President Barack Obama Delivers Rutgers Commencement Address

Sunday, May 15, 2016 President Barack Obama told the Rutgers University Class of 2016 that ignorance is not a virtue and urged graduates to have faith in democracy.

“You’ve got to be a citizen full time, all the time,” Obama told the more than 50,000 who gathered at High Point Solutions Stadium for the university’s historic 250th commencement. The 2016 graduating class of nearly 17,000 students is Rutgers’ largest ever. The first sitting president to speak at a Rutgers commencement told students and their families that the world is more interconnected than ever before and needs to work globally to solve problems, not just to build walls.

“The biggest challenges we face cannot be solved in isolation,” he said. “When overseas states start falling apart, they become breeding grounds for terrorists and ideologies and nihilism and despair that ultimately can reach our shores,” Obama said.