Bill Clinton keynotes at NYU graduation

Former President Bill Clinton yesterday called on the graduating class of New York University students to usher in "an age of genuine community and sharing."

Serving as the keynote speaker for the school's commencement ceremony at Yankee Stadium, Clinton shied away from current events such as the death of Osama bin Laden and instead addressed broad and bleak economic and environmental trends that he said must be reversed. "You have to decide what you want the world to look like when your children are sitting where you're sitting today," he said. "I want it to be a world of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities."

The "interdependent world," as it is now, is unsafe because violence, disease and financial crises spill across borders, and it's unsustainable because energy is produced and consumed in wasteful ways, said Clinton, 64.

The approximately 8,000 students who received undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees cheered at points in the 19-minute speech.

Clinton encouraged the Class of 2011 to unabashedly follow their dreams. He reminded them that elsewhere, students "just as hard-working as you are . . . simply don't have like chances because they don't have the systems that guarantee good consequences for hard work."

Susan Davis, a Smithtown teacher who graduated with a doctorate in music education, applauded Clinton's "humbling and challenging" passion.

Will Roland, 22, of Locust Valley, who earned a bachelor's degree in musical theater, said many people have told him he'd "lose the optimism that pervades college as I get older.

"The president seems like someone who never lost that optimism," he said.