Steve Pemberton chatted with students prior to addressing the Class of 2020 at First Year Academic Convocation on September 8. (Lee Pellegrini)

“A chance in the world” – that was not said of me in a positive way. It was, “Not a shot. He didn’t have a chance.” But a lot of us say that of another. We say that to ourselves sometimes. You know, a class we want to take, an internship we want to pursue. And we think, “No, not a chance. No.” But what if you inverted that and said, “What if all I really need is a chance?” It’s a very different way of looking at things.

On September 8, Steve Pemberton, ’89, H’15, vice president of diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer for Walgreens Boots Alliance and incoming Boston College trustee, spoke to the Class of 2020 as part of the University's First Year Academic Convocation. During their campus orientation, members of the freshman class were given Pemberton’s memoir, A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home. The book recounts his struggle to overcome his childhood in the Massachusetts foster care system, where he was abused and neglected for years, and find success in business and family life. Prior to his talk, Pemberton spoke with the Sean Hennessey of the Office of News & Public Affairs; the interview has been edited for space and clarity.

What does it mean to you to be the first alumnus to speak to students at First Year Convocation?

What an honor just to address the freshman class. But to be the first alumnus, given the University’s long and storied history, is a very humbling thing. It’s also illustrative of how things come full circle. I arrived on this campus as a freshman still trying to figure out some things that most 18-year-olds had figured out: Where’s home, family, faith, identity? I came here still trying to figure out where I stood in the world. I remember how vivid those experiences were – and questions that were on my mind I suspect are also on the minds of the first-year students.  

You’ve said Boston College was the only place you wanted to attend, after having seen a brochure in the seventh grade. But when you arrived, the transition wasn’t as smooth as you would have hoped. Talk about that experience.


Some of it was my own lack of understanding of what it meant to be a college student. I still remember asking my roommate in freshman year, “What’s a GPA?  What’s a syllabus?” I didn’t know any of the basics. I had gotten admitted on, very likely, a raw intellect and my grades of course. Then the social interactions were a real challenge. There were some things I saw, particularly early on, that just didn’t resonate with me at all. So you combine that with no sense of foundation and no one for me to go talk to about these kinds of challenges. There were some tough discussions.

I remember having debates with my dorm mates about affirmative action, and the insinuation I was there because of affirmative action. That wasn’t true, but initially it was a struggle. At the time I didn’t have the ability to convey that I had arrived here from an experience most of my classmates did not have.

Nor that they would ever want.

It’s interesting, I recently had somebody who felt being around me was being in my shadow. At one point I said, “Whatever light you think is on me, you would not want to have paid the price to have that light on you, if that’s what you think it is.” It’s not an even exchange to say, “Well, you have a degree of success and accomplishment. You can have all those things but we’re going to take away your mother and father and any sense of home, siblings.” Would you make that trade? No, nobody would make that trade. So whatever light you assume you’d have came from experiences that you wouldn’t want. Nobody signs up for that. No parent wants it for their child; no individual wants that for themselves. But you do persevere through it. I think there’s something instructive about that, too.

What lessons did you learn at Boston College that you still use today?

The sense of a greater collective, that despite everything I had lost, I still had a responsibility and ability to change the arc of others’ lives. I was never able to feel sorry for myself.

Never?

Never. I was working one summer with the custodial crew and had a discussion with some of the guys one day. They asked me about family background and I said, “I don’t have any family.” They said, “We understand that, but you are still here and you’ve got it all, despite what you’ve lost. You’ve got an opportunity to correct all of this.” It was like they were talking to a much younger version of themselves as they were talking to me. They told me, “You’re really fortunate, despite it all, to be here.”

Part of you had thought about leaving school – you even jokingly said to the crew, “Hey let me work with you guys next fall as a custodian on campus.”

Oh yeah, and they let me have it. They weren’t playing around either.  They made it clear in no uncertain terms that working with them was not an option. I hadn’t intended on offending them, and not that they took it as an offense, but what they were saying was, “We have greater expectations for you than perhaps even you realize are available to you.”

I think that was probably the first time I realized that, “Hey, wait a minute. There is a life experience that I’ve had here, a way in which I see the world, a way in which I can think, move, and operate that’s a bit different.” I think faster and can get to a solution faster but that was a function of survival. You have to wake up every day wondering, “How am I going to eat today? How am I going to be safe today?”

So you fast-forward all these years later and I really quickly say, “So what’s our challenge? What’s our solution?” It’s the one-third, two-third rule. One third was, “What’s the challenge?” Two thirds were, “How do we solve it?” And when you distribute your energy that way, it makes a big difference.

I think you ought to devote yourself to causes and commitments that have nothing to do with you. It’s just not about your tribe; it’s about a broader collective, too, because there’s something valuable and instructive, something you take away from that.

