A Glimpse of Graduation

Profile Photo of Maya Bouali I was born in Beirut, Lebanon, a city so often described as the jewel of the Mediterranean. A city that has died and been revived a thousand times. I have lived through a civil war, foreign attacks, and political assassinations. For the first 18 years of my life, I watched the news every night looking for hope. … And many nights I was let down. I stand with you today at a pivotal moment getting ready to graduate into an intimidating world. But fellow graduates, faculty, staff, friends, and my family, we are all approaching this world together. The time has come, my friends, for us to dare. Instead of looking for hope—it’s our time to go out and create a new reality.

The journey of this graduating class has paralleled that of an ever-changing world. Amazingly, within just the last 12 months, we have witnessed a historic political campaign in the United States, the collapse of major financial institutions and markets and a recession that continues to cast a dark cloud over the global economy. Class of 2009, these are rough times. But you know what? They are our times. Our times to challenge the circumstances, create new standards, and fix what’s broken. We are the youthful risk-takers, ambitious dreamers, and passionate builders. History has given us a chance to craft the future. And today, we gain a powerful tool to build the future—a college education. A UT Dallas education.

We are the youthful risk-takers, ambitious dreamers, and passionate builders. History has given us a chance to craft the future. And today, we gain a powerful tool to build the future—a college education. A UT Dallas education.

What makes this school so great is that opportunities here are endless and the faculty members who support you are countless. But as in life, you must pursue those opportunities instead of waiting for them. And, for others to believe in you, you must first believe in yourself. UT Dallas is home to some of the best Western literature scholars in the nation, a recruitment base for Fortune 500 companies, home to the “Kings of the Chessboard,” and a major feeder school to highly regarded political science programs. In January of 2009, I was honored to represent UT Dallas in one of those programs, the Bill Archer Fellowship Program in Washington, D.C. There, I worked in the Washington office of a global energy company and took political science courses that gave me a new understanding of politics and democracy. I was fortunate to meet and interact with extremely powerful and successful people from all around the world in the realms of government and business. I learned a very important lesson in Washington; I learned power is in the hands of the very few; they are the powerful congressmen and senators, the persuasive lobbyists, the smart researchers, and the passionate reporters. I learned knowledge is power.

Regardless of your financial, cultural, and scholastic background, what makes you or breaks you is what you know, who you know, and when you say what you know. A very few have mastered that, and they are the very few deciding the fate of businesses, economies, and nations.

Like you, I stand here today prepared to embark on yet another journey. We have all overcome a lot to get to where we are today. My mom always told me that perseverance and hard work will pay off. But that was one lesson that was hard to believe. Watching people fail, witnessing cruelty, seeing people marginalized – it all got the best of me for a really long time. But, I never gave up dreaming and realizing that I must persevere and work hard. In September, I will board a flight to London to pursue my graduate studies. While I may not have known exactly what I wanted, I knew I wanted something better. Your dreams may not be my dreams, or your parents’ dreams, but now you have the ability and credibility to go out and achieve your dreams. Now is the time for action.

In my four years here, this campus has been my home away from home. We owe our education to the long march of faculty and staff who have supported us in every professional and academic endeavor we have undertaken. We owe our sanity to our families who grounded us and nurtured us into the people we are today. Most of us here have established relationships that will last beyond the edges of this campus. Relationships with faculty who taught us we have a lot yet to learn, pushed us when we were about to give up, and gave us the encouragement to keep going. Relationships with friends whose shoulders we cried on, whose words of advice we took to heart and whose support meant everything to us. We have all spent more time in these buildings than we did at home. I bet many of us right now find it hard to believe that we will ever miss all of this. But trust me, we will.

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan spoke to the people of West Berlin, creating one of the most famous moments of defiance in history. In his speech, titled “Tear Down This Wall,” President Reagan quoted the famous German song “I Still Have a Suitcase In Berlin” to explain why, as an American president, he felt it was his duty to visit Berlin and ask for the fall of the wall.

I stand in front of you today, with a desire to quote that same song, in my last words of farewell to you and to all of UT Dallas:

As the song says:

“I still have a suitcase in Berlin
That's why I have to go there sometime soon.
The joys of days gone by
Are all still in my little suitcase.
I still have a suitcase in Berlin
It stays there, too, and that makes sense.
In this way it's worth a trip,
Because whenever I'm homesick, then I go back.”

We all have a suitcase somewhere. As of today, we, the graduating class of Spring 2009, have all left a suitcase at UT Dallas.

Thank you.

Maya Bouali graduated summa cum laude with a perfect 4.0 grade point average and a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the School of Management.

While at UT Dallas, Bouali received both academic excellence and dean’s excellence academic scholarships. She was a regular member of the dean’s honor list, a member of the Management Honor’s Program, Delta Sigma Pi and the Financial Leadership Association. She also served as a supplemental instruction leader for an honor’s managerial accounting course, and was treasurer of the Golden Key Honor Society and was president of the management honor’s program student council.

This year she was selected as an Archer Fellow and spent the spring semester in Washington, D.C. as a Government Affairs and International Relations intern.

This fall she will begin her graduate studies in England at the London School of Economics.