You are about to join a unique cadre of scientists that make a significant contribution to fundamental discoveries about the environment – whether for sustainability, preservation, recovery or just providing deeper insights and understanding of the natural world. And the wonderful UMCES guiding principal to use the power of science to help society better understand and manage the environment.
UMCES has been founded not just on great science, but also on an understanding of how society benefits from or is affected by the environment. Whether from physical threats, such as climate change, floods, or pollution, sustaining critical food sources, energy production, or discoveries that benefit human health.
As the next generation of scientists that will inform policy and management – you bear a particular responsibility. You are a product of the smartest and best educated generation ever to grace this planet. But the problems we face today are more complex, more interconnected, and more dynamic than has ever been experienced.
Imagine a circle. Everything on the inside is what we know today. Everything on the outside is unknown.
In our generation of education, the circle was small and we could see what we did not know. As our understanding has gotten bigger, that circle has grown over time, but at the same time, we now understand that the complexities of the things that we don’t know have also grown.
Our global environment is changing at unprecedented speed and we know that the political, social, human health, and economic factors are far more complex. This is the challenge that you have chosen to dedicate your professional career.
Alistair Smith, the famous Philosopher and Innovator in Education, said in 2011: “At times of change, the learners will be the ones who will inherit the world, while the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world that no longer exists.”
So this is commencement – and as implied in the name – this is the closing of one chapter of your life and the start of the next.
As you move out into your professional career, it is the commencement of life-long learning and networking, as your personal influence and network grows in the coming years – and I guarantee it will as a graduate of UMCES.
Please stay engaged with your committee and the colleagues you have met here at UMCES. We hope that this is the start of a life-long connection to your major professors and this institution. We hope that the value of this degree from one of the pre-eminent research programs in the world will grow in value over time.
Please continue give feedback and advice on how we can improve the graduate experience – engage in learned societies and movements to transform our approaches to the environment.
Thank you for choosing this career path and contributing to addressing the massive global challenges that we face today.
After that modest Charge: we come to the conferral of degrees.
The Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees are awarded jointly by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Maryland College Park.
By the Power vested in me by the Board of Regents and Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, and on the recommendation of the faculty that you have met the high standards and all the degree requirements, I confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
By the Power vested in me by the Board of Regents and Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, and on the recommendation of the faculty that you have met the high standards and all the requirements, I confer upon you the degree of Masters of Science.