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Biden time: Vice president tells Wake Forest students that he is optimistic about the future
Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
Vice President Joe Biden exhorts WFU graduates to seize their opportunities.
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Published: May 19, 2009
Vice President Joe Biden told 1,500 graduates at Wake Forest University yesterday that they are entering the world at a special time in history.
Fundamental changes are needed in the country's economic, educational and environmental policies. Health care needs to be revamped.
"Throughout the span of history though, only a handful of us have been alive at times when we can truly shape history," Biden said. "Without question, this is one of those times, for there's not a single solitary decision confronting your generation now that doesn't yield a change from nonaction as well as action."
He spoke under a canopy at the foot of Wait Chapel, overlooking Hearn Plaza. Throughout the ceremony, a brisk breeze swept through the plaza, which was packed with an estimated 10,000 people, some of whom wrapped themselves in blankets.
Biden is the first sitting vice president to deliver a commencement speech at the school. He was speaking in place of Tim Russert, the NBC newsman who died last June. Biden talked about Russert for several minutes, calling him a legendary figure who changed the way politics was covered on TV. Russert's widow, Maureen Orth, accepted a degree posthumously awarded to Russert.
Biden's 30-minute speech was mostly devoid of politics. Instead, he stuck to tried-and-true commencement themes about embracing the moment and effecting change and quoted poets William Butler Yeats and Maya Angelou.
"You are the possible," Biden said, referencing Angelou's A Brave and Startling Truth. "This is not hyperbole. You are the possible. We are the possible. And we have at once finally come to it. So seize it. Seize it. Because if you do not, it will slip from our grasp and determine the world you live in while you sit idly by."
T.L. Brown learned that lesson as a young boy growing up in Cove City, a working-class town of 500 people near New Bern.
Brown was among the graduates on the lawn listening to Biden. Yesterday, Brown picked up his third diploma from Wake Forest, an unlikely achievement considering the difficulties he encountered during his first few years at the school.
He was born to a single mother and was raised in a three-bedroom house with eight other people. When Brown was young, his mother, Mary Brown, and aunt, Sandra Brown, talked to him about the power of education.
"They encouraged me to be the best I could be," Brown said.
He wanted to go to a small college that was a good distance from Cove City, and in the mid-1990s, he wound up at Wake Forest. His first year was rough. He said that as a black person with a rural upbringing, he had trouble adjusting. Most of his classmates were white, and he said they seemed more polished. He taught himself about etiquette and learned self-confidence.
"I had to groom myself into a lot of things," he said. "I had to look into myself and to see what I really wanted out of life."
Brown made that adjustment while going to school and working two jobs to pay for a portion of the tuition that was not covered by scholarships and loans.
He graduated in 1999 with a degree in political science. After one year working in communications at a local credit union, Brown was accepted into Wake Forest's School of Law. He resumed his job with the school's dining-services office to help pay living expenses. Brown kept that job a secret because law-school students are advised not to work during their first year, he said.
He finished law school in 2003 with a specialty in elder law. Shortly after he passed the Bar exam, Brown took a job with Wachovia, where he works as a consultant in estate planning.
But he wasn't through with Wake Forest.
In 2006, he enrolled in the school's evening MBA program. Initially, he thought it would be a good idea to go to school somewhere else.
"I was thinking my resume needs to say something besides ‘Winston-Salem' under every heading," he said.
But Wake offered him a nice scholarship package, and he accepted. Brown, who is 31, worked at Wachovia from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., then took about three hours of classes in the evening. Some mornings, he woke up at 5 to study. He cut back on social activities and spent many weekends with his books.
Although he finished school in August 2008, he decided to participate in yesterday's commencement activities to cap off his long career as a Wake Forest student.
In getting to this point, Brown has become what Biden called an "emblem of the sense of possibility."
Biden addressed the graduates collectively, but much of what he said can be applied to individual stories of success such as Brown's.
"As corny as it sounds, this really is your moment," Biden said. "History is yours to bend. Imagine. Imagine what we can do."
■ Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lodonnell@wsjournal.com.
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