How many people here love Bodo’s Bagels?

Many of you have spent a late night in Shannon Library – or an even later night here on the Lawn.

And you have cheered on our teams and national champions.

You see, we are all Wahoos.

But in a few moments, you will turn toward the Rotunda and enter a wider world.

After UVA, you will meet people who don’t look like you, speak like you, think like you or vote like you.

As you make your way, I urge you to remember this moment and to seek shared ground.

I know a little something about this.

I grew up in Alaska and arrived at college alone, several thousand miles from home, with one suitcase and no familiar faces. My tennis teammates asked if I had lived in an igloo and jokingly called me “Polar Beardsley.” As an engineering student at Tufts, I had to find that shared ground – fast.

In my career, through work in places like Abu Dhabi, Caracas, Tokyo, Warsaw and Cairo, I came to know that starting a new job or project often requires walking into rooms of strangers, in places you’ve never been, in languages you don’t understand, to work on problems in unfamiliar contexts.