Good afternoon distinguished Board Members, BGU Officials, Faculty and staff, Family members and friends, BGU alumni and students, and most importantly, graduates of 2024!
Graduates, it is an honor to join you today to celebrate your successful completion of studies at BGU!
What a Day!
Special Day!
BGU’s Class of 2024, Congratulations!
You made it!
Graduates, this is a unique moment in your academic career! A special millstone in your life journey! It deserves celebration! Congratulations, again!
It took so much sacrifice, resilience, discipline and commitment for you to make it to the day—your time, finance, family, work and more. It required your determination to pay what it takes to archive your goal. You attended classes, completed assignments, completed and defended final projects and many more tasks and frustrating moments throughout your life at BGU.
Graduates, you were not alone in the long journey to this day, though. Many have contributed to your success. Congratulations to your family, friends, faculty and staff, BGU community, and most of all, thanks to Lord! The Lord channeled and directed all those supportive efforts from so many as well as your hard work towards the final outcome we are celebrating today! Praise to the Lord!
Graduates, your journey at BGU leading up to your graduation reminds me of my own experience: I was in the same journey as yours when I completed my PhD studies in 2004 at SUNY Buffalo. I came to the US from Ethiopia for my studies, leaving behind my family, work, networks and communities. It was not an easy decision.
Among the unforgettable experiences I had, one emerges out as remarkable. That was a snowstorm in Buffalo that occurred few days before Thanksgiving holiday in the year 2000. What made it so remarkable was not only that it was my first snow experience, but that it was a major snowstorm unlike the ordinary snowfalls. It all started around 3 pm. School kids were stranded like many adults who left workplaces with no chance of making it to home. The entire city was shut down at an emergency scale nearly for a week. I got a campus shuttle but only to be stranded on the street, and I had to walk in piles of snow. I was lucky to make it home by midnight. Many spent the night on campus. Well, that day became my first and last to question my decision to come to the US for my education.
I was on a full scholarship. I owe a lot to the people and state of New York. I was so like the “End of the World”. Thus, I worked hard and completed the study in 2004 to reverse my imagined “End of the World” scenario. Twenty years have counted since then. I got a faculty position, became tenured, and attained a rank of full professorship. Now, I am serving at BGU as an Academic Dean and Professor.
Graduates, I would like to assure you that your great success at BGU is a mark of your hard work and determination! Equally important, it is an indication of what you are capable of doing in the future!
Thus, your graduation is a mark of the start of a new journey into the future - where you will try your lessons from BGU in practical real-life situations in your communities. You will also develop new knowledge and competencies that can enrich your BGU’s lessons to the next higher level. You will go through a process of lifelong learning! You have work to do! Your leadership will be tested as you carry a huge burden to make differences in your communities!
Graduates, your graduation is happening at a unique time in history, a time of massive changes in many aspects. The changes in part are the outcomes of the Fourth Industrial Revolution characterized by Robotic and AI capabilities. These changes are having impacts on our life. We are at a point of no more business as usual mode in the areas of business, education, manufacturing, healthcare, leadership and other sectors.
One of the possible impacts of these changes can be a scenario of technological divide between the northern and southern hemisphere of our world. The technologically disadvantaged may suffer more from potential social upheavals, instability, high rate of unemployment, and major changes to ways of life.
Thus, your graduation comes with critical responsibility! You have a key role to play in managing the opportunities and challenges of the technological changes in terms of ensuring access, equity, inclusion, integrity and ethics in the implementation and utilization of the fruits of the ingenuity while curbing the negative effects. Your role will be measured by the extent of your support to communities to make best use of these changes.
Graduates, you know very well that our world needs transformational leaders in areas including our churches, cities, schools, businesses, government institutions and more. We have got challenges to tackle in matters of environment, living conditions, high cost of living, conflict, war, corruption, inefficiency, unemployment, disengaged youth, digital age and ministry and many more.
Communities are affected by all these challenges in one way or the other. But leaders can make the differences towards betterment. BGU has as its mission to make differences by educating leaders communities need.
Graduates, your graduation is never an end to your attachment to BGU! I call upon you to remain connected to BGU as much as you have been, if not more!
We all have a common mission to accomplish: It is the mission of supporting the education of Christ centered leaders who will have an impact on the world! This is what BGU does and you are challenged to become part of this commitment!
So, may I challenge you to promote BGU and what it does, to bring potential candidates for leadership education, to support BGU by strengthening regional ecosystems in your cities/countries/regions.
In doing so, you will enhance BGU’s commitment as a global institution known for its diversity and inclusion with due attention to local contexts guided by the philosophy of polycentric leadership.
Graduates, you are not done with BGU. Go and spread the good news and the good works of BGU to the world. Respond to the call of the Lord--Let’s multiply Christ centered leaders to meet the challenges of our world! Be a multiplying force of BGU’s mission!
Remember:
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 PETER 4:10
May the Lord Bless you in all your endeavors!
Congratulations!
Best of Luck!
Thank you!
Dr. Belete Mebratu
Academic Dean