, you, we are graduates of the University of Nebraska
[00:11:33.200]and we are people who do hard things.
[00:11:38.560]We are people who do
[00:11:39.580]hard things even when other people tell us no.
[00:11:45.140]I remembered we, we are part of a team that does not give up
[00:11:51.960]even when the odds are against us.
[00:11:56.550]After we lost, my team
[00:11:58.490]went back to work, we raised more money and we multiplied
[00:12:02.120]that fifteen million dollars and as of January, we've been
[00:12:05.400]hard at work, implementing our plan. Our first newborn
[00:12:08.815]technology is in place, helping improve care for babies in
[00:12:13.220]more than thirty-four countries.
[00:12:16.605]UNL class of 2019, you have put in the training that
[00:12:22.160]allows you to cross today's finish line with pride.
[00:12:27.258]I hope you can feel how proud we all are of what you've
[00:12:32.280]accomplished. As you move to your next starting line,
[00:12:37.630]I want you to remember to run and to run with purpose
[00:12:43.607]in your time here, you've acquired the courage to tackle
[00:12:48.950]big problems, the knowledge to develop solutions
[00:12:54.570]and the wisdom to implement those solutions and to do it
[00:12:59.620]with kindness and decency and the world has never needed
[00:13:05.990]that more. Tomorrow, I'm gonna be out there on the Lincoln
[00:13:11.520]marathon course, Who's with me? When I cross the finish at
[00:13:17.630]the 50-yard line of memorial stadium, I'd be thinking about
[00:13:21.870]how I finished strong because I learned to listen to hail
[00:13:26.440]varsity when I need it most. It's in your playlist too
[00:13:31.920]whenever you need it. Thank you and congratulations
[00:13:35.946](applause)

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Richards-Kortum's Nebraska Commencement Speech

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