University Of Texas Fight Song

Mexican president exhorts Stanford grads to fight for ideas 'with all your heart'

Speaking to the next generation of business, legal and government leaders, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon urged Stanford University graduates Sunday "to find your ideas and fight for them with all your heart."

On a day set aside to celebrate the accomplishment of earning degrees from one of the world's most distinguished academic institutions, and as giddy former students danced across the rich green field at Stanford Stadium under blue skies in an array of attire, Calderon reminded the audience of about 30,000 about the challenges that await -- from high unemployment to the gap between rich and poor and the dire consequences of climate change. He encouraged the Class of 2011 to use its education and talents to make the world a better place.

"This is the question you must ask: Do you want to be another person who goes through life without making your mark or, as Gandhi said, 'Do you want to be the change you want to see?' " said Calderon, elected in 2006 and known internationally for his fight against violent drug cartels.

Calderon, the second sitting president of a country to speak at a Stanford commencement -- the university's 120th such celebration -- summoned a chapter from his own life in exhorting thousands of fresh graduates on the cusp of the next stage in their lives to have the staying power to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges.

As a member of the National Action Party, also known as PAN, which his father helped form in 1939, the president recalled the struggles of working to change an essentially one-party political system.

"When I was your age, Mexico still had an autocratic regime," said Calderon, a lawyer and economist with a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University. "All the state governors came from the same party. For many decades that one party controlled everything: What the media was allowed to say, what the schools could teach, which rock concerts were permitted -- everything. When the students protested, they were massacred."

In 2000, Vicente Fox, representing a political coalition formed by the National Action Party and the Green Ecological Party of Mexico, was elected president, the first opposition candidate in 71 years to defeat the previously dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party in 71 years.

The president also spoke of the need to create a global economy that lifts up the poor while also preserving the environment.

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