college graduation speech 2022

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Break down walls. Vanquish villains. Stand up and speak out. Facts and truth matter.

6 past harvard commencement speakers offer inspiring messages of justice, courage, resilience, empathy.

Harvard graduates this week will hear from two high-profile leaders, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Thursday and Sunday. Ahead of the ceremonies, we look back at Commencement addresses from recent years.

“My philosophy is very simple. When you see something that’s not right, not fair, not just, stand up, say something, and speak out.”

U.S. Rep. John Lewis

2018 The Civil Rights icon delivers a powerful message on the importance of truth, justice, and equality at a time when those values have come under assault.

Thank you so much for those kind words of introduction. I must tell you that I’m delighted, very pleased and really happy to be here. You look good! The weather is good, rain stayed away. I’m happy. It’s good to see each and every one of you. Fellows of Harvard University, members of the Board of Overseers, members of the alumni board, distinguished deans, guests, faculty and all of the students, all of the wonderful graduates, and madam president, thank you. Thank you for your leadership, thank you for getting in good trouble! Necessary trouble. To lead this great University.

I want to take just a moment to honor the tenure of a great leader, who, through her courage and vision, worked to lead this historic university to even higher heights. Madam president, thank you for being a friend, but more importantly, thank you for using your office to move Harvard toward a more all-inclusive institution. Somewhere along the way, you realized that the brilliant mind is not confined to one discipline or one way of thinking.

In fact, true genius sees connections and relationships across barriers, to build a new understanding of the world around us. Creating one Harvard is much like the work I dedicated my life to. Ever since as a young girl you wrote a letter to President Eisenhower as a little girl, you have been responding to the cry for human dignity that rings out in our world. You used your vision and your talent, you used the great resources of this university to respond to that call, and I thank you. Thank you for your contribution to human unity in our world.

Today I say to each and every one of you who graduated from this University, you must lead. You’re never too young to lead, you’re never too old to lead! We need your leadership now more than ever before. We need it! We must save our country! We must save it! We must save our democracy. There are forces in America today and around the world trying to take us to some other place. Our foremothers and forefathers brought us to this place. Maybe our foremothers and our forefathers all came to this great land in different ships but as the late great A. Philip Randolph said “we are all in the same boat now” and we must look out for each other and care for each other. You’re never too young or too old to lead! To speak up! Speak out! And get in good trouble, necessary trouble. You cannot afford to stand on the sidelines.

Another generation of young people and people not so young are inspired to get in the way. Students from Harvard, Dr. Cole, who I have been knowing for many years came to Mississippi, came to the South and gave everything you had. During the 63 young men that I knew, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwermer, and James Chaney gave their very lives while they were helping people to register to vote. The vote is precious. It’s almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent instrument or tool we have in a democratic society and we must use t if we fail to use it, we will lose it.

So during this election year, I urge you, I plead with you to do what you can to save and rescue America. To do what you can to save the planet! Save this spaceship we call earth and leave it a little cleaner, a little greener, and a little more peaceful. For generations yet unborn. We have a mission and a mandate to go out there, play a role and play it so well as Dr. King would say, that no one else can play it any better. Some of you have heard me say from time to time that I grew up in rural Alabama on a farm, picking cotton, gathering peanuts, gathering corn. Sometimes I would be out there working and my mother would say, “boy, you’re falling behind! You need to catch up.” And I would say “this is hard work.” And she said “hard work never killed anybody.” And I said “well it’s about to kill me!” We need to work hard! There is work to be done. These smart graduates will lead us. High school students lead us, and guys, I say to you, if you’re not mindful, the women are going to lead us! It is my belief, it is my feeling as a traveler of America that the women and young. People, high school students, elementary school students and College students will lead us as part of a nonviolent revolution. We will create an America that is better, a little more humane and no one, but no one can deny us of that.

I just want to say one or two words to the graduates. Take a deep breath and take it all in. But tomorrow, I hope you roll up your sleeves, because the world is waiting for talented men and women to lead it to a better place. During the 60s, people literally put their bodies on the line! Many came from this University, came from Cambridge, from Boston, throughout the state and throughout America. Just think a few short years ago that Black people and white people couldn’t be seated together on a Greyhound business or trailway bus, leaving Washington, D.C., to travel through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi. We were on our way to New Orleans to test a decision of the United States Supreme Court. We were beaten, arrested, and more than 400 of us were jailed. My seatmate was a young white gentleman from Connecticut. We arrived in a small town in South Carolina. We were beaten, left bloody. But many years later, and this was May 1961, same year that Barack Obama was born, but many years later, one of the guys that beat us came to my office in Washington. He got information from a local reporter. He was in his 70s, his son came with him in his 40s. He said, “Mr. Lewis, I’m one of the people that beat you. Beat your seatmate. I’ve been a member of the Klan.” He said “will you forgive me? I want to apologize. Will you accept my apology? Will you forgive me?” His son started crying, he started crying and I said, “I forgive you. I accept your apology.” They hugged me, I hugged them back, and I cried with them. It is the power of the way of peace, the power of love, it is the power of the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. We need to create a society where we can be reconciled and lay down the burden of hath for hate is too heavy of a burden to bear.

Fifty years ago the man that I admired, the man that was like a brother, Martin Luther King Jr., was taken from us. When we heard that Dr. King had been assassinated I was in Indianapolis, Indiana, campaigning with Bobby Kennedy. I cried. Stopped crying and I said to myself “we still have bobby.” Two months later Bobby Kennedy was gone. And I cried some more. Today we’ve got to get rid of our are tears and not be down. And not get lost in the sea of despair. We’ve got to be hopeful and keep the faith and turn the ship around. We can do it and we must do it!

Here at Harvard you’ve been well trained. You must lead. You must get out there and as Dr. King would say, be a headlight, not a taillight! It’s your time, it’s your calling. During the 60s I got arrested a few times, 40 times! And since I’ve been in Congress another five times! And I’m probably going to get arrested again! My philosophy is very simple, when you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, stand up! Say something! Speak up and speak out!

When I was growing up as a young boy in rural Alabama, 50 miles from Montgomery, I had an aunt by the name of Seneva and my aunt lived in a shotgun house. Here at Harvard you never seen a shotgun house, you don’t even know what I’m talking about. One way in, one way out. What is a shotgun house? Old house, dirt yard. Sometimes my aunt Seneva would go out on the weekend, Friday or Saturday, and take a brush broom made from dogwood branches and sweep the yard very clean. One Saturday afternoon few of my brothers and sisters, cousins, about 15 of us young children were playing in her dirt yard. And an unbelievable storm came up. The wind started blowing, the thunder started rolling and the lightning started flashing and she told us to come in. We went in. The wind continued to blow, the thunder continued to roll, the lightning continued to flash, and the rain continued to beat on this old tin roof of the shotgun house. And we cried and cried. And in one corner of the old house appeared to be lifting up. And my aunt walked over to that side to hold the house down with her body. When the other corner appeared to be lifting she had us walk to that corner, we were children walking with the wind, but we never, ever left the house! I say to each of you, each and every one of us, the wind may blow, the thunder may roll, the lightning may flash, and the rain may beat down on an old house. Call it a house of Harvard, call it a house of Cambridge, call it a house of Boston, call it the house of Washington, or Alabama or Georgia, we all live in the same house. We all must hold our little house down. So I say to you: Walk with the wind. Let the spirit of history be your guide.

Thank you very much.

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

J.K. Rowling

2008 Drawing from her own life story, the “Harry Potter” author urges graduates not to fear failure but to learn from it and emphasized the power of empathy and imagination.

Read the speech.

