On the spacious new lawn outside of Encina Hall, members of the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy (MIP) Class of 2019 officially became Stanford graduates. Established at the Freeman Spogli Institute in 1982, the MIP program trains future leaders in cyber policy and security, global health, governance and development, international security and energy and the environment.

The 15 women and four men in this year’s cohort come from 10 different countries. Some will stay in the Bay Area, while others will move on to places including Paraguay, Mexico and Singapore to work in fields such as consulting, technology and government. Students and faculty elected Manuel Ramos Maqueda — a member of the graduating class — to speak at the graduation ceremony. A transcript of his speech is below:

Student speaker Manuel Ramos Maqueda addresses his classmates at the MIP graduation ceremony June 16, 2019. Photo: Freeman Spogli Institute

Manuel Ramos Maqueda: Graduates, parents and families from all over the world, esteemed faculty and administration: good afternoon, annyeonghaseyo, kon'nichiwa, privet, buenas tardes, merhaba, nǐ hǎo.

These would have been the only words my parents would have understood had they come to our graduation. My father always dreamt that his son could learn what he didn’t have the opportunity to learn, which is why he encouraged me to learn English. So, before anything else, I take this moment to thank them — our parents and families — for providing us with the tools and opportunities that would allow us — that would allow me— to spend the two most inspiring years of my life with this incredible group of people.

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First Day in Encina Hall
Do you remember our first day in that building, Encina Hall? As I struggled with my English, I was quite intimidated to meet the deputy director of our program, Professor Kathryn Stoner, as well as the former intermediator between Obama and Putin as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Ambassador McFaul. Professor McFaul said two things then that I still remember. One is that by just spending the next two years learning from each other, even if we did not take a single class, we would leave with a vast new breadth of knowledge. Then, he said that our program was going to become, if it wasn’t already, the best policy program not in the U.S., but in the world!

I was like, “Wow, those are two big statements.” In this program we have learned to believe in evidence-based policy making. Two years have passed, and at this point we have the evidence to analyze whether these statements were true. It is my goal to evaluate them in this speech. First, have I really learned that much from my peers? And second, is this truly becoming the best policy program in the world?

The Classmates 
Let’s start with my classmates.

To me, the beginning of our program was the bootcamp. But not the one in September. Instead, the one in the Fall quarter — more specifically, Chonira’s class. That class was the preparation for two intense and highly rewarding years at Stanford.

For the first assignment, Juan and I stayed up with Kerem almost the entire night working on it. We had been in the library for hours, skipped dinner, no sunlight, ready to give up on this one killer assignment, then Juan looks to Kerem and says, “You know this is actually a weekly assignment, right?” Kerem almost had a heart attack.

You would think that after that amount of work, Kerem would never take another one of Chonira’s classes. Well, not only did he take all of her other classes, but he even ended up asking for a Directed Reading with Chonira this year.

This commitment to challenging ourselves, and loving the process of learning, is a characteristic that I am proud to say I learned from my classmates. And not just from Kerem, but also from Rose, and the hours she would put in on the data science track for something she believed in; Drew, Nikki and Sneha, who pretty much gave their lives to “Design for Extreme Affordability;” and through the many of us who floated for hours in the frigid Russian River in an exercise of survival training. I have learned from all of you that no matter how much effort and how many hours something might involve, if you believe in it, you should fight for it, and you will make it happen (as we made it to the camp site).

After our intense fall quarter of the first year, the winter cold brought our community closer together. First, on our trip to Tahoe, where we learned playing Pictionary that chickens have four legs. Then, on our trip to Korea, where, in one of those magic moments of life, we ran into Elizabeth Warren at the DMZ on the same day that Kim Jong Un visited China for the first time. We had the privilege of listening to the powerful stories of North Korean defectors; learned so much from our government allies, Soo Yeon and Amb Stephens; and even participated in a cultural immersion with dancing contests in a drag bar, with soju, of course.

However, what I truly remember from these trips is how much our community bonded. We created a system of support where, no matter the circumstances, we would all be there for each other. For example, MC made sure that each of us would feel included, becoming a second mother to many of us. In each of these trips, coming to the hotel at the end of the day started to feel like actually coming home. Our time together has shown that no matter where or when we see each other in the future, I know our friendships will remain as if no time ever passed.

Apart from our commitment to challenge ourselves and the system of support we generated, I really love that everyone in our program is fully free to be what they want and who they want to be. An example has been the “fireside chats” organized by Mackenzie. With full openness and no judgments, this was a place where everything one said would be safe. We learned about people’s fears and toughest times – cases of anxiety and depression, family struggles – but also about our cherished dreams and aspirations.

When there have been escalations in conflict between our countries, such as the recent case of India and Pakistan, our classmates from these countries decide to get together to prove how dialogue and respect can deescalate tensions. I have honestly felt that this program is based on real cooperation rather than forceful competition. I believe these are the policymakers we need for a future of peace and cooperation.

To conclude this point, I’ll briefly say to your families, whether they are here or not: as a classmate, I believe you should be proud of your sons and daughters. Not for the title they are receiving today, but for the wonderful people they are. They have been the main source of my learning in the past two years, and I say to all of you, thank you.

Professor McFaul, you were right – when I consider the aforementioned variables in my regression, the results are statistically significant at the 99% confidence level. This program would be worth it alone just for how much I have learned from them.

The Program
Let’s now evaluate the second big statement: is our policy program that incredible? The core of a program are generally its faculty and its values.