What message you do hope students come away with from reading A Chance in the World?

I wrote the book for several reasons. Most of them are not evident at first glance. I did not write it as a cathartic exercise to heal from all things that had been lost because there’s a hard truth when you lose that much that early. There is no way to replace that. At that age, it’s a cavernous void in you. Nor was it really an exercise of me saying, “Let me show you how lucky you are.” I wasn’t even thinking that way. I was trying to tell a more universal story about family, that it’s much broader and wider than you imagine. About faith, fortitude, and forgiveness. The ability to build a new beginning, to be the hero of your own story. And most importantly, for future generations of my own family, to realize that there’s a lot that’s been invested in you for my children, and their children, and their children. There was this man once who decided he could right the wrongs that he inherited and that those very experiences actually gave him the power and the ability to do that. That is a very different narrative than “Woe is me.”

What else will you be telling the Class of 2020?

Something that I do want to talk to them about is something that happened after I wrote the book. And it was the stories of other people’s lives who wrote me afterwards, the things they did and continue to do at a certain stage of their life to find a fulfilled life. They pause with moments of reflection to look at what’s around them. They fight, they take stands, not necessarily for a specific cause or principle – that only descends us into tribalism – but for a greater good and a more common story. They make a big leap at some point and they’re not entirely sure of whether or not they’re going to actually land.

Lastly, something I read from Tennyson describing Ulysses. It’s a small phrase but he says, “Shine in use.” Not “shine,” but “shine in use.” Whatever skills, strengths, talents, abilities that have brought this freshman class here are not necessarily for them; they are to be used for others. So in that way, your gifts are like your struggles; they’re not really for you, they’re for somebody else.

One more message: the importance of finding common ground. The reason we don’t do it is because it’s hard. It’s hard to give up some of your part to be part of the whole. But when you come here to Boston College that should be expected of you.       

Your book details the horrors of your childhood: searching for food in garbage, emotional and physical abuse, neglect. How was it that you didn’t become angry or withdrawn? What was the fire that kept burning to succeed and overcome, despite all those obstacles?

It was two things. One was a love of reading. Reading gave me a little bit more than just the technical abilities that come with reading as much as I did. It actually follows that you write, speak, express and articulate yourself with some semblance of success. Reading gave me something higher and more important – the vision and values of a life beyond the one that I was in. So that was really, really important to me.

Also, I loved the fight. I loved the idea that it was me against them. And I – armed just with my vision for a different life and a box of books given to me by a neighbor – and my weapons were going to defeat them and their weapons. There were small things I took great power from. If I stole food from my foster family’s kitchen, that was an enormous victory, not just because I was going to be able to eat that day but because I had beaten them.  

You’re a voice of hope for the disadvantaged and marginalized children. When you meet with them, what do you say to boost their morale?

There’s something in particular that I say that’s really important. My first message to them is, “I am you. Just a little bit older and not nearly as beautiful. Don’t look at me as someone exceptional or extraordinary, or born with some gift or talent that you don’t have. If you walk away thinking that, then you’ve missed the point of the story entirely.” It’s not false humility on my part because I know they have that whispering in their soul that says a new beginning is possible and they ought to sail towards that. And believe that it is actually possible to create a new beginning.

“A chance in the world” – that was not said of me in a positive way. It was, “Not a shot. He didn’t have a chance.” But a lot of us say that of another. We say that to ourselves sometimes. You know, a class we want to take, an internship we want to pursue. And we think, “No, not a chance. No.” But what if you inverted that and said, “What if all I really need is a chance?” It’s a very different way of looking at things.

Now, it doesn’t mean that that chance is going to come to fruition; that’s not the point. The point is to make the leap. You make the leap, even when you’re not sure. That’s the victory. Some of these first-year students may be thinking about a company they want to create, a campaign they want to run – something that at first glance, society tells them, “You’re not ready for that yet.” So leap. And so what if it doesn’t quite land the way that you want it to? That’s a lot more important.

Whatever skills, strengths, talents, abilities that have brought this freshman class here are not necessarily for them; they are to be used for others. So in that way, your gifts are like your struggles; they’re not really for you, they’re for somebody else.

One more message: the importance of finding common ground. The reason we don’t do it is because it’s hard. It’s hard to give up some of your part to be part of the whole. But when you come here to Boston College that should be expected of you.


You founded "A Chance in the World," which focuses on connecting people in need with those who will provide it for them. You also set up the Pemberton Fund for the Future with the Home for Little Wanderers to help kids who are aging out of the foster care system. What are other ways you’ve chosen to let the disadvantaged know that there’s hope and help?

There are also the New Yorkers for Children and the United Friends for Children in California. With those two organizations, we have actually created internship programs at Walgreens because I know what it’s like to age out of the system. At that point in your life, there are only one of two options. Going to college is very difficult. Less than three percent of kids who age out of the system go on to college, and less than one percent of them graduate. Sobering numbers. The other option is employment.