“If we break down the walls that hem us in, if we step out into the open and have the courage to embrace new beginnings, everything is possible.”

Angela Merkel

2019 Like the Berlin Wall, “anything that seems set in stone or inalterable can indeed change,” Germany’s first woman chancellor said.

Herman Hesse wrote, “In all beginnings dwells a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live.” These words by Herman Hesse inspired me when I completed my physics degree at the age of 24. That was back in 1978. The world was divided into east and west, and it was in the grips of the Cold War. I grew up in East Germany, in the GDR, the part of my country which was not free at that time, in a dictatorship. People were oppressed and under state surveillance. Political dissidents were persecuted. The East German government was afraid that the people would flee to freedom. And that’s why it built the Berlin Wall, a wall made of concrete and steel. Anyone caught trying to overcome it was arrested or shot dead. This wall, which cut Berlin in half, divided a people and it divided families. My family was also divided.My first job after college was as a physicist at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin. I lived near the Berlin Wall. I walked towards it every day on my way home from my institute. Behind it lay West Berlin, freedom. And every day, when I was very close to the wall, I had to turn away at the last minute in order to head towards my apartment. Every day, I had to turn away from freedom at the last minute. I don’t know how often I thought that I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was so frustrating.

Now, I was not a dissident. I didn’t run up and bang against the wall. Nor, however, did I deny its existence, for I didn’t want to lie to myself. The Berlin Wall limited my opportunities. It quite literally stood in my way. However, there was one thing which this wall couldn’t do during all those years. It couldn’t impose limits on my inner thoughts. My personality, my imagination, my dreams and desires, prohibitions or coercion couldn’t limit any of that. Then came 1989. A common desire for freedom unleashed incredible forces throughout Europe. In Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, as well as in East Germany, hundreds of thousands of people dared to take to the streets. The people demonstrated and brought down the wall. Something which many people, including myself, would not have believed possible became reality. Where there was once only a dark wall, a door suddenly opened. For me, too, the moment had come to walk through that door. I no longer had to turn away from freedom at the last minute. I was able to cross this border and venture out into the great wide open.

During these months, 30 years ago, I experienced firsthand that nothing has to stay the way it is. This experience, dear graduates, is the first thought I want to share with you today for your future. Anything that seems to be set in stone or inalterable can, indeed, change. In matters both large and small, it holds true that every change begins in the mind. My parents’ generation discovered this in a most painful way. My father and mother were born in 1926 and 1928.

When they weren’t as old as most of you here today, the betrayal of all civilized well values that was the Shoah and World War II had just ended. My country, Germany, had brought unimaginable suffering on Europe and the world. The victors and the defeated could easily have remained irreconcilable for many years, but instead, Europe overcame centuries old conflicts. A peaceful order based on common values rather than suppose at national strength emerged. Despite all the discussions and temporary setbacks, I firmly believe that we Europeans have United for the better. And the relationship between Germans and Americans, too, demonstrates how former wartime enemies can become friends.

It was George Marshall who gave a crucial contribution to this for the plan he announced at the commencement ceremonies in 1947 in this very place. The transatlantic partnership based on values, such as democracy and human rights, has given us an era of peace and prosperity of benefit to all sides, which has lasted for more than 70 years now. And today, it will not be long now before the politicians of my generation are no longer the subject of the exercising leadership program, and at most will be dealt with in leadership in history. Harvard class of 2019, your generation will be faced with the challenges of the 21st century in the coming decades. You are among those who will lead us into the future.

Protectionism and trade conflicts, jeopardize free international trade, and thus the very foundations of our prosperity. The digital transformation affects all facets of our lives, wars and terrorism lead to displacement and forced migration, climate change poses a threat to our planet’s natural resources, it and the resulting crises are caused by humans. Therefore, we can and must do everything humanly possible to truly master this challenge to humankind. It’s still possible. However, each and every one of us must play our part. And I say this with a measure of self criticism, get better. I will therefore do everything in my power to ensure that Germany, my country, will achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Changes for the better are possible if we tackle them together. If we were to go it alone, we could not achieve much. The second thought I want to share with you is therefore, more than ever our way of thinking and our actions have to be multilateral rather than unilateral, global rather than national, outward looking rather than isolationists. In short, we have to work together rather than alone.

You, dear graduates, will have quite different opportunities to do this in future than my generation did. After all, your smartphone probably has considerably more processing power than the copy of an IBM mainframe computer manufactured in the Soviet Union, which I was allowed to use for my dissertation in East Germany in 1986.

Today we use artificial intelligence, for example, to search through millions of images for symptoms of diseases.In order, among other things, to better diagnose cancer. In future, empathetic robots could help doctors and nurses to focus on the individual needs of patients. We cannot predict today which applications will be possible. However, the opportunities it brings are truly breathtaking.

Class of 2019, how we use these opportunities will be largely up to you as graduates. You are the ones who will be involved in deciding how our approach to how we work, communicate, get about, indeed, our entire way of life will develop. As federal chancellor, I often have to ask myself, “Am I doing the right thing?” “Am I doing something? Because it isn’t right? Or simply because it is possible.” That is something you two need to keep asking yourselves. And that is the third thought I wish to share with you today.

Are we laying down the rules for technology or is technology dictating how we interact? Do we prioritize people as individuals with their human dignity and all their many facets? Or do we see in them merely consumers, data sources, objects of surveyance. These are difficult questions.

I have learned that we can find good answers even to difficult questions if we always try to view the world through the eyes of others. If we respect other people’s history, traditions, religion, and identity. If we hold fast to our inalienable values and act in accordance with them. And if we don’t always act on our first impulses, even when there is pressure to make a snap decision.

But instead take a moment to stop. Be still. Think. Pause. Granted, that certainly takes courage. Above all it calls for truthfulness in our attitude towards others. And perhaps most importantly, it calls for us to be honest with ourselves.

What better place to begin to do so than here, in this place, where so many young people from all over the world come to learn, research, and discuss the issues of our time under the maxim of truth. That requires us not to describe lies as truth and truth as lies. It requires us not to accept shortcomings as our normality. Yet what, dear graduates, could stop you? What could stop us from doing that?

Once again, the answer is walls.

Walls in people’s minds. Walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They exist between family members, as well as between groups within the society, between people of different skin colors, nations, and religions. I would like us to break down these walls. Walls that keep preventing us from envisioning the world in which, together, we want to live.

Whether we manage to do that is up to us. That’s why my full thought for you, dear graduates, to consider is this. Nothing can be taken for granted. Our individual liberties are not givens. Democracy is not something we can take for granted. Neither is peace and neither is prosperity.

But if we break down… If we break down the walls that hem us in, if we step out into the open and have the courage to embrace new beginnings, everything is possible. Walls can collapse. Dictatorships can disappear. We can halt global warming. We can eradicate starvation. We can eliminate diseases. We can give people, especially girls, access to education. We can fight the causes of displacement and forced migration. We can do all of that. Let’s not start by asking what isn’t possible, or focusing on what has always been that way. Let’s start by asking what is possible and looking for things that have never been done like that before. This is exactly what I said to the Bundestag, the German Parliament, in 2005 in my first policy statement as newly elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and the first woman to hold this office. I want to use precisely these words to share with you my fifth thought. Let us surprise ourselves by showing what is possible. Let us surprise ourselves by showing what we are capable of. In my own life, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall that allowed me almost 30 years ago to step out into the open. At that point, I left my work as a scientist behind me and entered politics. That was an exciting and magical time, just as your lives will be exciting and magical.

I also experienced moments of doubt and worry, for at that time, we all knew what lay behind us, but not what might lie ahead. Perhaps that reflects a little how you, too, are feeling today, amidst all the joy of this occasion.

