Betances’ presentation was preceded by the July 1 induction of the Class of 2013, the most representative class in Academy history. During his talk, he focused on the Academy staff’s interaction with the new Midshipmen.

‘‘One of the great challenges that we face in our experience with the most diverse Midshipmen class in history is that to some degree, Midshipmen are going to spend more time in your world than even in classes,” Betances said to the staff members. ‘‘How you feel about them will determine largely how they will feel about themselves. We have a very important responsibility.”

Betances drew on his own experiences to illustrate the importance of mentorship – how someone saw past the color of his skin and the fact that he knew very little English and recognized the potential he had to accomplish great things.

Born into a multiracial family, he lived for some time in Puerto Rico after his parents’ divorce before coming back to the U.S. to live in Harlem. He described his family as ‘‘so poor that someone broke into their house and didn’t take anything.” Because of his lack of English, he couldn’t understand his teachers and did poorly in school, eventually dropping out.

‘‘I began to fail for not knowing what I had not been taught,” he said. ‘‘If you can’t be good at being good, you’ll be good at being bad because all of us have got to be good at something.”

However, Betances discovered that he also didn’t fit in street gangs, rejected because of his small size. He tried to enlist in the Air Force, but again found his lack of English a barrier when he failed the entrance exam-ination.

The summer follow-ing his attempt to enlist, his mother sought help through her church to get him a job at a hospital. His supervisor saw his potential and encouraged him to finish school and to read – particularly to read memoirs of people who led difficult lives and overcame adversity. According to Betances, these books changed his life.

‘‘No matter how intelligent you are, if you don’t come from a reading tradition you’re not going to make it,” said Betances. ‘‘And if your parents cannot give it to you, you have to get it through books.”

Betances went on to become a Harvard grad-uate during a time when racial unrest was at its height across the U.S. He stressed the importance of having men-tors during his college years, because just getting in did not guarantee success.

‘‘The tests were to qualify us to get in, but that did not qualify us to get through,” he said. He explained to the audience that it is the same with the students attending the Naval Academy. ‘‘Without you being committed to this process and making people feel welcome and being of help... they’re not going to get through just because they got in.”

Betances’ mentor, a Harvard professor, told him that every university has a public face and a private face. According to Betances that private face is the faculty and staff that encour-age, mentor and guide the stud-ents, regardless of race or back-ground.

‘‘The Naval Academy is providing an opportunity for people from different back-grounds to not squander their future, but make coalitions of interest instead of coalitions of color,” said Betances, ‘‘so that they can learn to reject rejection – and not themselves – so that we can have a great Navy protecting the greatest nation in the world.”