Video: Oxy Graduation Features Speaker from the White House

Hundreds of students graduated from  on a lovely Sunday morning. Remsen Bird Hillside Theater was filled with smiling family and friends.

Graduates and attendees were privy to a special treat: the commencement speaker was none other than Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Harvard professor and special assistant to President Barack Obama. 

Power delivered a powerful address. She praised Occidental College as beautiful, wondering how the President could have ever left Oxy (where he was a student from '81-83) and, also, humorously noting that Occidental College had been the set of one of her favorite television shows, Beverly Hills 90210.

But beyond jokes, Power had a strong message to deliver to the graduates.

She encouraged students to "be prepared to take their places in history," noting that "chance favors only the prepared mind." "All we can do is expose ourselves to every opportunity," she said.

In that vein, then, she encouraged students to be "fully present" in every moment as they moved forward. Power quoted Henry James: "Be a person on whom nothing is lost."

She asked that graduates remember that "failure is a sign of immense success," as failure is "the mark of a willingness to make yourself vulnerable." Power is the acclaimed author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, but she reminded graduates that for six consecutive years, she failed to finish her book. Her repeated failures led to her success. She also noted that the U.S. government followed "tens of thousands of false leads" search for Osama Bin Laden before successfully finding him. She pointed out that President Obama failed to make it into the House of Representatives before going on to become, in fact, the President. 

Power brought the point home by quoting Winston Churchill:"success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."

In addition to being ever-present and embracing failure, Power encouraged graduates to be guided by their "compass, values, and gut." These things, she said, will "gnaw" at their owner, and nudge each individual toward his or her correct path. 

Toward the end of her address, she advised students to "check out the reflection of [themselves] in your parents eyes." That, she said, is an image for them to be proud of, and to strive to live up to as they move forward.

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