The six thought I also want to share with you is this. The moment when you step out into the open is also a moment of risk-taking. Letting go of the old is part of a new beginning. There is no beginning without an end, no day without night, no life without death. Our whole life consists of the difference, the space between beginning and ending.

It is what lies in between that we call life and experience. I believe at time and time again, we need to be prepared to keep bringing things to an end in order to feel the magic of new beginnings and to make the most of opportunities. That was what I learned as a student, and it is what I now in politics. Who knows what life will bring after my time as a politician? That, too, is completely open. Only one thing is clear. It will again be something different and something new.

That’s why I want to leave this wish with you. Tear down walls of ignorance and narrow mindedness for nothing has to stay as it is.

It’s six things. Take joint action in the interest of the moderate lateral global world. Keep asking yourselves, “Am I doing something because it is right, or simply because it’s possible?” Don’t forget that freedom is never something that can be taken for granted. Surprise yourself with what is possible. Remember that openness always involves risks. Letting go of the old is part of the new beginning. Above all, nothing can be taken for granted. Everything is possible. Thank you.

“In a two-hour movie, you get a handful of character-defining moments, but in real life, you face them every day. Life is one strong, long string of character-defining moments.”

Steven Spielberg

2016 Don’t shy away from the world’s pain, the filmmaker urged grads. Instead, examine it, challenge it and, while you’re at it, find “a villain to vanquish.”

Thank you, thank you, President Faust, and Paul Choi, thank you so much.

It’s an honor and a thrill to address this group of distinguished alumni and supportive friends and kvelling parents. We’ve all gathered to share in the joy of this day, so please join me in congratulating Harvard’s Class of 2016.

I can remember my own college graduation, which is easy, since it was only 14 years ago. How many of you took 37 years to graduate? Because, like most of you, I began college in my teens, but sophomore year, I was offered my dream job at Universal Studios, so I dropped out. I told my parents if my movie career didn’t go well, I’d re-enroll. It went all right.But eventually, I returned for one big reason. Most people go to college for an education, and some go for their parents, but I went for my kids. I’m the father of seven, and I kept insisting on the importance of going to college, but I hadn’t walked the walk. So, in my fifties, I re-enrolled at Cal State — Long Beach, and I earned my degree.I just have to add: It helped that they gave me course credit in paleontology for the work I did on Jurassic Park. That’s three units for Jurassic Park, thank you. Well I left college because I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and some of you know, too — but some of you don’t. Or maybe you thought you knew but are now questioning that choice. Maybe you’re sitting there trying to figure out how to tell your parents that you want to be a doctor and not a comedy writer.

Well, what you choose to do next is what we call in the movies the “character-defining moment.” Now, these are moments you’re very familiar with, like in the last “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” when Rey realizes the force is with her. Or Indiana Jones choosing mission over fear by jumping over a pile of snakes. Now in a two-hour movie, you get a handful of character-defining moments, but in real life, you face them every day. Life is one strong, long string of character-defining moments. And I was lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly wanted to do. But I didn’t know who I was. How could I? And how could any of us? Because for the first 25 years of our lives, we are trained to listen to voices that are not our own. Parents and professors fill our heads with wisdom and information, and then employers and mentors take their place and explain how this world really works. And usually these voices of authority make sense, but sometimes, doubt starts to creep into our heads and into our hearts. And even when we think, “that’s not quite how I see the world,” it’s kind of easier to just to nod in agreement and go along, and for a while, I let that going along define my character. Because I was repressing my own point of view, because like in that Nilsson song, “Everybody was talkin’ at me, so I couldn’t hear the echoes of my mind.” And at first, the internal voice I needed to listen to was hardly audible, and it was hardly noticeable — kind of like me in high school.

But then I started paying more attention, and my intuition kicked in. And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here’s the distinction: Your conscience shouts, “here’s what you should do,” while your intuition whispers, “here’s what you could do.” Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that. Because once I turned to my intuition, and I tuned into it, certain projects began to pull me into them, and others, I turned away from. And up until the 1980s, my movies were mostly, I guess what you could call “escapist.” And I don’t dismiss any of these movies — not even 1941. Not even that one. And many of these early films reflected the values that I cared deeply about, and I still do. But I was in a celluloid bubble, because I’d cut my education short, my worldview was limited to what I could dream up in my head, not what the world could teach me.

But then I directed “The Color Purple.” And this one film opened my eyes to experiences that I never could have imagined, and yet were all too real. This story was filled with deep pain and deeper truths, like when Shug Avery says, “Everything wants to be loved.” My gut, which was my intuition, told me that more people needed to meet these characters and experience these truths. And while making that film, I realized that a movie could also be a mission. I hope all of you find that sense of mission. Don’t turn away from what’s painful. Examine it. Challenge it. My job is to create a world that lasts two hours. Your job is to create a world that lasts forever. You are the future innovators, motivators, leaders and caretakers. And the way you create a better future is by studying the past.

“Jurassic Park” writer Michael Crichton, who graduated from both this college and this medical school, liked to quote a favorite professor of his who said that if you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree. So history majors: Good choice, you’re in great shape…Not in the job market, but culturally. The rest of us have to make a little effort. Social media that we’re inundated and swarmed with is about the here and now. But I’ve been fighting and fighting inside my own family to get all my kids to look behind them, to look at what already has happened. Because to understand who they are is to understand who we were, and who their grandparents were, and then, what this country was like when they emigrated here. We are a nation of immigrants at least for now.

So to me, this means we all have to tell our own stories. We have so many stories to tell. Talk to your parents and your grandparents, if you can, and ask them about their stories. And I promise you, like I have promised my kids, you will not be bored. And that’s why I so often make movies based on real-life events. I look to history not to be didactic, cause that’s just a bonus, but I look because the past is filled with the greatest stories that have ever been told. Heroes and villains are not literary constructs, but they’re at the heart of all history.

And again, this is why it’s so important to listen to your internal whisper. It’s the same one that compelled Abraham Lincoln and Oskar Schindler to make the correct moral choices. In your defining moments, do not let your morals be swayed by convenience or expediency. Sticking to your character requires a lot of courage. And to be courageous, you’re going to need a lot of support.And if you’re lucky, you have parents like mine. I consider my mom my lucky charm. And when I was 12 years old, my father handed me a movie camera, the tool that allowed me to make sense of this world. And I am so grateful to him for that. And I am grateful that he’s here at Harvard, sitting right down there. My dad is 99 years old, which means he’s only one year younger than Widener Library. But unlike Widener, he’s had zero cosmetic work. And dad, there’s a lady behind you, also 99, and I’ll introduce you after this is over, okay? But look, if your family’s not always available, there’s backup. Near the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life” — you remember that movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”? Clarence the Angel inscribes a book with this: “No man is a failure who has friends.” And I hope you hang on to the friendships you’ve made here at Harvard. And among your friends, I hope you find someone you want to share your life with.

I imagine some of you in this yard may be a tad cynical, but I want to be unapologetically sentimental. I spoke about the importance of intuition and how there’s no greater voice to follow. That is, until you meet the love of your life. And this is what happened when I met and married Kate, and that became the greatest character-defining moment of my life.Love, support, courage, intuition. All of these things are in your hero’s quiver, but still, a hero needs one more thing: A hero needs a villain to vanquish. And you’re all in luck. This world is full of monsters. And there’s racism, homophobia, ethnic hatred, class hatred, there’s political hatred, and there’s religious hatred.As a kid, I was bullied — for being Jewish. This was upsetting, but compared to what my parents and grandparents had faced, it felt tame. Because we truly believed that anti-Semitism was fading. And we were wrong. Over the last two years, nearly 20,000 Jews have left Europe to find higher ground. And earlier this year, I was at the Israeli embassy when President Obama stated the sad truth. He said: “We must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it.”

