Then there is a salary of faculty and staff. Provided, public schools, churches, health care, businesses, it enriches the entire community as do the of graduates. And certainly the greater huntsville area workforce is indeed exceptional. Huntsville is one of the highest concentrations of phds and Forbes Magazine calls huntsville one of the top 10 smartest cities in the world. Indeed an analysis released just yesterday, huntsville was named the number one place in the country for spend graduates for stem graduates. Science technology, engineering, and mathematics. The technology that is so army, u. S. The u. S. Space and Defense Missile systems, here in large numbers. Local political leaders. Congressman brooks and the entire delegation understands just how important you are to this region, this state, and our nation. Getting out is about ua age. But perhaps not enough. Indeed a Business Insider recently named you a h ua age uah as one of the it will not remain unappreciated any longer. All of this has been done. In the face of tight budgets in we set our Funding Priorities in the future we need that a good university, particularly a Good Research university has the potential to live the entire the entire lift state in ways that may not have been done any other way. We need to be sure we adequately fund alabamas Higher Education system. Which i think is fabulous in some anyways. For those of you who dont have a job, let me give you some and encouragement. Sometime around march or april i realized i didnt have a job. I had no idea what i was going to do. I was in gauged to be married. My wife had a job teaching, but then it just hit me. I had not done my preparation very well. Things were so bizarre i thought i could somehow stay in the dorm. Didnt have a job of any kind. Somebody got me into the idea of selling Soap Products doortodoor. That turned out to be a bust. With myer staying friend, he was a methodist minister to be. , i got toe, alabama stay in his parsonage because he wasnt using it very much. That is the way the summer was for me. Things sort of work out. They have assorted teachers in montgomery. A job teaching sixth grade in montgomery, alabama. Add in all africanamerican my wife taught, and we got by some way to for those of you who are not quite there yet and do not know where you are heading, and are not quite there yet but remember, get busy, start asking. Very few of us ever start down the road we end up on in the course of life. As i think about it, my political career, i never ran for office until i was 49. I really never planned these things out. They just help you and come to you as time goes by. About the only thing we can control is how we live, our attitudes, character, integrity, and work ethic. The goal should be about making the enterprise you work for successful, being a good team player, people who have good integrity and good work ethic will always end up on the short list of people who need to be hired. A couple of things i will close with. The american governmental system is a true wonder here at having the opportunity to travel the world and some of the worst places in the world, what we do here cannot be easily translated into another culture. It is difficult. We need to understand how blessed we are to have a legal system we basically inherited from the british. We need to protect it, students, graduates, and extended into the future. You cannot have a sophisticated, highly developed economy without the ability to sign complex contracts and have those be enforced fairly around the country. Further, always improve, get better. A lot of people start out nervous and work really hard, they learn the basics of the work they are undertaking, and then they get comfortable. And begin to plateau, to coast. Do not coast. A strong message from me to you is that learning never ends. Subscribe to the best journals in the profession you are seeking. Keep reading about it and attend the seminars. Get better at whatever you do and you will never regret it. Finally, savings. Im a member of the budget committee. We look at our debt. Its not very helpful but we really need to be sure that more of our american citizens save regularly. If your company has a matching savings plan, be sure to match it 100 and take advantage of it. If not, set aside your own money. A person at Median Income who works a full career can almost be certain to retire a millionaire in america today, but you have to set aside that money every week and the sooner you start, the sooner you get used to not getting it, the better off you will be. To go back to some of the experiences and lessons ive learned, you cannot always land plan out your career at graduation. Things work out if you work hard and operate with integrity, stay confident in your character, your beliefs, never stop working for what you believe in, and people with truth on their side usually when, but not always, but you can always be confident that when you do not prevail, you did what you believe is right. Congratulations on your achievement. Celebrate the great day and all of the accomplishments you have, but continue to be your best and get even better every day. I wish you all the best on your next great adventure. Thank you and god bless. [applause] thank you, senator. And now i would like to ask senator sessions to come to the center stage to be honored. The board of trustees of the university of alabama is awarded to senator jeffs sessions the degree of dr. Of humane letters with all the rights, privileges, and honors thereunto appertain. And testimony whereof this diploma is issued with dcl of the board and the signatures authorized by the trustees. Conferred at the university of alabama in huntsville on this first day of may 2016. I am pleased to confer on senator Jeff Sessions the honorary degree, dr. Of humane letters with all the rights and privileges pertaining to that degree. [applause] National CableAssociation Michael powell delivered the commencement address at pepperdine university. He said there is nothing more important than perseverance. This is 15 minutes. Good glorious morning. Thank the provost and the faculty and the president and the university for bestowing on me the exceptional honor of joining. This will be a day that i will long cherished. I see joy in the faces of all of you. There seems to be much cause for concern. Because the robots are rising. The cars are driving themselves. Machines frighteningly seem poised to replace humans as tomorrows workers. In might be understandable if youre sitting there questioning if you are here for liberal arts studies in this ex machina utopia that is unfolding in front of you. You destined for a life as r2d2s nursemaid . , may be his batteries reading a little toy story or plato to pass the time. I know that millennials cherished third digital waves. Could it be while you are deliriously tweeting and retreating and posting and reposting and snapping, the machines are modeling your behavior and learning years skills. Your does the liberal arts student have a chance these days. Theyre certainly a course of critics who say no. To them, the arts and humanities should be pushed aside and replaced with science, technology and math and coding. Everyone has to code. I say these academy haters are wrong. [applause] the value of a liberal arts , the greatest task to be accomplished requires women and men with broad knowledge, and deep intellectual curiosity. This is exactly what liberal arts colleges produce and what the world needs. The world needs you. Ande Creative Destruction disruption are the narrative of tech glory, they are eroding institutions. They are changing the nature of human relationships. Making sense of it all requires more and it requires the perspectives of the historian and the insights of sociology and the reflections of the philosophy. Weapons are not what will halt the spread of terrorism and religious extremism. What will our people who comprehended the fundamentals of religion, understand its true purpose and can find the path to