Good Morning. I want the students of Saint Vincent to be the first to know - President George W. Bush has accepted our invitation to give the commencement address to the Class of 2007 on May 11th! We are very pleased and honored that the President of the United States is coming to our campus!

The Office of the President of the United States is the most powerful and influential position in the world. Countless colleges and universities around the country request President Bush to be their commencement speaker, and so we join Yale, Notre Dame and a handful of others as members of the lucky few to host the President at commencement exercises.

Let me stress that our invitation to President Bush, like past invitations to other speakers for Saint Vincent commencements and other events on campus, is not an endorsement of his policies or politics. Saint Vincent College has welcomed speakers and guests from all ideologies and political persuasions. Creating an arena for candid discussions and civil debates among those with different points of view is a key principle of any fulfilling educational experience.

Past invited speakers have held controversial views, but were still welcomed, like Senator William Fulbright, William F. Buckley Jr., Former Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, and Congressman John Murtha. As we had anticipated, President Bush’s acceptance of our invitation has sparked a lively and welcome discussion amongst students, faculty, alumni, supporters and all of our Saint Vincent Family. We welcome this debate, and I hope each of you students take part in it.

In fact, I am going to host a town hall meeting on campus on Tuesday, April 17th, at 9:15 pm, for students to discuss the President’s visit and express their views. This forum will be an “open mike” night for students and I will be there to open and close the gathering. Students can sign up in opposition or support, or neither, and we will try to apportion the time fairly so that students can be heard. We think a debate about national and international issues is a healthy activity for a liberal arts college.

Finally, hospitality is an expressed Benedictine value. Hospitality as described by Saint Benedict is a call to openness and welcome; the sense of community which extends a generous hospitality to friends and strangers, even those with whom we disagree. I look forward to the Saint Vincent College family extending Benedictine hospitality to the President of the United States when he comes in May.

Our website has a special location to provide up-to-the-minute information on commencement. I urge seniors to check it regularly. As you might imagine, there will be security precautions by the United States Secret Service that might entail some personal inconvenience on your part. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

And a final word for our Class of 2007 graduates: It appears that nearly every single individual eligible for graduation has informed us that he or she is attending. This will be the biggest graduation group ever and because the Carey Center gym can’t expand capacity, we have a finite number of tickets. The math is as follows: 300 graduates, plus 4 tickets per graduate, equals 1,500 seats in the gymnasium before we even seat a solitary member of the administration or faculty (and as you can imagine, many of them want to come, too). We will do everything we can to get you seniors as many tickets as possible. In the event your extra tickets are in a “satellite room” (either the Carey Center auditorium or the cafeteria), we will be striving to make arrangements with the Secret Service for your family members to be able to enter the gym when you go up on the stage for your diploma. I’ll keep you posted.

But for me, today, I am going to simply pause and rejoice that Saint Vincent College has attracted the leader of the free world as commencement speaker. Saint Vincent College is coming of age. As I said in my inaugural address, it is one of America’s hidden gems. I am glad you are here and part of the Saint Vincent family.