By Browning Brooks

FSU Communications Group

Madeleine K. Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, spoke to more than 2,500 graduates at Florida State's dual commencement April 28 and 29, urging them to carry on the American tradition of supporting human rights and democracy.

The greatest dividing line that still exists in the world, she told them, is not between east and west, liberal and conservative, or rich and poor. "It is between those who have faith in the future and those who do not."

That faith, she said, referring to the recent Oklahoma City bombing, "is the difference between people who blow up buildings and those who risk their lives to save injured children and dig survivors out of the rubble." And on a broader scale, it is the difference "between those obsessed with what separates one group from another and those focused on what unites us all."

Albright was named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in January 1993 by President Bill Clinton and is a member of the National Security Council and the Cabinet. She was president of the Center for National Policy from 1989 to 1992, and director of the Women in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University from 1982 to 1993.

She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University's department of public law and government, after graduating with honors from Wellesley College with a bachelor's degree in political science. The ambassador speaks and reads Czech, French, Russian and Polish.

As a member of a refugee family from Czechoslovakia, Albright is deeply committed to the United Nations and the role she believes it should play in world affairs. By the time she was 10, her family had been driven from its home twice -- first by Hitler, then by the Communists. It found a new home in the United States.

That story has been repeated by millions of immigrants, she said, and millions of people overseas "who have been liberated or sheltered by American soldiers, empowered by American assistance or inspired by American ideals."

"In a fragmented and fragmenting world," Albright told the graduates, "our nation remains a living demonstration that diversity, not exclusivity, is a source of national strength."

Coming of age in an era of "porous borders, instant communications and relentless change," she said, it would be tempting for the Class of 1995 to hide, or lash out at other ethnic groups or nationalities, or at the federal government. But she warned against isolationism.

"We will do better and feel safer in an environment where our values are widely shared, markets are open, military clashes are constrained and those who run roughshod over the rights of others are brought to heel," she said.

As an example of having faith in the future, Albright praised the efforts of American lawyers to help with legal reform in Eastern and Central Europe under the leadership of FSU President Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte. And she praised what Americans have done in Haiti.

"We have a stake," she said, "in helping those everywhere who share our aspirations for freedom, peace and the quiet miracle of a normal life."