My own desire to confront that reality compelled me to start, in 1994, the Shoah Foundation. And since then, we’ve spoken to over 53,000 Holocaust survivors and witnesses in 63 countries and taken all their video testimonies. And we’re now gathering testimonies from genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia and Nanking. Because we must never forget that the inconceivable doesn’t happen — it happens frequently. Atrocities are happening right now. And so we wonder not just, “When will this hatred end?” but, “How did it begin?”

Now, I don’t have to tell a crowd of Red Sox fans that we are wired for tribalism. But beyond rooting for the home team, tribalism has a much darker side. Instinctively and maybe even genetically, we divide the world into “us” and “them.” So the burning question must be: How do all of us together find the “we?” How do we do that? There’s still so much work to be done, and sometimes I feel the work hasn’t even begun. And it’s not just anti-Semitism that’s surging — Islamophobia’s on the rise, too. Because there’s no difference between anyone who is discriminated against, whether it’s the Muslims, or the Jews, or minorities on the border states, or the LGBT community — it is all big one hate.

And to me, and, I think, to all of you, the only answer to more hate is more humanity. We gotta repair — we have to replace fear with curiosity. “Us” and “them” — we’ll find the “we” by connecting with each other. And by believing that we’re members of the same tribe. And by feeling empathy for every soul — even Yalies.

My son graduated from Yale, thank you …

But make sure this empathy isn’t just something that you feel. Make it something you act upon. That means vote. Peaceably protest. Speak up for those who can’t and speak up for those who may be shouting but aren’t being hard. Let your conscience shout as loud as it wants if you’re using it in the service of others.

And as an example of action in service of others, you need to look no further than this Hollywood-worthy backdrop of Memorial Church. Its south wall bears the names of Harvard alumni — like President Faust has already mentioned — students and faculty members, who gave their lives in World War II. All told, 697 souls, who once tread the ground where stand now, were lost. And at a service in this church in late 1945, Harvard President James Conant — which President Faust also mentioned — honored the brave and called upon the community to “reflect the radiance of their deeds.”

Seventy years later, this message still holds true. Because their sacrifice is not a debt that can be repaid in a single generation. It must be repaid with every generation. Just as we must never forget the atrocities, we must never forget those who fought for freedom. So as you leave this college and head out into the world, continue please to ‘reflect the radiance of their deeds,’ or as Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan would say, “Earn this.”

And please stay connected. Please never lose eye contact. This may not be a lesson you want to hear from a person who creates media, but we are spending more time looking down at our devices than we are looking in each other’s eyes. So, forgive me, but let’s start right now. Everyone here, please find someone’s eyes to look into. Students, and alumni and you too, President Faust, all of you, turn to someone you don’t know or don’t know very well. They may be standing behind you, or a couple of rows ahead. Just let your eyes meet. That’s it. That emotion you’re feeling is our shared humanity mixed in with a little social discomfort.

But, if you remember nothing else from today, I hope you remember this moment of human connection. And I hope you all had a lot of that over the past four years. Because today you start down the path of becoming the generation on which the next generation stands. And I’ve imagined many possible futures in my films, but you will determine the actual future. And I hope that it’s filled with justice and peace.

And finally, I wish you all a true, Hollywood-style happy ending. I hope you outrun the T. rex, catch the criminal and for your parents’ sake, maybe every now and then, just like E.T.: Go home. Thank you.

“Facts and truth are matters of life and death. Misinformation, disinformation, delusions, and deceit can kill.”

Martin Baron

2020 “Imperfect though [it] may be” an independent press is key to ensuring that facts are presented and truth defended in society,” the Washington Post executive editor said.

Good morning from my home. Like you, I wish we were together on campus.There is so much now we can no longer take for granted. The air we breathe is first among them. So, those of us who are healthy have ample reason to be grateful. I am also grateful to Harvard and to President Bacow for inviting me to be with you. To the Harvard Class of 2020, congratulations. And congratulations to the parents, professors, mentors and friends who helped you along the way. Joining you for graduation is a high honor.

For me, this is an opportunity – an opportunity to speak about subjects that I believe are of real urgency. Especially now during a worldwide health emergency.

I would like to discuss with you the need for a commitment to facts and to truth. Only a few months ago, I would have settled for emphasizing that our democracy depends on facts and truth. And it surely does. But now, as we can plainly see, it is more elemental than that.

Facts and truth are matters of life and death. Misinformation, disinformation, delusions and deceit can kill. Here is what can move us forward: Science and medicine. Study and knowledge. Expertise and reason. In other words, fact and truth. I want to tell you why free expression by all of us and an independent press, imperfect though we may be, is essential to getting at the truth. And why we must hold government to account. And hold other powerful interests to account as well.When I began thinking about these remarks, I expected, of course, to be on Harvard’s campus. And I thought: Not a bad place to talk about a free press. Not a bad place to talk about our often-testy relationship with official power.

It was in Boston, after all, where the first newspaper of the American colonies was founded. Its first edition was published September 25th, 1690. The very next day, the governor and council of Massachusetts shut it down. So, the press of this country has long known what it means to face a government that aims to silence it. Fortunately, there has been progress. With the First Amendment, James Madison championed the right of “freely examining public characters and measures.”

But it took a very long time before we as a nation fully absorbed what Madison was talking about. We took many ominous turns. We had the Alien and Sedition acts under John Adams, the Sedition and Espionage Acts under Woodrow Wilson, the McCarthy era. It was not always clear where we as a nation would end up.

Finally, witnessing the authoritarianism of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, we began to secure a free press in this country. The Supreme Court would forcefully emphasize the press’ role in guaranteeing a democracy. Justice Hugo Black said it well decades later: “The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.” Not only the secrets of government, I would add. Our duty to inform the public does not stop there. Not by a long shot.

That was evident during my years as a journalist in Boston. Amid today’s crisis, it seems like another era. And I guess it is. But I want to tell you about it — because I think it remains instructive about what a strong, independent press must do.

I started as editor of the Boston Globe in the summer of 2001. One day prior to my start date, a Globe columnist wrote about a shocking case. A priest had been accused of abusing as many as 80 kids. A lawsuit alleged that the cardinal in Boston at the time knew about the serial abuse, didn’t do anything about it — and repeatedly reassigned this priest from parish to parish, warning no one, over decades. The Archdiocese called the accusations baseless and reckless. The Globe columnist wrote that the truth might never be known. Internal documents that might reveal it had been sealed by a judge. On my first day of work, we asked the question: How do we get at the truth? Because the public deserved to know.

That question led us to challenge the judge’s secrecy order. And our journalists launched an investigation of their own. In early 2002, we published what we had learned through reporting and by prevailing in court. We published the truth: The cardinal did know about the abuse by this priest. Yet he kept him in ministry, thus enabling further abuse. Dozens of clergy in the diocese had committed similar offenses. The cardinal had covered it all up.

And a bigger truth would emerge: Covering up such abuse had been practice and policy in the Church for decades. Only now the powerful were being held to account.

Late in 2002, after hundreds of stories on this subject, I received a letter from a Father Thomas P. Doyle. Father Doyle had struggled for years – in vain — to get the Church to confront the very issue we were writing about. He expressed deep gratitude for our work. “It is momentous,” he wrote, “and its good effects will reverberate for decades.” Father Doyle did not see journalists as the enemy. He saw us an ally when one was sorely needed. So did abuse survivors. I kept Father Doyle’s letter on my desk — a daily reminder of what journalists must do when we see evidence of wrongdoing.

