Welcome to NJIT’s 2006 commencement ceremony. Benjamin Franklin, one of history’s most distinguished scientists, inventors, and statesmen, said that an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.  So congratulations on having made that investment of time and effort that few activities in life demand.

This is also an occasion to acknowledge the support of all those who have helped you make the decision to make such a vital investment. Please join me in a round of applause to express appreciation to family and friends whose support and generosity enabled you to reach this milestone in your life.

The interest that you will continue to accrue from your investment at NJIT also reflects the exceptional talents and dedication of our faculty and staff who serve our university in many ways. Please join me in recognizing NJIT’s faculty and staff for their contributions to your success on this day, and to what you will surely achieve as NJIT graduates in the years to come.

This year, 2006, marks the 125th anniversary of the founding in 1881 of NJIT’s earliest predecessor institution, Newark Technical School when Newark saw a need to invest in developing an educated work force to support the industries of the City and ensure a prosperous economy. Today, NJIT works in partnership with Newark in its redevelopment efforts and statewide in sustaining a competent workforce for our knowledge-based economy, in contributing directly to it through business incubation, and in linking to industry through research.

Our partnerships with the State are long standing. While we have much work to do in addressing in the short term the current economic realities that we face as a State and an institution, and in establishing long term policies in support of public higher education, our partnership must, and we are confident will, grow only stronger.

The 125-year history of NJIT has spanned unimaginable technological and social change. The community of nations has endured war and other tragic events. But there has been great progress and genuine improvement in the quality of life as well, advances grounded in the work of many of those educated and inspired at institutions such as ours.

Those of you on the “four-year plan” of the class of 2006 and I arrived at NJIT at the same time. Those of you on the “six-year plan” were already here. Together we have seen the change, and improvement, that has been the hallmark of NJIT. The opening of a state-of–the art campus center, of Fenster Hall, the award-winning restoration of historic Eberhardt Hall to serve as NJIT’s Alumni Center, recognition of NJIT by The Princeton Review as one of the nation’s 150 best value colleges based on academic program quality and provision of financial aid, the expansion of programs in architecture, and re-landscaping of the campus. The Governor, from whom you will hear later in the ceremony, and I will have to compare notes whether he has gotten more heat over some of his decisions to date as Governor than I over relocation of the beach volleyball court out of the central campus green as it was re-landscaped. Jon, is it safe to say that constituents can, at times, be challenging.

The playwright George Bernard Shaw remarked that while some people are content to accept things as they are, there are those who dream things that never were and ask “Why not?”  In 1881, individuals who dared to ask “Why not?” had recently banished darkness with the electric light and brought people closer together with the telephone. Graduates of Newark Technical School, inspired to continue asking “Why not?,” helped to make technological innovations part of the fabric of daily life in New Jersey and across our nation.

Over the decades, the pioneering alumni of Newark Technical School have been joined by thousands of women and men who have been educated in virtually every scientific and technological discipline, and who have used their knowledge to benefit people around the globe. In 2006, as graduates of New Jersey Institute of Technology, never cease to ask why not, never cease to carry the tradition of this great university soon to become your alma mater.

In the words of the Greek dramatist Sophocles, “Much wisdom often goes with brevity of speech.” So at this point, I will close. “Congratulations to the NJIT Class of 2006!”

Robert A. Altenkirch, President