MANSFIELD – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) delivered the commencement address Friday at North Central State College’s 2023 spring commencement.
More than 250 students graduated during the ceremony in Brown’s hometown of Mansfield. North Central State College awarded Brown an honorary degree during the commencement ceremony.
Brown was born and raised in Mansfield, where he earned his Eagle Scout award, walked the halls of Mansfield High School, and spent summers working on his family farm.
Brown’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, can be found below.
“Community college graduations are always my favorite commencements.
“I love community colleges and technical schools – there’s probably nowhere else that better embodies the ideal of opportunity, of everyone getting a fair shot.
“Along the way to today’s celebration, some of you cared for parents, grandparents, and children. Some of you worked full-time jobs. Some of you served our country as a member of the Armed Forces.
“That’s why community colleges and technical schools are so important – they serve everyone, and they meet students where they are, no matter what path you take or when you take it.
“And this one holds a special place in my heart. I was born and raised in Mansfield. My experiences here – my parents, my brothers, my time in the pews at Mansfield Lutheran, my summers working on the family farm – they all shaped me and the policies I fight for.
“I grew up walking the halls of Johnny Appleseed Jr. High School with the sons and the daughters of unions workers of electrical workers at Westinghouse, and UAW workers at General Motors, and rubber workers at Mansfield Tire, and steelworkers at Empire Detroit, machinists at Ohio Brass and Tappan Stove, and the sons and daughters of people in the trades: electricians and carpenters, pipefitters and insulators, plumbers and operating engineers.
“Most of you are too young to remember those plants. But you live with their legacy. For some of you, they are your legacy – those were your parents or your grandparents.
“People highly skilled, who built America and built a middle-class life for their kids. They propelled our economy to new heights. These jobs supported towns like ours.
“By the time I got to the alma mater of many in this room, Mansfield High School, those plants were starting to shut down.
“Corporations searched the globe for cheap labor. First, they went to anti-union states in the South – South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi.
“Then when that wasn’t cheap enough, they lobbied for tax breaks and bad trade deals to move manufacturing overseas in the name of, quote, ‘efficiency’ – and we know ‘efficiency’ is always code for ‘lower wages.’
“They didn’t think twice when their bad decisions cost Ohioans their jobs.
“Or when people on the coasts started calling our state the rust belt.
“All of us here today know those corporations made a mistake: Mansfield is not a community to write off or overlook or give up on.
“When I think about Mansfield, I think about resilience. I think about how this community has weathered challenges, and how we’ve overcome.
“That resilience is in each of you here today: graduates, your families and friends, your support systems.
“No matter where your next chapter takes you, I hope you’ll remember where you come from and what that means.
“You are the hope of this community – of Ohio. You’re the reason that generations before you preserved, and refused to give up on our town, our state.
“Look around at the class of 2023: you are the engineers, the computer scientists, the nurses and health care workers, the business professionals, the leaders who will guide our community and our state into the future.
“And I can’t imagine Ohio in better hands.
“The more I learn about this graduating class, the more impressed I am:
“Today, 357 students graduate receiving the degrees they’ve worked so hard to earn.
“Almost 200 are graduating with honors.
“73 are receiving your associate degree today, before even receiving your high school diploma.
“And about 20 of you are graduating from the groundbreaking bachelor’s in mechanical engineering technology program in its fourth year of operation.
“That’s a credit to N.C. State, to President Diab, to your professors and mentors, to your families and friends, and most of all, to today’s graduates – you have so much to be proud of.
“I challenge anyone who has ever called us the Rust Belt – all the pundits who dismissed us as flyover country.
“All the big banks that passed us over for investment.
“All the policymakers who looked at the center of the country and saw a charity case to be pitied, instead of workers to be empowered.
“Come to N.C. State.
“Visit the Integrated Systems Tech lab and the tool and die center.
“Watch the engineering students racing electric vehicles against local high schoolers.
“Hear from the nursing students preparing to join the front lines of our health care system and the social work students working to address community needs.
“Talk to the bioscience graduates getting their associates before their 18th birthdays.
“Mansfield isn’t rusting. Ohio isn’t rusting.
“All of you in this room are burying the term ‘Rust Belt.’
“More and more, others are finally realizing what we’ve known all along – that the future of our economy is here in the heartland, here in Ohio.
“You’re graduating at an exciting time for our state and for our country.
“We’re finally putting in place an industrial policy that recognizes that talent is everywhere – you just have to care enough to look.
“Together with young people like you, we are laying down a new marker:
“The technology of the future – from semiconductors to batteries to electric vehicles – will be developed in Ohio and made in Ohio.
“Everything we do is about giving you the opportunity to put the degrees you earned today to work.
“As we do that, more and more Ohioans are going to be able to build a life and a future here.
“Dr. King wrote that ‘human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.’
“Progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.
“It rolls in because we fight to make it so.
“I challenge the class of 2023 to be that progress.
“Find the issues you care about, get engaged in your communities, to stand up for what you believe.
“It won’t always be easy, but that’s when your Mansfield resilience will serve you best.
“And so will the support system that helped you get here.
“None of you reached this moment on your own. You all know the village that got you here.
“As you leave this hall today, I implore you, thank your village. Thank your parents or your spouses or siblings, of course – the people you’re going to celebrate with tonight.
“But don’t stop there.
“Think about the people who helped set you on the course that enabled you to make it to this day – maybe a high school teacher, or an aunt or uncle, or a coach, or a Girl Scout or Boy Scout leader.
“Thank them too and tell them how much their mentorship mattered. I guarantee you it will make their day – it might even make their month, or their year.
“And maybe one day in 10 or 20 or 30 years, you will get a call from someone who is standing where you are today, calling to say, ‘Thank you – Because of you, I’ve graduated.’
“Congratulations to the class of 2023.
“Thank you.”
