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Jerome Powell Princeton University Baccalaureate Commencement Address delivered 25 May 2025, University Chapel, Princeton, New Jersey
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio] Good afternoon. And thank you very much, President Eisgruber, for the opportunity to speak here today and for that kind introduction. Congratulations to the Princeton University class of 2025 on the tremendous achievement of earning your degree, and to the parents, family members, friends, and mentors whose support and encouragement made this day possible. Give yourself a round of applause. So, 50 years ago -- I can't believe it -- but 50 years ago almost to the day, I was sitting where you are. And I was listening to a speaker deliver a speech, neither of which I can recall today. So, what I plan to do today is to share some things with you that I believe would have been useful for me to hear back then. For those of you who are fundamentally unsure of your path, I was you. Rather than studying, I had spent my freshman year with fellow campus musicians playing my Martin D-35 acoustic guitar.1 It was a high school graduation present, and one that my parents surely regretted. While I still play that guitar, my freshman grades said clearly that I needed to get my act together academically, and by senior year I had done so. But I had no real plan for life after Princeton. I'd grown up in Washington, D.C., majored in politics. As you know, Princeton graduates have a long and distinguished record of service to the nation and to humanity. And that left me with a single thought, which was that I wanted to have a private sector career and also serve periodically in government. I was thinking at the time of people like Princeton's George Shultz, who was a giant of that era. And there are, of course, countless examples across the political spectrum, including presidents, senators, members of Congress, governors, judges.2 Of course, most of those who serve, though, are not public figures. I could just as well point to classmates who devoted their working lives to teaching high school kids -- for me, there is no higher calling, honestly. Many of my classmates and friends went straight into prestigious graduate schools, politics, Wall Street.3 Others went off to global capitals, the military, or the Peace Corps. I had brushed off my parents' one academic suggestion, which was to major in economics, which, at that time, struck me as -- if I'm being honest -- boring and useless.
After 13 years at the Federal Reserve, I -- I
fully admit that I was completely wrong about that...so.... You know what? We all move at our own pace, and that's okay. Fifty years later I can tell you something I did not know then: The vast majority of what you need to know about work, about relationships, about yourself, about life,4 you have yet to learn. And that itself is a tremendous gift. Over the remainder of your life, you can and you must continue to educate yourself and to grow as a person, becoming more focused on what really matters, more widely knowledgeable, better read, more disciplined, more strategic;5 but also wiser, kinder, more empathetic, more generous, more loving, more forgiving of others -- and not least of yourself. Each of us is a work in progress, and the possibilities for self-improvement are limitless, which is a wonderful thing. Another thing I...realized is that while hard work, determination, and creativity matter a great deal to success in life, luck plays a big role too. All of us here are tremendously lucky. I know that, at a handful of critical times in my life, I got really lucky, and that began at birth. My parents were well educated. And they gave the six Powell kids a safe, loving home, and they placed a high value on learning. They gave us everything we needed to thrive. That bit of luck led to the good luck that I share with all of you, the chance to earn a degree from America's finest university. Another thing that I've learned along the way is that, as you strive in coming years to reach your full potential, you'll need to take risks and, yes, to make mistakes. Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- makes mistakes. Take it from an expert. But the bigger mistake is to avoid taking risks. If you're not failing from time to time, you're not asking enough of yourself. Sooner than you think, many of you will be asked to assume leadership roles. It is very, very common to feel, as I once did, that you're not ready. Just know that no one is really ready. All I can say to you is: Go for it. Throw yourself into the deep end of the pool. Believe in yourself. Take risks. When you fall down -- and you will fall down -- get up, and repeat the cycle. And, as you do assume higher responsibility, understand that a big part of your job is to bring along the people behind you. Be the leader that people can learn from, the one that people want to follow. My next point is -- is closely related, and that is that a little bit of initiative, at the right time, can make all the difference. Initiative is the rocket fuel of life. Now, I'm no entrepreneur. I didn't start a major tech company. But as I look back, many of the most important developments in my life trace back to a few occasions where I showed just a little bit of initiative. I'll give you one example out of many. I was a very junior associate, and the man who ran my firm, Nicholas F. Brady, was a former United States Senator whose career had spanned the private sector and public service. I wanted to meet him but realized, ultimately, I was going to have to make that happen. So, one day I finally forced myself to walk up the stairs to his corner