Harvard’s commencement speaker two years ago, civil rights pioneer John Lewis, once said this: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” We as journalists have the capacity – along with the constitutional right — to say and do something. We also have the obligation. And we must have the will. So must you. Every one of you has a stake in this idea of free expression. You want to be free to express your views. You should be free to hear the views of others, the same or different. You want to be free to watch any movie. To read any book. To listen to any lyrics. You should be free to say what you know is true without threat of government reprisal.And you should acknowledge this if you value these freedoms that come with democracy: Democracy cannot exist without a free and independent press. It never has.

Leaders who crave more power for themselves always move quickly to crush an independent press. Next, they destroy free expression itself. Sadly, much of the world is on that worrisome path. And efforts in this country to demonize, delegitimize and dehumanize the press give license to other governments to do the same – and to do far worse.

By the end of last year, a near-record 250 journalists worldwide were sitting in prison. Thirty of them faced accusations of “false news,” a charge virtually unheard-of only seven years earlier.

Turkey has been trading places with China as No. 1 on the list of countries that jail the most journalists. The Turkish government has shut down more than 100 media outlets and charged many journalists as terrorists. Independent media have been largely extinguished. China, of course, imposes some of the world’s tightest censorship on what its citizens can see and hear.

In Hungary, the prime minister has waged war on independent media. Harvard Nieman fellow Andras Petho, who runs an investigative reporting center there, notes that the prime minister’s business allies are “taking over hundreds of outlets and turning them into propaganda machines.”

Like other heads of state, Hungary’s prime minister has exploited the pandemic to grab more power, suppress inconvenient facts, and escalate pressure on news outlets. A new law threatens up to five-year jail terms against those accused of spreading supposedly false information. Independent news outlets have questioned how the crisis was managed. And the fear now is that such accountability journalism will lead to harassment and arrests, as it has in other countries.

In the Philippines, the courageous Maria Ressa, who founded the country’s largest online-only news site, has been battling government harassment for years on other fronts. She now faces prosecution on bogus charges of violating foreign ownership laws. By the end of last year, she had posted bail eight times. Her real violation? She brought scrutiny to the president. In Myanmar, two Reuters journalists — Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo – were imprisoned for more than 500 days for investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys. Finally, a year ago, they were released. In 2018, an opinion writer for The Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi, walked into Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul to get documents he needed to marry. He was murdered there at the hands of a team sent by highest-level Saudi officials. His offense? He had sharply criticized the Saudi government. In Mexico, murderous vengeance against journalists is common. Last year, at least five were killed, more than in any other country. I think also of the risks that American journalists have taken to inform the public. Among them are colleagues I can never forget.

One is Elizabeth Neuffer. Seventeen years ago this month, I stood before her friends at the Boston Globe to report that she had died covering the war in Iraq. Elizabeth was 46, an experienced foreign correspondent, a mentor to others; vivacious and brave. Her Iraqi driver was traveling at high speed because of the risk of abductions. He lost control. Elizabeth died instantly; her translator, too. Elizabeth had a record of fearlessness in investigating war crimes and human rights abuses. Her goal: Reveal the world as it is — because someone might then make things better.

Another colleague was Anthony Shadid. In 2002, I visited Anthony, then a reporter for the Globe, after he was shot and wounded in Ramallah. Lying in a hospital in Jerusalem, it was clear that he had narrowly escaped being paralyzed. Anthony recovered and went on to report from Iraq, where he won two Pulitzer Prizes for The Washington Post. From Egypt, where he was harassed by police. From Libya, where he and three New York Times colleagues were detained by pro-government militias and physically abused. He died in 2012, at age 43, while reporting in Syria, apparently of an asthma attack. Anthony told the stories of ordinary people. Without him, their voices would have gone unheard.

And now I think constantly of reporters, photographers and videographers who risk their own well-being to be with heroic frontline health workers — frontline workers of every sort – to share their stories. Anthony, Elizabeth and my present-day colleagues sought to be eyewitnesses. To see the facts for themselves. To discover the truth and tell it. As a profession, we maintain there is such a thing as fact, there is such a thing as truth.

At Harvard, where the school’s motto is “Veritas,” presumably you do, too. Truth, we know, is not a matter of who wields power or who speaks loudest. It has nothing to do with who benefits or what is most popular. And ever since the Enlightenment, modern society has rejected the idea that truth derives from any single authority on Earth.

To determine what is factual and true, we rely on certain building blocks. Start with education. Then there is expertise. And experience. And, above all, we rely on evidence. We see that acutely now when people’s health can be jeopardized by false claims, wishful thinking and invented realities. The public’s safety requires the honest truth. Yet education, expertise, experience and evidence are being devalued, dismissed and denied. The goal is clear: to undermine the very idea of objective fact, all in pursuit of political gain. Along with that is a systematic effort to disqualify traditional independent arbiters of fact. The press tops the list of targets. But others populate the list, too: courts, historians, even scientists and medical professionals – subject-matter experts of every type.

And so today the government’s leading scientists find their motives questioned, their qualifications mocked — despite a lifetime of dedication and achievement that has made us all safer. In any democracy, we want vigorous debate about our challenges and the correct policies. But what becomes of democracy if we cannot agree on a common set of facts, if we can’t agree on what even constitutes a fact? Are we headed for extreme tribalism, believing only what our ideological soulmates say? Or do we become so cynical that we think everyone always lies for selfish reasons? Or so nihilistic that we conclude no one can ever really know what is true or false; so, no use trying to find out? Regardless, we risk entering dangerous territory. Hannah Arendt, in 1951, wrote of this in her first major work, “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” There, she observed “the possibility that gigantic lies and monstrous falsehoods can eventually be established as unquestioned facts … that the difference between truth and falsehood may cease to be objective and may become a mere matter of power and cleverness, of pressure and infinite repetition.”

One hundred years ago – in 1920 – a renowned journalist and leading thinker, Walter Lippmann, harbored similar worries. Lippmann, once a writer for the Harvard Crimson, warned of a society where people “cease to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions … what somebody asserts, not what actually is.” Lippmann wrote those words because of concerns about the press itself. He saw our defects and hoped we might fix them, thus improving how information got to the public.

Ours is a profession that still has many flaws. We make mistakes of fact, and we make mistakes of judgment. We are at times overly impressed with what we know when much remains for us to learn. In making mistakes, we are like people in every other profession. And we, too, must be held accountable. What frequently gets lost, though, is the contribution of a free and independent press to our communities and our country — and to the truth.

I think back to the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 when the Miami Herald showed how lax zoning, inspection and building codes had contributed to the massive destruction. Homes and lives are safer today as a result. In 2016, the Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia exposed how opioids had flooded the state’s depressed communities, contributing to the highest death rates in the country. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana’s newspapers were indispensable sources of reliable information for residents. The Washington Post in 2007 revealed the shameful neglect and mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital. Corrective action was immediate. The Associated Press in 2015 documented a slave trade behind our seafood supply. Two thousand slaves were freed as a result. The New York Times and The New Yorker in 2017 exposed sexual predators in elite boardrooms. A movement of accountability for abuses against women took root. The New York Times in 1971 was the first to publish the Pentagon Papers, revealing a pattern of official deceit in a war that killed more than 58,000 Americans and countless others. The Washington Post broke open the Watergate scandal in 1972. That led ultimately to the president’s resignation.Those news organizations searched for the truth and told it, undeterred by pushback or pressure or vilification.Facing the truth can cause extreme discomfort. But history shows that we as a nation become better for that reckoning. It is in the spirit of the preamble to our Constitution: “to form a more perfect union.” Toward that end, it is an act of patriotism.

