Kofi Annan, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, delivered the commencement address at Penn State in 2005. He opened with self-deprecating humor, acknowledging that the previous year's speaker, Bono, was a hard act to follow, before pivoting to a profound observation about the nature of a meaningful life. Annan told the graduates that their years at university had been spent exploring the realm of ideas — about truth and falsehood, right and wrong. But now the real challenge began: living by those ideas in the messy, compromising real world. He drew a parallel between individual lives and nations, arguing that just as people struggle to live up to their ideals, so do countries — including the United States, which he described not as just a country but as an idea, the idea that all human beings are created equal.