If we expect our children to thrive at our colleges and universities, and succeed in our economy once they graduate - first we must make quality, affordable early childhood education accessible to all.

While we can't begin to repay the debt we owe our veterans for their brave service, we can certainly take steps to ease the physical, psychological and financial hardships they may be experiencing.

We must do everything we can to help our service members and veterans transition into civilian life once they return home, and that means preparing them for the tough job market.

If we are going to out-innovate, out-compete, out-educate other countries, it's going to be women who make a difference, it's women who are going to lead the way and you know, until women get that rightful place and decision making and leadership and growth, America won't realize all her potential.

My hope is that in the future, women stop referring to themselves as 'the only woman' in their physics lab or 'only one of two' in their computer science jobs.

Why the confidential advisor provision is so important, because most women - the first place they go is online: "What do I do if I'm raped?" There's no knowledge about "How do I proceed?" in a way that's going to protect them.

One of the things that Claire [ McCaskill] and I are trying to do is put systems on campus in place so that a survivor knows who to talk to - that there's somebody who's an expert on their campus that will know all their options from day one and really empower them to make their own decision about what they want to do.