BLOOMFIELD COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY
May 25, 2000
Speech by the Honorable Faith Hochburg
I am proud to be receiving my degree together with each of you. I know that this is a memorable and splendid day of pride for you and your families.
Together we celebrate the value of education in our lives. I know that some of you are the first members of your family to receive a college degree. As the granddaughter of the 13th child of a Romanian sheep farmer, I share your zeal for education, because it has surely altered my family’s horizons. My grandmother arrived here, knowing nobody, and having barely a 6th grade education. While my grandmother never again saw her family in Romania because of the turmoil of two world wars in the past century, she did make sure that her daughter, my mother, got the benefit of the education she never had. Although I never asked her, I believe that to her, it was worth the price of hard work, hardship and sacrifice. The power of that message about the value of education is indelibly imprinted within me. You can be the standard-bearers of that tradition in your families as well.
But my hope for you is not simply the pure pleasure of learning. It is also what that learning empowers you to do for others. I know that this honorary degree does not honor me-rather it honors the work that I and others have done to seek justice for all the people of this state. This degree honors power wielded with restraint and humility. Power to do what is right. Power to do what is just. In that way, this degree really honors the ideals of public service.
As you walk out the doors of Bloomfield College today, you will have choices about what other doors to enter in your lives and careers. I ask you, I implore you, I beseech you, to enter the doorway marked “Public Service”-and I will be inside that door to welcome you and to say “Well done Bloomfield College!”. And so will the thousands of people you will help. Congratulations!