So what if we could introduce them to the world of work early on? So yes, I have my non-profit and philanthropic commitments. I’m also chair of the board of the United States Business Leadership Network, a consortium of companies focused on employing people with disabilities. I don’t have a disability and my children don’t, but I think you ought to devote yourself to causes and commitments that have nothing to do with you. It’s just not about your tribe; it’s about a broader collective, too, because there’s something valuable and instructive, something you take away from that.

Bernie’s Book Bank is a great non-profit that puts books in the hands of children and you’d understand why I would support that, because that’s how important books were to me. And Chance in the World, which [my wife] Tonya and I have founded, is built around the premise of small things, whether you need a trunk for college or an application fee or a box of books. We keep going back to the things that made such an impact on me and who gave them to me, just average, everyday ordinary people.

Despite your success, you’ve said your most important title is being a father, and that by being a father, your three children have given you a childhood.  

Every day is some way, shape, or form I have my interactions with them. I brought my son to basketball practice at 5 a.m. yesterday. We didn’t talk much – he doesn’t talk that much in the morning – but I’m there. I read to my daughter at night, help my youngest son with homework, coach my other son’s football team. It was never hard for me to be a father. I never once wondered, “Would I be any good at this?” because you hear so often of people who are not.

I always thought about being a dad because I know what it’s like not to have one. So all I’m doing on a daily basis is I’m simply being what I never was. I think you can be that because of the void that’s in you. I walk through this world and I still don’t know what it’s like to have a mother and a father. That’s not part of my experience. I can’t describe it, I don’t know what that feels like, and I couldn’t tell you. But my kids do. And that in a way was healing for me.

Steve Pemberton addresses the Class of 2020 at First Year Academic Convocation.
Steve Pemberton addresses the Class of 2020 at First Year Academic Convocation. (Suzi Camarata)

In May of 2015, you received an honorary degree from Boston College. Tell us about that experience.

When I graduated from Boston College in 1989, I remember walking across the stage and there was nobody there. No mother, father, no semblance of family whatsoever. In fact, as I was walking around campus, people kept asking me to take pictures of their family. I remember thinking back to my graduation day over the years and saying, “It’s too bad that things unfolded like that because that never happens again.” Well, I got that wrong, because in May of 2015 there I was, graduating from the University again. This time my family was there, the one that I had created.

You wrote in the book about the bathroom mirror, that “magnificent piece of glass that kept its secrets.” When you look in the mirror now, what do you see?

I still see that same boy, actually. I still see his dreams. Sometimes, in the quiet of my own heart, I think all of us do, I wish we could go back and talk to a younger version of you. And what would we say to a younger version of ourselves? If I could play the role of time traveler, armed with the resources I have today, would I pull me out of that situation knowing that nobody is going to miss me? Actually, I wouldn’t. I’d leave me right where I was.

I envision that conversation, and knowing me at that age I would want to go. And I’d say, “No, I’m going to leave you here because I know what’s going to happen, and what’s going to happen is that something greater than anything you can ever imagine. So I know you have all these dreams but they’re going to be even greater than that.” There was always just me in the mirror but I think now I do see the reflections of my mother and father, and I see literally the physical presence of my wife and children.

When you look at where you are now, what goes through your mind? How do you conceptualize it all?

Well, man had his plan and God had his, and God’s plan won. There’s really no other explanation for that. I was just a boy. I wasn’t any wiser in the ways of the world than any child is, and things continually broke the right way at the right time. That to me is evidence of a higher hand. You can call that hand whatever you want to. I don’t subscribe to this idea that I’m exceptional or that I did something that only a few people can do. I hear from too many people who get from where they are with whatever they have. They do the best they can with whatever they have. I wouldn’t consider that exceptional but perhaps to some it absolutely is.

If you hadn’t lived your life, would you believe it?

No. If somebody came along to me and said, “Hey look, you have to get through this and let me show you how, but also show you what’s to come,” I’d say, “Explain that to me.”

When I graduated in 1989, if someone said to me, “Well, you know, you’re going to be back here more than 20 years later and your family is going to be here and you’ll graduate again,” I’d wonder, “How’s that going to happen?” There’s still that small chord in me that said this was clearly part of God’s plan. I could descend into this kind of “strength of the I” narrative, that I’m exceptional, and I actually find that it’s kind of humorous to me. I think early on, I think as God does with all of us, He uses chapters and stories of our lives as an opportunity to help somebody better their life. There is really no other explanation.

I thought with the way things unfolded, He wanted me to live this life so that my parents would know that their lives actually did mean something after all. And I suspect wherever they are, their spirits are saying, “We didn’t get this right, but we did do something good after all.”

—News & Public Affairs