The most important skill we need as citizens is the ability to take a vision and turn it into reality, former President Bill Clinton said at the inaugural address for the Eli J. Segal Leadership program last Monday, commending Eli Segal '64 for his gift in bringing civic endeavors to life. As snow began to fall outside, the Branches Pan Groove steel orchestra warmed up the audience, which enthusiastically awaited the President's arrival. Clinton was received by and left the stage with a standing ovation, and was accepted with warm applause throughout his speech. He exited to upbeat music and a thumbs up to the crowd.

Clinton, the 42nd U.S. president and current head of the Clinton Global Initiative, stressed the need to work together as a "common humanity" in order to overcome growing global social inequalities and to create a sustainable world.

His speech in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center to more than 5,000 students, faculty, staff, program donors and special guests was the first event in the lecture series for a fellowship program within the Heller School for Social Policy and Management initiated by Segal's widow, Phyllis Segal '66. Her goal is to raise $4 million for the program's endowment, and as of late October she had raised $2.5 million.

Clinton and Segal met in 1969. Three years later, Segal hired Clinton to work on South Dakota Sen. George McGovern's presidential campaign. Clinton and Segal remained friends, and 20 years later their roles were reversed when Clinton hired Segal to work on his own presidential campaign, and later to become his special assistant. Clinton described Segal as a blessing to his life.

University President Jehuda Reinharz introduced Clinton, calling him a "pre-eminent global volunteer" and the greatest living example of Brandeis' traditions of activism and social justice. Reinharz said that Clinton was speaking as a tribute to the memory and legacy of Segal, who created the Welfare-to-Work program and AmeriCorps while he served as Clinton's assistant.

Clinton opened in a lighthearted manner, complimenting the pre-event entertainment and expressing his excitement about being on stage with a "president without term limits."

He said that Segal constantly found new and innovative ways to advance public interests as a "genuine social entrepreneur." He stressed that Segal was a "genius at turning goals into concrete reality," a critical skill for contributing to our democracy.

He cited the formation of Welfare-to-Work as just one example of an initially controversial plan that Segal ultimately made successful, finding 20,000 companies to hire over one million workers.

Clinton presented Brandeis with a unique challenge following a question submitted by Rajiv Ramakrishnan '10 about what the University can do to fight global poverty. He said the school can pick a country and help it achieve goals it has set out for itself, create a University-specific NGO, or finance microcredit loans through Kiva.org. He said Brandeis should create its own brand and make other universities want to copy it.

Clinton said active citizen involvement is required in today's world, and we need to transform what we know and what we think should be done into real-life changes. He spoke about new research and discoveries to illustrate this point, with gene markers for breast cancer and diabetes, saying that "It's a really interesting time to be alive."

Despite that optimism about our world, Clinton said there are three "massive challenges" we need to overcome in order to have hope for the future: growing inequalities in income, education and health care; a sustainability crisis resulting from global climate change; and a conflict between our current identities and the identities we need in order to be global citizens. "Young people are empowered to generate their own resources" and contribute to overcoming these challenges, he said.

Persistent and growing inequality is occurring between and within countries mainly because new jobs aren't being created in this decade, Clinton said. He stressed the need for higher education to be available to everyone again, as it is currently more difficult for students with quality academic credentials but lower incomes to gain access to upper-level education than students with higher incomes.

"This country rests on an idea that has attracted people for over 200 years. ... come here, be free, develop God-given potential," he said. "This inequality problem should bother you."

Developing countries do not have the means to support their populations, which are growing more than ever, Clinton said. He said that the population is currently 6.5 billion people and will grow to nine billion in the next four years.

His remarks about putting girls in school and giving them access to the labor market in order to raise the age of marriage and childbearing, thus empowering people to make their own life choices, were met with applause by the audience.

Clinton went on to explain that the sustainability problem that has resulted from global climate change has made resource depletion real and profound. He said it is terrible that countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol, whose objective is to reduce greenhouse gases, failed to meet the pact's targets. He expressed the economical significance of reducing greenhouse emissions. He said that cities generate 75 percent of greenhouse emissions and that making old buildings in cities energy efficient will generate millions of jobs.

Regarding the disparity between our current identities and the ones we need, Clinton said we live in an interdependent world but do not have an interdependent consciousness.

Radical rejection of other people leads to major conflicts such as the ones that occur between Israelis and Palestinians, Clinton said. We can have an impact by helping people develop the space in their minds for common humanity, which is the job of a social entrepreneur, he said.

It is absurd that we kill each other over our differences and deny education and health care to people who are just as good as we are, he said.

Clinton stressed that we first need to solve the identity issue before having a chance at overcoming the challenges of inequality and sustainability.

He concluded his speech by returning to the notion of social entrepreneurship, explaining that this global activism is "the work you'll have to do if you want your grandkids to be here 50 years from now."

Clinton then answered questions submitted by randomly selected students by the Office of Communications. The questions were read by Reinharz on stage.

When asked about his most gratifying experience since ending his presidential term, Clinton identified working on the Clinton HIV/AIDS initiative, which has helped bring the cheapest AIDS medicine to 71 countries and has established AIDS health systems in 25 countries. "There are a lot of people alive today because of that," he said.

Saving the final question for himself, Reinharz jokingly offered Clinton the presidency of the University. Clinton respectfully declined, saying "I like the life I have now" and explaining that what he does is a "unique outgrowth" of his various experiences.

Before Clinton was introduced, a group of young adults participating in the City Year program saluted Segal for his work with AmeriCorps.

"[Clinton] was totally persuasive in communicating very positive values and inspiring us to turn those values into programs," said Director of the Women's studies research center Shulamit Reinharz. She said she was pleased that Clinton highlighted women's education as a means to reducing population growth.

Tina Rong '11 said: "I thought he was really charismatic. He talked about issues students have."

Eli Segal's brother, Alan '68 said, "My brother would have been happy to hear this speech." He said he was happy about Clinton's optimism and was glad to return to Brandeis for the event.

Eli Segal's son-in-law Jeff Lemberg said that were his father-in-law at the event, he would be blushing and asking in regard to Clinton's suggestions, "What are we going to do tomorrow to make this happen?"

Rachel Marder, Claire Moses and Jacob Kamaras contributed reporting.