Insulza Urges Students To Be “An Agent of Change”

Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, encouraged graduating students to be “an agent of change.” View video highlights from the ceremony. View photos from the ceremony.

Insulza was the main speaker at The Graduate School of the College of Charleston Commencement Program on May 6, 2011.

100 students received their degrees during the ceremony.

“Stress to be the best,” Secretary General Insulza told the Class of 2011. He also encouraged the United States to “look toward the south” and work to improve relationships with Latin American countries.

Insulza took office as Secretary General of the OAS on May 26, 2005. He was named Secretary General of OAS based on his accomplishments and record of public service in his home country of Chile. In March 1994, he joined the administration of President Eduardo Frei, serving first as Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs and later as Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1999, he became Minister Secretary General of the Presidency, and was appointed the following year to be President Ricardo Lagos’s Minister of the Interior and Vice President of the Republic. When he left the post in May 2005, he had served as a government minister for more than a decade, the longest continuous tenure for a minister in Chilean history.