Student Body Leaders From Throughout California Attend Panetta Institute Eleventh Annual Leadership Seminar

Twenty-nine student body presidents and other student leaders from throughout the California State University system as well as Dominican University, Saint Mary’s College and Santa Clara University spent a week at the Panetta Institute this June. These young leaders attended one of a kind workshops and panel discussions designed to sharpen their leadership skills, improve their understanding of government and encourage a career in public life. Featured speakers at the seven-day seminar included former California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, former United State Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta and former NFL player and coach Herm Edwards.

Sylvia Panetta Gives 14th Annual Commencement Address for California State University, Monterey Bay

Institute director Sylvia M. Panetta was the keynote speaker at the May 22 commencement for California State University, Monterey Bay. With nearly 900 students receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and more than 200 earning teaching credentials, it was the largest graduating class in the school’s history. In front of a crowd of about 8,000 family members and friends, Mrs. Panetta urged students to see challenges as opportunities and that public service is fundamental both to a life well-lived and to the future of our democracy.

The text of her remarks is below:

Thank you, President Dianne Harrison, for inviting me to participate in this graduation. I am honored to stand next to the distinguished colleagues on this platform. I also want to thank you, the students, for allowing me to share this day with you.

I congratulate you, the class of 2010, in receiving your degrees and credentials. And I want to congratulate your parents, families, friends, faculty and staff — all of whom helped make this day a reality.

I am also honored to be here for several other reasons:

First, because of the relationship between the Panetta Institute and California State University, Monterey Bay. We established this Institute in 1997. My husband, Leon, and I had just returned from Washington and we wanted to create a study center that would provide young men and women with the tools and information they would need to become active and engaged citizens. As we worked to pursue our vision, we found a home here at CSUMB. And we continue to be proud to call this campus the home of the Panetta Institute. We are happy to serve the students here, and to help inspire students throughout the CSU system and the greater California community to lives of public service.

Second, I’m proud to be here alongside this year’s nine graduates of the Panetta Institute’s Master of Public Policy program. We have been most pleased to partner with CSUMB in establishing and teaching this graduate degree program. This is the fifth class of graduates and we take great pride in them and in this program aimed at preparing citizens for public service.

Finally, I am so happy to speak to you today, because I have always felt a special connection to the creation of this campus. As Hayley Allison described so eloquently, this campus came about as a result of change and transformation. My husband and I played a role in helping establish this university at what was once Fort Ord. In fact, when Leon was in the army, beginning in 1964, we lived on base housing just up the road from here at 313 Aachen Road.

Starting in 1917 and up until sixteen years ago, this was a military post that housed and trained thousands of soldiers, with firing ranges, mock battlefields and night exercises with flares, companies of troops running in unison, all being trained to defend our freedom. Today, it is a modern campus not of soldiers but of students; not firing ranges, but classrooms preparing young people for the future; not mock battlefields but athletic and scholastic events building morale and spirit not just to defend freedom, but to make freedom flourish. It happened because of the work of countless local people who made a dream come true and successfully converted swords into plowshares.

Leon represented this region in Congress for 16 years. I remember when we first learned that Fort Ord had been marked for closure. That was in 1991, and the whole community was concerned about what this change would mean for the Central Coast and for the businesses and families that make this region their home. Many people were afraid that the loss of Fort Ord would create a big economic hole on the peninsula. But, there was a dedicated group of people that saw opportunity in this challenge. 350 people from diverse backgrounds and with very different interests came together to ensure that something remarkable could and would be created. We all worked with one another to make certain that the end of Fort Ord would result in the birth of something new that would serve our region, our people and specifically our future generations in a sustainable and long-term way.

Today, the creation of the university — something we thought was a good idea at the time has proven to be a brilliant idea. This university is responsible not only for the education that you have received, but it serves as an inspiration to the entire tri-county area, providing an avenue for top quality higher education for the residents of this community, offering a nexus of cultural and civic events and nurturing the spirit of possibility and promise for residents throughout the region.