In terms of faculty, I believe there is a unique aspect of FSI — it strives to bridge the gap between policy and academia. As professors Francis Fukuyama and Jeremy Weinstein have taught us, we not only know how to design evidence-based policy solutions, but also how to actually make things happen in the real world. I could also mention the other wonderful professors at FSI with whom we had faculty dinners organized by our queen, Nicole, but then this speech would never end.

A second, unique aspect of our program comes from our access to the broader Stanford network, which has bridged the gap between the technical and the policy realms. Our world requires policymakers who know how to make use of data and algorithms for good, to understand the science behind climate change, to consider the health implications of humanitarian crises, or to understand the risks of twin-deficits in the macroeconomic situation of a country. By combining classes in the engineering, business, law and design schools, we have become policymakers who understand the deeper, technical issues of our societies. We are now prepared to use science and technology for the progress of humanity.

A third crucial aspect of our program is the people who keep it running. Ambassador McFaul and Professor Stoner have helped us find the right direction for the program. Thanks very much, Ambassador McFaul, for the excitement every time we would get a story “off the record.” And Professor Stoner, for leading us throughout our practicum projects and our time here. We might have given you some headaches, but probably not as many as we have given Jonathan, Kristin and Meghan. An example of this is how throughout the past week, we have all been bombarding Jonathan asking whether we would graduate. As usual, Jonathan’s response was, calm down, it will be fine. You have all kept the ship floating in the right direction, with a positive attitude and a warm smile, and I would like to thank you for it.

Student Values
Finally, I think what really makes a program absolutely unique is its values. I don’t think any other program had someone like Mackenzie, who interviewed all of the members of her cohort to fully understand their motivations and beliefs. In brief, we indicated that we empathize with humanity, we are open to the new and we remain mission-oriented.

We empathize with humanity because we try to understand and address the needs of those who we may have never met in circumstances we may have never faced.

As I like to put it, we would like to represent the voices of those who cannot be heard. Within each of our nations, but also across borders. We have seen this in our program as many classmates went to the border with Mexico to support people fleeing from conflict, or how others fight to save our planet from the threat of climate change.

We are open to the new because we seek out new experiences and approach new ideas with an open mind.

This program has been a great training for this. How much we’ve learned from each other’s cultures: we celebrated the Chinese New Year, and even learned from Jessica how, in China, parents would post their children’s resumes in squares to find them a future spouse. We have celebrated Ramadan, and we, the internationals, have even experienced how to have an American tailgate, and tried to learn the rules of an American football game – still not there yet. 

We are, and will remain, mission-oriented, because we feel a sense of duty to execute on our unique personal missions. That means taking a long view and not letting the minor challenges take us down. Even though sometimes we might not have a clear sense of our next steps, and we even might feel lost, we will consider the bigger picture and what inspires us, and remain committed to that vision.

Those values are the unifying theme of our cohort and will remain the essentials of our toolbox as we leave Stanford.

Overall, I think it is safe to say that our program bridges the gap between policy and research, between the technical skills and the domain knowledge, between D.C. and Silicon Valley, and perhaps even between China, Russia and the U.S. I may not know other programs that well. However, with our values, faculty and staff, and of course the killer classmates we have, I feel safe to say that this is becoming the best policy program not only in the U.S., but in the world.

The Transformation
In the world of public speaking it is well known that there is no pleasure you can give an audience that compares to the pleasure they get when the speech is over. However, I have one last thought to share, so you can look forward to experiencing that pleasure in about three minutes from now.

I think the only aspect missing from my analysis is that we cannot think of ourselves and the program in a static way. We live in a dynamic world. This program has transformed us, and we will keep transforming the world as we move on.

I came to this program aware of how globalization exposes us to the vast inequalities that separate regions of the world. However, until now I perhaps didn’t fully understand the complexities and intricacies of the big challenges we aim to address. For example, after doing my research I now better understand what causes malaria and how to prevent it. Through my classmates’ research, I have been exposed to the big power competition in the era of AI, to ways of promoting financial inclusion in Tanzania, and expanding zero-emission policies in the U.S. that are vital for our planet. Perhaps more importantly, I have learned the tricks to be part of the citizenship and residency-by-investment program, and will be able to move to an idyllic island when I decide to retire [joking].

This program has really transformed me. I have spent way too many hours in front of RStudio, lost too much sleep, and even gained some weight. After meeting Nicole, I thought that I would also start waking up at 5 a.m. and running 10 miles every morning. But hey, my theory of the change didn’t go that far. But really, this program has given us the tool to make a real change in our futures. We are now fully aware of the crucial challenges of our planet, we have the evidence required to know how to deal with them and we will use the tools we learned to address them.

With these tools, we have the potential to change the world. MC, Julie and Nicole are already doing so from Kenya and DC. Some of us, such as Vivien, Mackenzie, Annie and Nancy loved the Bay too much to let it go, and they will be leveraging the power of tech from California. Nikki and Isabelle are soon moving to Mexico and Paraguay to contribute to the communities there. Drew decided to follow his dreams in Singapore. Many of you will contribute to a peaceful and prosperous world from your foreign ministries. And we might even have among us a future Hollywood producer, and perhaps the next president of Argentina.

Overall, I am extremely grateful to my classmates, the program and the transformation we have experienced throughout these past two years. In my case, this is all thanks to previous generations who fought to provide me with the opportunities they didn’t have. I am confident that, equipped with the tools learned and the values developed, each and all of us will work to provide future generations, all over the world, with a better chance to follow their dreams than the one the current generation has. As we have learned here at Stanford, the challenges we face are increasingly complex, increasingly global, increasingly daunting. But I have seen the potential of each of you — of all of us — and I know that we will not stop until we make it. I truly believe in you — in us — to realize our potential. I am excited to see what comes next.

Thank you very much, and happy graduation!