Joe Biden’s voice got loud. The rest of the Carrier Dome was silent. With a booming voice, Biden paid tribute to his late son, Beau Biden.

“He was a good man. He was the finest person I’ve known in my life,” Biden said.

Biden spoke for about 30 minutes at Syracuse University’s College of Law graduation ceremony Friday in the Carrier Dome. It was the fourth time he’s delivered the convocation speech to the school of which he’s an alumnus, and the first time he’s done it in 10 years. He’s returned to campus since, speaking in October at an “It’s On Us” event and delivering the university’s commencement speech in 2009. On Friday, though, the focus was on the graduating law students while honoring his son.

The vice president highlighted the loyalty of the SU law school, both in his life and in Beau Biden’s. He told stories of running for the United States Senate and the support he received from his peers and faculty members. He shared a story of Beau and him joking about the snow that accompanied going to SU.

“This law school educated and stood by me throughout my career,” Biden said.

When his wife and one-year-old daughter were killed in 1972, “this law school, my faculty, my friends, embraced me with open arms,” Biden said with emotion.

For Beau, the law school was there, not only when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, but from the beginning, Biden said.

“You embraced him when he enrolled here. Not as a senator’s son but as Beau Biden,” Joe Biden said to the 201 graduating law students and an excited Carrier Dome crowd.

William Banks, the interim dean of the law school, highlighted the Beau Biden Memorial Scholarship Fund in his brief remarks at the beginning of the ceremony. Banks got to know Joe Biden when Beau was a student in Banks’ national security class in the early 1990s.

The scholarship fund is meaningful, and Beau would be proud that it’s allowing students to attend the “place I love,” Biden said.

This year is the fifth anniversary of Beau Biden, who graduated from SU in 1994, delivering the graduation speech for the law school. His father quoted Beau toward the end of his speech.

“‘Be the guardians of a more complicated truth: that the means are as important — and sometimes even more important — than the ends,’” he said.

Published on May 13, 2016 at 3:20 pm

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306