It took creativity, flexibility and determination and today, CSUMB is a twenty-first century campus leading the information revolution in the smart use of technology, providing training in many fields including marine science, business, teaching and hospitality to name some. This university gives the opportunity of education to a diverse wave of students so that they can succeed in a global world. But most importantly, I think, this campus inspires its students through its history — its story of creativity in the face of challenge — and it instills in them a dedication to provide service to this nation. Your graduation class is the fulfillment of the dream that our generation, along with many others, had for the land where this university now thrives — to establish a place that could and would develop new generations of leaders.

I hope that in the future you reflect on the story of how this campus came about. Be prepared that as you set forth and begin to pursue your goals that you will face hardships. You will face challenges and even disappointments. But arm yourself with the knowledge that if you see these setbacks as opportunities, like the members of this community who worked together to recreate the use of this land, you will always have success within tangible reach.

Today, you’ve earned your degree in the educational area of your choice. What remains to be determined is whether you’ve earned your degree as a member of society — as a steward of our democracy.

Our country founders created not just a nation and a Constitution, they created an obligation in each of us to serve this nation and honor that Constitution. And following that we were each given a duty to fulfill the most important moral covenant we have — to care for each other.

I know that as you end your time here at CSUMB, the world that awaits you is daunting. In the Panetta Institute’s annual national college student survey, that we just completed this month, student confidence in finding an acceptable job after graduation was the lowest ever in the ten-year history of this survey. But what concerned me most was that the survey also found that the percentage of students registered to vote and those expressing interest in key issues like the future of our environment and our planet were also declining.

This week, the Panetta Institute hosted a lecture series event with former Vice President Al Gore. He came here to this campus and spoke regarding climate change to a group of almost 700 students. Later that evening he spoke to a group of more than 1,000 people with many more waiting to get in to hear him. I look at that level of interest and I know that despite the results of our national survey, the men and women on this campus and in this community are concerned about the future of our environment and our planet.

The survey has also tracked a growing decline in the number of students who are interested in pursuing a teaching career. For the past four years interest in teaching has dropped significantly, and this year it was at its lowest level in the history of the national survey. But I see here today, all the students receiving the California Teaching Credentials, and I know that on this campus and in this community our men and women are committed to giving our children the tools and education they need to succeed.

I realize that the current economic climate and the related job market will not make your next steps obvious or easy. But again, I urge you to see this as an opportunity. As you consider your next steps remind yourself of the responsibility you have to give back to serve others. The challenges you face cannot be used as an excuse for apathy or as justification for disengagement. You can, and you must, remember your commitment to your community, to your nation and to your world. You are already on that path, it’s now time to take the next steps.

America and our state of California are confronting an unprecedented set of challenges — from terrorism and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to economic and fiscal crises, to the record deficits in Washington and Sacramento that are undermining education, undermining healthcare, undermining infrastructure, and undermining action on climate change, poverty and hunger. But as overwhelming as this list might sound, Americans have faced crises in our past that at the time seemed impossible. In World War II, as the nation was struggling in the wake of the great depression, we faced a foreign dictatorship and its military force committed to the elimination of millions of people. We prevailed because Americans sacrificed for a greater cause. I remember as a small child, the ration stamps for food, the blackout shades and air raid drills, my grandparents’ vegetable gardens – called victory gardens — and our family members and numbers of others sent off to war throughout the world. It was frightening, it was difficult, but it was necessary. I know that that same level of success we saw during those times is possible today, but it will require the same sacrifice, service and effort.

That bond, that covenant of sacrificing for the greater good, of caring for one another is what maintains our freedom and our democracy. It was true for our forefathers; it was true for the pioneers; it was and is true for our immigrants; and it is true for all of us. That covenant that passed from generation to generation is being passed to you — the leaders of tomorrow.

Little more than 48 years ago, a young president embraced that moral covenant of our forefathers. He reached out to my generation by challenging us to “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” A generation responded to this call.

Today, your generation, must respond to the call of service as well. You have the energy. You have the idealism. You have the dedication and the commitment to change the face of America and to make it again a nation of people who care for each other and who are willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. I see this capability in the students we work with every day at the Panetta Institute. In our work I’ve collaborated with young volunteers committed to give a year of their lives to domestic service through the V.I.S.T.A. program and Americorps members — all working to help improve children’s literacy in our local schools. I have had the opportunity to meet young elected student leaders from throughout the state in our annual Leadership Seminars and Congressional Internship Programs. I see civic-minded students in our Master of Public Policy program and I work with CSUMB students engaged in service learning. In each of these capacities, I see young people full of creativity, ready to learn, ready to question and ready to serve. You must be ready to lead others to service as well.

