Editor’s Note: Featuring Kathleen Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, a professor of communications and the former dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

LESLEY: I’ve been going to these college commencements for years and this year the kids struck me as more wholesome than I’ve seen in some time. I didn’t count a single piercing. Can you believe that? Not one. A couple of tattoos. They dress more conservatively. I was told at both schools that there had not been one instance of political activism in the four years of this graduating class. So what do we think about the new generation coming up? And if you had spoken, what would you be telling them in these times?

LIZ: Wow.

LESLEY: Yeah.

Click here for commencement speech highlights of 2008 from Barack Obama to Will Shortz.

LIZ: Because they’re facing all the perils that the graduation classes faced back in the ’30s when the Great Depression fell on us. But they’re facing, also, the end of that feeling of America’s safety and its power. And they’re facing terrorism, which nobody had ever heard of, really, or they hadn’t defined it. And on top of that they’re facing possible nuclear annihilation. Plus if they had jobs in finance, banking – they’ve all disappeared.

LESLEY: Don’t leave out the bad economy.

LIZ: That’s what I mean. And manufacturing is in the doldrums. So I really feel for them, but I agree. I was at Bryn Mawr last month, and I’ve never seen such fabulous kids.

LESLEY: Let me tell you one thing that happened at Loyola. My eyes watered, I teared up. They had four kids in the class — a huge class – in ROTC. They were in the audience, in their military uniforms. Everyone else was robed. A general came out on stage after everyone else had gotten their diplomas and he asked the four kids to stand up. And the rest of the class – I couldn’t believe it – gave them a standing ovation.

CANDICE: Wow.

LESLEY: It was something.

LIZ: Well, they’re very together. You know, they sort of aren’t apprehensive. Maybe they’re just putting on a good front. Or their elders are apprehensive.

LESLEY: Kathleen, you’re on a college campus.

KATHLEEN: I am.

LESLEY: What changes are you seeing, in the last couple of years, as these young kids are coming up?

KATHLEEN: The most exciting thing happening on campuses in the past 12 to 18 months has been the energized electorate that’s emerging. The phenomenon that we’ve seen during the primaries and caucuses — in which the young are going out to participate — potentially means that the speech to a graduate should say, "If your generation will just vote at the same percent as my generation, and I’m a very elderly woman, you could change this political dialogue because candidates would start addressing your concerns and start telling us the truth about the actual trade-offs; start forcing the country to pay for things that it’s spending on now and not transferring to your generation and your children’s generation. And part of the reason we haven’t done that, college graduates, is even though we have the most educated electorate we’ve ever had, your generation has consistently under-voted compared to other, older generations. And this may be the year this starts to turn around. If you’ll just do that and keep this high level of engagement that we’re seeing in the primaries, we could change the issue agenda, and issues that this generation cares about potentially will be addressed more seriously by all the political candidates."

And that’s very exciting. I mean, this is a generation that, traditionally, is ignored by politicians because it doesn’t vote in a high enough proportion to be worth campaigning to. This year it’s worth campaigning to, which means its going to have a stake in governance that is different. And a stake in a different issue agenda might be something that we all benefit from.