John Marburger, Science Adviser
to President Bush, Tells UCLA Graduates - “Engineering
is a word that has a broad and noble significance.”
Nearly 6,500 guests and students
from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied
Science gathered at Pauley Pavilion in Westwood Saturday
to hear John H. Marburger III, science adviser to President
George W. Bush, deliver the 2005 commencement address.
Marburger, who also holds the
post of director of the nation’s Office of Science
and Technology Policy, began his speech by asking the crowd,
“Is there anyone who doesn’t think Engineers
are different from other people?”
Despite humorous references
throughout his speech to comic strip engineer Dilbert, slide
rules and pocket protectors, all of which received hoots
of laughter from the crowd, Marburger insisted that engineers
may be viewed as eccentric, but they have far more to give
to society than that image alone.
“What I like about engineers
is that they are oriented toward getting things done that
most people care about…and they have the characteristic
of getting things done in the face of obstacles,”
shared Marburger.
He added,” “Engineering
is a word that has a broad and noble significance…[the
profession] has a valuable lesson to teach others.”
The approximately 640 undergraduate
students and nearly 500 graduate students participating
in Saturday’s ceremony received some final advice
for the future from the nation’s most influential
scientific policy maker: “Count on meeting obstacles
and think of them as an essential part of the challenge...
Remember that nature, broadly construed, includes people.
You cannot ignore the human element... And know that your
own education has prepared you for a life far more rich
and satisfying than the stereotype of the engineering job...
The skills you now have are effective in every human endeavor,
from building bridges and relationships, to building nations.”
Marburger has served local,
state and federal governments in a variety of capacities.
Before his appointment in the Executive Office of the President,
he served as director of Brookhaven National Laboratory,
and as the third president of the State University of New
York at Stony Brook. He came to Long Island from the University
of Southern California, where he served as a professor of
physics and electrical engineering and as physics department
chairman and dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Throughout his career, Marburger
has contributed significantly to the field of nonlinear optics,
spurred by the invention of the laser in 1960. He developed
theory for various laser phenomena and was a co-founder of USC’s
Center for Laser Studies.
Click
here to read the complete text of Marburger's speech.
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06.18.05
