Our fates are united, Joseph Patrick Kennedy III told the Fordham Class of 2024, and peace is possible when we recognize that “our pathway forward is together.”

Speaking at Fordham’s 179th Commencement on May 18, the U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs recalled that region’s painful history—and eventual peace—to illustrate that even amid longstanding war and division, there is reason for hope. 

“While we may come from different backgrounds and perspectives, the lesson Northern Ireland teaches is that our future is shared,” he said from Keating Terrace on the Rose Hill campus, just after receiving an honorary doctorate from the University.

“It is as true in Belfast as in Boston. It is true across our United States. It is true in Israel and Gaza, where terror and heartbreak, violence, and suffering must give way to a shared future. And it is true in every other corner and cranny of our planet.”

A Bostonian who told graduates he loves New York (even if he can’t quite get behind the Yankees), Kennedy is a grandson of the former New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He represented the 4th Congressional District of Massachusetts for four terms before assuming his diplomatic role in 2022.

Northern Ireland’s journey from the strife known as the Troubles, which ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, is proof that change is possible, he told graduates.

“It’s not perfect. Like everything human, it is really messy and really hard. But 26 years later, the region is still at peace,” he said.

As the sun shone through clouds on the crowd of more than 20,000 people, Kennedy shared anecdotes about meeting people in Derry and Belfast who once were enemies but now are working together. 

“There is a difference between being guided by the past and being held hostage by it,” he said. 

“If we are bold and brave enough, we can learn to make space for each other, even when we disagree on really big things—if not for our benefit, then for those whose futures are yet to be written.”

He told graduates that the world they inherit needs them.

“It is a world that needs your vision and your grace. Your empathy and ambition. Your courage to choose to leave the world a little better than you found it,” he said. 

“And please hurry. Your world awaits, and it needs your help.”

A Time to Celebrate

In her second Fordham commencement address, President Tania Tetlow acknowledged that this year’s ceremonies hold special resonance for many students whose high school graduations were disrupted by the COVID pandemic. 

“Today is the day to glory in what you have achieved,” she said, noting that even the Empire State Building will be shining in the graduates’ honor tonight.

In graduating, students joined the ranks of millions of Jesuit-educated people around the world who can bond with each other simply by referencing the phrase cura personalis, or care for the whole person, she said. 

“But this isn’t the kind of secret handshake that gets you insider entitlement. Instead, it’s an enormous responsibility that you carry with you forever,” she said.  

“You came to Fordham with blazing talent, each of you blessed by abundant gifts from God. But—and this may be a rare thing to say at commencement—those gifts do not make you better than anyone else,” she said.

“What makes you special is how you use your gifts to matter to the world.”

The University officially conferred roughly 3,300 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the ceremony. Including those who graduated in August 2023 and February 2024 and those who are expected to graduate in August 2024, the University will confer nearly 5,700 academic degrees in all.

In addition to Kennedy, Fordham conferred honorary doctorates upon two other notable figures: Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and a leading global activist against capital punishment, and the University’s former board chairman Robert D. Daleo.

—Photos by Chris Taggart, Bruce Gilbert, Hector Martinez, and Taylor Ha

Watch the full ceremony here.

As U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs, Kennedy is working to promote peace, prosperity, and stability throughout the region. Before assuming this role in 2022, he was a four-term member of Congress who represented the 4th Congressional District in his home state of Massachusetts.

He is also a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, who once famously urged Fordham graduates to be agents of good in a world “aflame with the desires and hatreds of multitudes” during his own commencement address at the University, in 1967, when he was a U.S. senator from New York.

“I’m excited and grateful that we’ll be hearing from Joe Kennedy as we celebrate our graduates on May 18,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University. “His work in Northern Ireland points to an important truth about our bitterly divided times. The process of achieving peace and stability in this region offers hope for defusing even the most intractable conflicts, and we commend him for his efforts to sustain this progress.”

Tetlow noted how Kennedy’s career echoes the intentions behind the founding of Fordham. Archbishop John Hughes—who was Irish American, like the Kennedy family—established Fordham in 1841 as part of his efforts to create opportunity for struggling immigrants from the Emerald Isle. “The experience of the Irish, in their homeland and in America, has special resonance for us at Fordham,” she said.

A Career of Service

Kennedy graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Law School, spent two years in the Peace Corps, and worked as an Assistant District Attorney in Massachusetts before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012. In Congress, Kennedy “built an impressive legislative record around economic policy, health care, and civil rights,” according to the U.S. State Department website. 

Kennedy also serves as President of the nonprofit Citizens Energy, which meets low-income families’ energy needs, and is the founder of Groundwork Project, an advocacy group that supports community organizing in historically disenfranchised areas. He is a board member of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Harvard Institute of Politics, and the Massachusetts Association of Mental Health.

On May 18, he will become the fifth Kennedy to receive an honorary degree from Fordham. His grandfather received one in 1961, when he was U.S. Attorney General, six years before giving his commencement address. His great-uncle John F. Kennedy received an honorary degree at a Fordham Law Alumni Association luncheon in 1958 as a U.S. senator, two years before being elected president of the United States. His great-uncle Ted Kennedy, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, received an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address in June 1969. And his great-aunt Jean Kennedy Smith, U.S. ambassador to Ireland from 1993 to 1998, received an honorary degree at Fordham’s commencement in 1995, when the speaker was Mary Robinson, president of Ireland at the time.

Two other members of the Kennedy family received honorary doctorates from Fordham and delivered a commencement address at Rose Hill: Special Olympics chairman Timothy Shriver, Ph.D., in 2019, and his father, Sargent Shriver, the first leader of the Peace Corps, in 1963.

In announcing Joe Kennedy’s appointment as U.S. Special Envoy, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken noted the United States’ commitment to supporting “the peace dividends of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement,” referring to the 1998 accords that largely ended the political violence in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.  

“Joe has dedicated his career to public service,” and “he will draw from his extensive experience to support economic growth in Northern Ireland and to deepen U.S. engagement with all communities,” Blinken said.

The 2017 departure of the United Kingdom—which includes Northern Ireland—from the European Union has led to trade and border disputes with the Irish Republic, as well as calls for reunification of Ireland. 

Speaking last year in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at a conference marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Kennedy noted the importance of overcoming divisions and building shared prosperity. 

“If there’s a place on this planet that is resilient, that is capable, that is clear-eyed and scrappy enough to take on this challenge, it is the shores we stand on today,” he said. “You have wrestled through hundreds of years of division, tribe and tradition, country and creed, pain, hurt, and loss, and you are still here. You are building a Northern Ireland where the troubles of the past give way to the triumphs of tomorrow.”