As graduates from CSUMB, you have had the unique opportunity to learn from service. You understand that this kind of work equips you with a universal set of skills and connects you, in a way that nothing else can, to your environment and to people. You’ve done this through service learning. As you continue on your journey, do not be discouraged if your dream job is not immediately out there waiting for you. Be fearless, create opportunity, take a risk and find an adventure. Why not take the educational tools that you have acquired and find a way to serve? The skills you will further gain will serve you for the rest of your life.

The purpose of your education here at CSUMB…the purpose of the Panetta Institute…is to make sure that you respond to the moral covenant created by our founders and passed from generation to generation. As you receive your academic degree, I congratulate you for that achievement. But as you leave this ceremony, and this campus, I want you to embrace your duty as an American and as an active participant in our democracy. Earning that degree as a steward of our democracy will not just make you a better person, it will make America a better nation.

Congratulations, again, to the graduates!

2010 Panetta Institute Lecture Series, The Second Decade 2010-2020: What’s Next for America? With Featured Speakers Including Jeb Bush, James Carville and Al Gore.

The 2010 season of the Panetta Institute Lecture Series considered the new decade and asked noted experts and leaders to address looming questions on the future of our country, our people and our world. Speakers this season were Jeb Bush, James Carville, Harvey Pitt, Robert Reich, James Rubin and Frances Townsend and Al Gore.

Institute Director Sylvia M. Panetta commented on the focus of this year’s lectures, “the new decade finds our nation facing a set of unprecedented challenges. The historic recession and weak recovery; a foreign policy that must balance security, diplomacy and global commerce; the destructive nature of the partisan gridlock in Washington and the looming threat of climate change must all be addressed if our nation is to move forward in the twenty-first century. We asked the experts on these issues to consider the tough questions facing the future of our country and our planet.”

Learn more about this year’s Panetta Institute Lecture Series.

For information on rebroadcast of the final lecture featuring former Vice Presidnet Al Gore click here.

Panetta Institute 2010 Survey of College Students Finds Students Focused on Economic Worries But More Optimistic Than Two Years Ago

According to the results of the Panetta Institute’s 2010 survey of college students, college students are very concerned about obtaining a job after college. In fact, student confidence in securing an acceptable job after graduation is the lowest ever in the ten-year history of the survey. At the same time, college students are much more likely than adults overall to see the country “on the right track.” However, when they are asked to pick the one or two issues that are “the most important to you personally,” their top three choices, dwarfing all others, are core pocketbook concerns – improving the job situation, dealing with the costs of college education and improving the healthcare system.

With economic worries so salient, the survey finds a corresponding decline in student attention to concerns such as terrorism and global warming. However, student interest in working some day for government or for a not-for-profit community organization continues the slow, steady increase we have seen since 2001. As an institution dedicated to promoting public service, the Panetta Institute finds this trend encouraging – although we also note two troubling counter-trends. Student interest in teaching in a public school has steadily declined since 2006, and fewer students now say an adult has talked to them about getting involved in politics or public service.

Learn more about the most recent Youth Civic Engagement Survey.

Monterey County Reads Honors Volunteers at Annual Volunteer Recognition Ceremony

A special celebration was held in recognition of 150 Monterey County Reads volunteers for their dedication to helping children of Monterey County achieve grade level literacy skills. The Monterey County Reads Volunteer Recognition Ceremony took place on Tuesday, May 4 from at the Alumni & Visitors Center at California State University, Monterey Bay. The ceremony featured remarks from participating volunteers, school site leaders and elected officials. Brad Herzog, local award winning children’s author and memoirist, delivered the keynote address.

“Participation in a democracy is only possible through literacy,” said Sylvia Panetta, director of the Panetta Institute, “This most basic skill prevents millions of Americans from fulfilling their potential. Today, fifty million American adults read no higher than a fourth or fifth grade level and each year the number of functionally illiterate adults increases by 2.25 million. In Monterey County, 11% of residents are illiterate and one-quarter of adults read below the fourth grade level. Our volunteers are making a difference in this vital effort. Their commitment to the children of Monterey County is an important public service that deserves recognition.”