W.E.B. Du Bois, the great scholar and African American activist — and the first African American to graduate with a PhD from Harvard – cautioned against the falsification of events in relating our nation’s history. In 1935, distressed at how deceitfully America’s Reconstruction period was being taught, Du Bois assailed the propaganda of the era. “Nations reel and stagger on their way,” he wrote. “They make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things. And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this, so far as the truth be ascertainable?”

At this university, you answer that question with your motto — “Veritas.” You seek the truth — with scholarship, teaching and dialogue – knowing that it really matters.My profession shares with you that mission — the always arduous, often tortuous and yet essential pursuit of truth. It is the demand that democracy makes upon us. It is the work we must do. We will keep at it. You should, too. None of us should ever stop.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for honoring me. Good luck to you all. And please, stay well.

“While the legacy of enslavement, racism, discrimination, and exclusion still influences so much of contemporary attitudes, we must never conclude that it is too late to overcome such a legacy. For it is never too late to do justice.”

Ruth J. Simmons

2021 The president of Prairie View A&M University and former president of Brown University and Smith College exhorted graduates to fight inequality and foster diversity and inclusion.

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Good day and congratulations to the Harvard University Class of 2021.

It is a singular honor to be invited to address you on this important milestone occasion. To all completing their studies today, I offer my best wishes as you undertake the next exciting phase of your lives. That you have succeeded so well during such a time as this is commendable and augurs well for the years to come when the world will rely greatly on your knowledge, your discernment, and your empathy for those less fortunate than you.

When first approached about delivering this Commencement address, I was, frankly, taken aback. I did not immediately feel up to the task. Recalling occasions when I sat in Tercentenary Theatre looking across the expanse of graduates to the steps of Widener Library, I could not picture myself confidently delivering remarks from a dais where so many more eminent figures had stood and, indeed, made history. Growing up on a constant Jim Crow diet that offered assertions of my inferiority, I’m always that same little Black girl trying to believe in and demonstrate her worthiness. Further, I thought about the challenge of what I might impart in such a pivotal national moment when social gains seem more like losses, when clarity gives way so easily to confusion, and when much heralded progress recedes like a trompe l’oeil that was never real.

I extend greetings from the faculty, administration and students of our 145 year old institution, Prairie View A&M University. And, though I have not been anointed to do so, I also bring greetings from the collection of Historically Black and Minority Serving institutions that have the weight and privilege of advancing access, equity and opportunity for so many communities across the world. Our university, like many others HBCUs, was founded at the end of Reconstruction when Blacks were thought to be unable to perform the highest level academic study. I speak to you, in fact, from the Prairie View campus whose 1500 acres were once the site of the Alta Vista Plantation. That plantation, before being sold to the State of Texas, was the site where 400 human beings were held in slavery. Thus, our very steps as they daily tread upon vestiges of the suffering of our ancestors, call to us constantly to do our duty as full citizens. Painful as such memories are, they are a powerful force that calls us to action when challenges arise.

During the 145 years following our 1876 founding, it would take many years for most universities in our nation to grant access to Blacks. So, universities like Prairie View, designed with limited resources, served the state and nation by admitting students to whom full access to the fruits of liberty was intentionally blocked. We are therefore proud of our legacy of endurance and even prouder of the fact that we converted an assertion of the inferiority of African Americans into a triumph of human capacity. Like other HBCUs, we made a place to empower rather than disparage, to open minds rather than imprison them, to create pathways to promise rather than to stifle opportunity.

Such is the task of every true university. Those of you graduating today can well attest to that. When you first arrived at Harvard as undergraduate or post-graduate students, you most likely could not have imagined the many ways that your ability would be tested, your insights sharpened and expanded, and your prospects in life improved by studying at the University. I certainly didn’t expect such results when I arrived at Harvard and yet I know now that it is likely primarily because I studied at Harvard that I have had the deeply rich and satisfying career that I’ve enjoyed for so many years.

A product of a segregated upbringing in Houston and undergraduate study at an HBCU, I am ashamed to say that in my youth, I secretly bought into the prevailing racial assumptions of the day: that someone like me would be ill-prepared to benefit from and contribute to study at a university of Harvard’s stature. I expected to be flatfooted if not oafish in the company of well-heeled and urbane students who had the advantage of the best education and a wealth of experiences. While not outwardly immobilized by fear of failing the biggest test of my life, I was inwardly terrified that I would fail to measure up. Uncertainty and malaise governed my early days at the university.

Harvard was, you see, a place steeped in other peoples’ traditions—traditions that I could not easily access. My reaction was very much akin to the French expression denoting window shopping: “lécher les vitrines.” Those of us who are outsiders are often as mere observers looking through windows, salivating and wondering how we might ever be able to attain a sense of inclusion, acceptance and respect. Just as when, as a child, I was banned from white establishments, I identified as the outsider looking enviously at others who not only had full access to Harvard’s history and traditions but who also could so easily see themselves reflected in them. Few things that I could see at Harvard at the time represented me. Perhaps it is the memory of that feeling that moved me to remain in university life to make that experience easier for others who felt excluded.

The need to make universities more aware of how first generation and underserved communities reacted to the stultified tradition in many universities shaped my conviction about the importance of individuals feeling fully embraced and respected as learners, erasing vestiges of disparagement that inevitably accrue in an unequal society. Having been profiled and racially isolated and having carried within me for so many years the weight of that sentence, I understood that to change our country, we had to insist that everyone’s humanity, everyone’s traditions and history, everyone’s identity contributes to our learning about the world we must live in together. I came to believe what Harvard expressed in its admission philosophy: that such human differences, intentionally engaged in the educational context, are as much a resource to our intellectual growth as the magnificent tomes that we build libraries to protect and the state of the art equipment proudly arrayed in our laboratories. The encounter with difference rocks!

I believe that each of us has a solemn duty to learn about and embrace that difference. That undertaking takes not a month or a year but a lifetime of concerted action to ensure that we are equipped to play a role in caring for and improving the world we inhabit together. This responsibility should encourage us to commit to our individual as well as professional role in advancing access, equality and mutual respect.

Thus, I believe that the task of a great university is not merely to test the mettle and stamina of brilliant minds but to guide them toward enlightenment, enabling thereby the most fruitful and holistic use of their students’ intelligence and humanity. That enlightenment suggests the need for improving upon students’ self-knowledge but it also means helping them judge others fairly, using the full measure of their empathy and intelligence to do so. In an environment rich in differences of background, experience and perspectives, learning is turbo charged and intensified by the juxtaposition of these differences. Those open minded enough to benefit fully from the power of this learning opportunity are bound for leadership in this time of confusion and division. The Harvard model intentionally and successfully provides to students a head start in understanding how to mediate difference in an ever more complex reality in which some exploit those differences for corrupt purposes.

Today, irrational hatred of targeted groups is seemingly on the rise, stoked by opportunists seeking advantage for themselves and their profits. What stands between such malefactors and the destruction of our common purpose are people like you who, having experienced learning through difference, courageously stand up for the rights of those who are targeted. Your Harvard education, if you were paying close attention here, should have encouraged you to commit willingly to playing such a role. If you follow through on this commitment, in addition to anything else you accomplish in life, you will be saving lives, stanching the flow of hatred and the dissolution of our national bond. You will be serving the mighty cause of justice. If we are to thrive on this orb that we share, our schools and universities must contribute deliberately to increasing our understanding of the ways to interact meaningfully with others.