office. I asked for an audience and was ushered in. I was very nervous; the meeting was very brief; and as I walked down those stairs afterward, I was thinking, "Well, at least I tried." To my great surprise, two months later Nick Brady asked me to work on a project with him. And a year or so after that, he became the Secretary of Treasury of the United States. And in time he asked me to serve under him as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. That enormously challenging role whet my appetite for further public service and ultimately proved to be a gateway for my appointment to the Federal Reserve Board. So, if I hadn't forced myself to walk up those stairs and take what I saw as a risky and potentially awkward step, I wouldn't be standing here today. I can think of long-term friendships and one marriage, my own, that turned on a moment's initiative. On occasions like that we risk failure, awkwardness, embarrassment, and rejection. But that's how we create the career opportunities, the great friendships, and the loves that make life worth living. So, the combination of luck, the courage to make mistakes, and a little initiative can lead to much success. But know this: The world needs more from you than personal achievements and individual success. I strongly urge you to find time in your careers for public service. Since the founding of this great democracy 250 years ago, generation upon generation have assumed the burden and the honor of moving us closer to the ideal that all are created equal. Now, it's your turn. I ask you to take a minute and realize how the quest for these values has led us to this point in our history. We lead the world in so many ways, including in scientific innovation and economic dynamism. Our great universities are the envy of the world and a crucial national asset.
Look around you. And I urge you to take none of this for granted. When you look back in 50 years, you will want to know that you've done whatever it takes to preserve and strengthen our democracy, and bring us ever closer to the Founders' timeless ideals. Those of you who are not enter -- entering the military or other public service may wonder, "What's so great about public service?" And I'll give you a recent example. In my 13 years at the Fed, the global economy has experienced a fair amount of turbulence, and one outright crisis -- the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. With little warning, economies around the world came to a hard stop. Critical financial markets were near collapse. The possibility of a long, severe, global depression was staring us in the face. Everyone turned to the government, and to the Federal Reserve in particular as a key first responder. Career civil servants at the Fed who are veterans of previous crises stepped forward and said, "We got this." We took a range of aggressive measures to supply credit to the economy, many of them unprecedented, while the financial sector recovered. Others in government and the private sector did their part too. Through the joint efforts of many, we avoided the worst outcomes. It is hard to imagine the pressure that people feel at a time like that. Their collective efforts saved our economy, and the career civil servants involved deserve our respect and gratitude; it is my great honor to serve alongside them. That's what public service is like. So, with that luck that I mentioned comes great responsibility. You may recognize from the Gospel of Luke this quotation: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded."6 As you navigate the world of bright possibilities that awaits you, I urge you to take on the challenge and the opportunity to serve your fellow citizens. You will never regret that choice. I've one last and key point. Your life matters -- not just to you but to the people who you love. Fifty years from now, you'll want to be able to look in the mirror and know that you did what you thought was right, in every part of your life. At the end of the day, our integrity is all we have. Guard it carefully. Thank you for your time. And congratulations to the great class of 2025. 1 A serious acoustic instrument championed by artists such as Johnny Cash, Neil Young, James Taylor, David Crosby, Travis Tritt, John Mayer, among many others [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_D-45#Notable_owners] 2 Heartening to see an important public figure intentionally, perhaps even purposively, employing asyndeton. The presence of a conjunction at the end of an item-series can give the impression that the final item is not as important as those preceding it; whereas the absence of a conjunction tends to suggest that all items in a series are on a more or less equal footing, depending of course on whether the particular ordering of the items themselves implies a difference in their relative value. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Luke 12:47-48. Quotation in discursive context: 47 “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. 48 But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." [NIV] Original Text Source: federalreserve.gov Text Note: Supplementary transcript work by Michael E. Eidenmuller for AmericanRhetoric.com Image Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/highsm.45169/?r=-0.282,0.142,1.75,0.625,0
Image Credit: Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith
[reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-12345]
Image Changes: Very modest lighting and saturation adjustments
Page Created: 5/26/25 U.S. Copyright Status: This text = Property of AmericanRhetoric.com. Image = Fair Use (used in Compliance with these terms) |
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