SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Education is not just a privilege. It is among one of the fundamental rights that all human beings should have access to.

These were the impassioned words of Dr. Joia Stapleton Mukherjee, who delivered the keynote address yesterday at the University of Rhode Island’s 121st graduate school ceremonies, at the Ryan Center.

The university conferred 755 graduate degrees.

Mukherjee, who has served as medical director of Partners in Health, an international charity affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, received an honorary degree of humane letters. Also during yesterday’s commencement, Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, the Eberly professor emeritus of statistics and director of The Center for Multivariate Analysis at Pennsylvania State University, was given an honorary doctor of science degree.

During Mukherjee’s address, she emphasized this was her “fourth degree from a public institution,” saying that public education, like public health, is a right. She told graduates that their public higher education degree puts them in a unique position to exemplify that ideal.

“Education should and could be a transformative experience, not based on pedigree or family history, but as a merit,” Mukherjee said. “You will be charged with the education of others. I urge you to pursue this privilege as higher education. You could use this degree to change the world. If I leave you with nothing else today, please appreciate the right of education in the public sector.”

Mukherjee compared her public health crusade to the right of a public education and seeing that right as the best defense against poverty and disease.

Sharing her experiences educating young people in Uganda about AIDS, she said, “We asked the children to tell us what the top five risk factors were for HIV. The number-one reason for the risk of HIV was poverty. This was a lesson to me. What they taught me is that poverty restrained their choices.”

President Robert L. Carothers, addressing the graduates before Mukherjee, evoked a similar message of using their higher education degrees to help answer the world’s complex moral and ethical questions.

Claudia Arroyave, 39, a Warwick resident originally from Colombia who received a master’s degree in midwifery yesterday, said that Mukherjee’s message gives her inspiration.

“It will be with me forever. The issue of promoting public health and the right of public education and focusing it not just in the United States, but globally, was just astonishing,” Arroyave said.

Carla White, 25, who received a master’s in education, said Murkerjee’s message reminded her again of the importance of using her education to give back to others.

“I was so excited to know she was coming to speak. I’ve traveled to Third World countries. I’ve seen the poverty, how humbling it is,” White said.

lsparks@projo.com