Harvard is, in some ways, the most powerful university bully pulpit in the nation. It did not achieve that status merely through its age and wealth; it attained that status principally through the efforts of its faculty and graduates’ scholarly and professional output. Through its gates have come generations of scholars with immense intelligence and passionate purpose to whom fate bequeathed the laurels of success. But it is important that universities model in their own values and actions the high purpose that they hope to see in the actions of their scholars.

In that vein, Harvard has a special responsibility as both a prod and steward of the national conscience. It could sit on the hill and congratulate itself on its prowess but it could also use its immense stature to address the widening gaps in how different groups experience freedom and justice. I spoke earlier about the heroic work of HBCUs and minority serving institutions that keep our country open and advancing the cause of equality and access. Yet, many of them have been starved for much of their history by the legacy of underfunding and isolation from the mainstream of higher education.

I call on universities like Harvard to acknowledge the limitations imposed on these institutions over the past decades. While universities like Harvard had the wind at their back, flourishing from endowments, strong enrollments, constant curricular expansion, massive infrastructure improvements, and significant endowment growth, HBCUs often had gale force winds impeding their development. Our nation is finally coming to terms with the consequences of the underfunding of HBCUs but we are far from where we need to be if we are to be assured continued progress in the fight for equal educational benefits.

I ask the university that did so much for me to add to its luster by embracing the opportunity to stand alongside these historic and other minority serving institutions to build stronger partnerships, advocate for greater funding, and elevate the fight for parity and justice to the level it deserves. Let us not complain in a hundred years that those historically excluded from access and opportunity continue to ask how much longer it will take to gain the respect, inclusion and support that their service to the nation deserves.

Many minority serving institutions accept students from impoverished underserved communities where educational preparation often lacks the pre-requisites needed for certain careers. Children in those communities may experience the same or a worse fate than I and my peers did during the pre-Civil Rights era. Consigned to underfunded schools and alienating curricula, they must wonder as I did what will befall them in life. ublic schools saved me and they have the burden still of saving millions of children across this land. In so very many cases, these institutions are the only hope for many children and their families. Support for public education in this moment is as important as it was in the early days of the country when Horace Mann first called for universal education. For Mann, it was a matter of what our young country would need; it still is today as Mann’s emphasis on civic virtue continues to ring true.

Further, in such a moment, universities and all of you must play a leadership role in reversing the designation of the teaching profession as less intellectually worthy, less glamorous, and less important than the high-flying careers of financiers and technologists. Attention to and investment in K-12 teacher preparation and curricular content remains one of the most important ways for universities and the average citizen to contribute to the civic good.

None of us is exempt from responsibility for the future we give our children. Harvard has its role and so do all of you. I have come to ask you who graduate today what you are prepared to do to acknowledge and address the historic biases and inequities that so many continue to experience. Will your actions point us in a more uplifting direction? For, just as we recount the moral bankruptcy of those who cruelly enslaved others, we also tell the story of those who were equally guilty because they refused to challenge the practice of slavery. In the future, the history of these times will reveal both what we do and what we fail to do to address the unjust treatment of marginalized groups. Among all that you will have learned at Harvard, I hope that the consciousness of your responsibility in the struggle for equality remains with you. While the legacy of enslavement, racism, discrimination and exclusion still influences so much of contemporary attitudes, we must never conclude that it is too late to overcome such a legacy. For it is never too late to do justice.

Today, I call on all of you to declare that you will not give sanction to discriminatory actions that hold some groups back to the advantage of others. I call on you to be a force for inclusion by not choosing enclaves of wealth, privilege and tribalism such that you abandon the lessons you learned from your Harvard experience of diversity. I call on you to do your part to ensure that generations to come will no longer be standing on the outside fighting for fairness, respect and inclusion.

Today, after decades in the academy, my path has taken me back to a place where students are waging the same battles that were so hard fought when I was a teenager: safe passage in the face of bigotry, the right to vote, and equal access to educational and professional opportunities. Sandra Bland, a Prairie View alumna, was stopped for a minor traffic offense at the entrance to our campus. Jailed for this offense, she was found deceased in her cell three days later. Must every generation add more tragic evidence of the racial hatred that has troubled the world? Our work is not done as long as there are young people growing up with the thought that they matter less than others. As long as they have fewer and narrower educational opportunities. As long as they must fear for their safety every moment of every day of their lives. As long as their full participation in society is circumscribed by policies that willfully chip away at or block their rights.

Just as I ask Harvard to use its voice on behalf of minority institutions that have been unfairly treated across time, I ask you to add your voice to the cause of justice wherever you go. Help the children of need wherever they are: in underfunded public schools, in neighborhoods bereft of resources, in search of a way to belong. If they do not hear your voices advocating for them and their worth, what must they conclude about their place in the world?

If you take up the cause of these children, you are taking up the greatest cause—that of justice. Today, you earn your laurels as a scholar. Taking up the cause of justice, you will earn your laurels as a human being.

Congratulations, once again, and God speed.

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• Speeches by President Bacow

Commencement Remarks to the Class of 2022

To everyone who is assembled here today to celebrate the Class of 2022, welcome!

Congratulations, moms and dads, spouses and children, family and friends—cheerleaders and champions all.

And a special congratulations to all of you who are joining us online. I met with four seniors last week—all international students—and we talked about travel restrictions that kept some of their families from attending in person today. So, to all of you watching this around the world, a special welcome. In fact, let’s all wave to them.

The motto of this University is Veritas. So let me begin by telling you something true.

The view from up here is amazing.  I can’t believe it has been three years since we have been able to gather like this.

Being here—being together again at long last—is moving beyond words. But, to our graduates, you did not get here alone.  No one accomplishes anything on their own.  Please rise, face your family and friends and all those who have helped you reach this special moment, and give them your thanks.

Excellent work. Now that you are settled in your seats, I can share another truth with you.

Something very inconvenient happens when you combine a nation’s worth of graduations with a global supply chain shortage.

There are not enough folding chairs to go around.

I am not kidding—half of you almost had to sit on blankets today.

I won’t tell you which half.

Fortunately, the people who make Harvard run—our amazing staff—are creative, resilient, and resourceful. So now you know about the Great Seat Scramble of 2022.

I am telling you this because it is likely the last time you almost didn’t get a seat. Soon you will have a degree in hand from an institution whose name is known no matter where you go in the world, whose name is synonymous with excellence, ambition, and achievement—and maybe some other modifiers on which we needn’t dwell today.

With your degree in hand, you may often find yourself invited to sit and stay awhile, invited to share your thoughts and ideas, invited to participate, to contribute, to lead. You may end up sitting on a board or occupying a seat of power. Who knows? You may even be standing up here someday, welcoming another class of Harvard graduates to their Commencement.

And what are you to make of that—of the fact that people will make room for you , find a seat for you ?

You could take it for granted. You could assume that you deserved it all along.

But what a waste that would be.

Today, I want to challenge you—members of the Harvard Class of 2022—to save a seat for others, to make room for others, to ensure that the opportunities afforded by your education do not enrich your life alone. You will have more chances than most to make a difference in the world, more opportunities to give others a chance at a better life. Take advantage of these opportunities when they arise. Whatever you do with your Harvard education, please be known at least as much for your humility, kindness, and concern for others as for your professional accomplishments. Recognize the role that good fortune and circumstance have played in your life, and please work to extend opportunity to others just as it has been extended to you.

That is how you will sustain the pride and joy you feel today. And that’s the truth.

Congratulations, members of the Class of 2022. You have accomplished great things; you’re going to accomplish even more. Good luck to each and every one of you—and Godspeed.

Now, we will hear from three students selected to deliver this year’s orations.

