In her commencement address to the 2010 graduates of Fordham University, Dr. McAleese said:
“You exit into a chaotic world. I know that. But I know that it needs leaders. It needs people like you, men and women of integrity, who are determined to do their best to make things better, and at the very least not to make things worse. Ask yourself, as you exit from this famous quadrangle, among whose names do you want to be counted—the givers or the takers? The carers or the careless? The courageous or the cowed? It is, after all, simply a matter of choice. Your choice.”