The 10 Most Inspiring 2022 College Graduation Day Speeches

Some of the happiest moments of spring are at graduation ceremonies . And hearing the commencement speeches that come along with them. Done well, these remarks speak to all of us, and echo well beyond the campuses on which they are delivered. Our correspondent Abbie Martin Greenbaum has compiled a list of the best and most  inspiring 2022 college graduation day speeches and and quotes from famous commencement speakers like Taylor Swift, President Biden and more. Enjoy!

what were some of the best 2022 college commencement day speeches?

After two years of canceled and virtual commencements, most schools are back to celebrating graduation live and in-person. And they’re pulling out all the stops.

Ten of the best and most inspiring 2022 college graduation day speeches and quotes from famous commencement speakers like Taylor Swift.

In an effort to make up for two years of missed ceremonies, many institutions have brought in big and powerful names to send their seniors off, and honestly, we can’t wait to hear what they have to say. These are strange times, and all of us – not only college graduates – could use a little advice. And who better to advise us than some of the smartest, funniest, most talented people in the world?

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A big theme we’ve noticed in this year’s commencement speeches is fear, and how best to carry on in the face of it. Great advice for new adults, but also for every person living in the world right now.

These are ten of the most inspiring commencement speeches of spring 2022 – some that we’ve already listened to, and some that we’re excited to hear in the next couple of weeks. If you yourself feel in need of a little guidance right now, you should check them out.

Inspiring quotes from 10 of the best college graduation day speeches in 2022

1. anthony fauci at university of michigan , princeton university , roger williams university , university of maryland, baltimore.

Who better to address the graduates of 2022 than Dr. Anthony Fauci? Fauci spoke at University of Maryland, Baltimore, on May 19 th ; at Roger Williams University on May 20 th ; and at Princeton University on May 23 rd .

Inspiring 2022 college graduation day speeches. Dr. Anthony Fauci. Courtesy Photo.

At the comeback commencement for University of Michigan graduates who finished their degrees in 2020 and 2021, he balanced words of congratulations and inspiration with words of caution. He reminded the graduates not to “shy away from dreaming impossible dreams” and “seizing upon unanticipated opportunities,” but also stressed the importance that they fight against the pervasive “normalization of untruths” – a mission that is clearly going to be of key importance to this generation.

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The 10 best advice books and novels for every graduate, 2. prime minister jacinda ardern and attorney general merrick garland at harvard university.

Like many other universities, Harvard hosted two ceremonies this year – one for this year’s graduating seniors, and one for the graduates of 2020 and 2021.

Inspiring 2022 college graduation day speeches and quotes from famous commencement speakers like Taylor Swift. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke at Harvard. Courtesy Photo.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the class of 2022 on May 26 th , while United States Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed the previous two classes on May 29 th .

Both of their speeches shared a call to action and a powerful warning message about the risk of the death of democracy . Ardern focused on crumbling trust in our country’s institutions, and pointed to the role that social media has played in the world’s current precipitous state. She declared that “ the time has come for social media companies and other online providers to recognize their power and to act on it. ”

Garland reminded the audience that “ a democracy cannot survive if its citizens forsake the rule of law in favor of violence or threat.” He then added the more hopeful note that “ we are all in this together. We must protect each other.”

Both Ardern and Garland called on the Harvard graduating classes to choose kindness, empathy, and public service – to be the generation that makes the difference.

3. Taylor Swift and Judith Heumann at New York University

On May 18 th , New York University brought all three of their most recent graduating (or already graduated) classes to celebrate at Yankee Stadium. Disability rights activity Judith Heumann addressed the classes of 2020 and 2021. And pop icon Taylor Swift spoke to the graduates of 2022.

Taylor Swift gave an inspiring 2022 college graduation day speech to the graduates at NYU. Courtesy Photo.

Swift, who started her music career at the age of 15 and did not attend college, was given an honorary doctorate in fine arts by NYU. In a speech that went viral, she encouraged the 2022 graduation class to embrace “cringe.”

The line seems destined for the side of a coffee mug, but it was a message that many needed to hear. Swift encouraged the graduates to embrace their mistakes , and “learn to live alongside cringe.” It’s wisdom that may sound, well, cringey. But it’s excellent advice for young graduates.

She went on to say “My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life. And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.”

Meanwhile, Heumann spoke about her work as an activist , reminding NYU’s graduates that they are ready to face whatever challenges life may throw their way.

4. Constance Wu at Cornell University

On May 25 th , actress Constance Wu addressed the graduating seniors at Cornell University. With her work in Crazy Rich Asians and Hustlers , Wu has been of our favorite performers to watch over these last few years.

Inspiring 2022 college graduation day speeches. Constance Wu spoke at Cornell. Courtesy Photo.

This convocation was structured differently than ones in Cornell history – it was open to only graduating seniors, and livestreamed for everyone else.

Wu’s remarks to the graduates focused on courage. She urged the Cornell class to have the bravery to say “I don’t know.” And to stay open to learning new things for the rest of their lives.

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5. leila fadel at northeastern university.

On Friday May 13 th , Northeastern University’s graduation commenced at Boston’s Fenway Park. Award-winning journalist Leila Fadel addressed the crowd, speaking of her own experiences at Northeastern, and advising the graduates on – what else – fear.

She encouraged them to “search for their purpose,” within the feeling, and to “pursu[e] the hope of what could be.” She also reminded them that they “get to be the author[s]” of their lives’ blank pages, however daunting such a task may seem.

6. President Biden at University of Delaware and S. Naval Academy

President Biden delivered two commencement addresses this year: one at the U.S. Naval Academy on May 27 th , and one at his alma mater, the University of Delaware, on May 28 th .

Though the President has spoken at four previous University of Delaware graduation ceremonies, this was be his first time addressing the school as a sitting president.

With everyone’s minds on the hate-motivated mass shootings in Buffalo, Laguna Woods, and Uvalde, the President spoke to the the immense challenge that this generation will face, pleading with them to “take back” democracy . He, too, called the graduates to action, saying that, “This is no time to be on the sidelines. We need all of you to get engaged in public life and the life of this nation.”

7. Vice President Harris at Tennessee State University

On May 7 th , Vice President Harris delivered the commencement address to the class of 2022 at Tennessee State University. She acknowledged the difficulties these graduates have faced along the road to their big day.

But she also reminded them of the many “opportunities for [their] leadership,” and the fact that the world they are entering stands to be “shaped by [them].”  This is certainly a strange time to become an adult, and Vice President Harris managed to capture the contradictions of the moment with her heartfelt words.

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8. secretary of the interior deb haaland at bard college.

On May 28 th , Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland delivered the 162 nd commencement address at Bard College.

The first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary , Haaland has been a groundbreaking figure throughout her career, and we were excited to hear her tell the graduating class her story.

The Secretary also offered some critical pieces of advice, including the essential reminder that “no one finds success alone.” As a closing line, she told the graduates to “be fierce” – wonderful words for them to hold in their heads as they make their way into the future.

9. Stacey Abrams at Spelman University

On May 15 th , activist and Georgia gubernatorial candidate  Stacey Abrams delivered the keynote address at her alma mater, Spelman University. She too spoke on the looming subject of fear, urging the graduates to try and embrace the feeling .

According to CNBC , she offered an alternative perspective, reminding the class of 2022 that sometimes fear can be healthy , and even a useful warning . Memorably, she said that she likes to “take [her fear] out to lunch.” This is excellent advice for all of us to remember the next time we are confronted with our own feelings of anxiety.

10. Hilary Clinton at Columbia University

Hilary Clinton was not scheduled to deliver an address at Columbia University’s commencement. But when the former U.S. Secretary of State received her honorary degree, the crowd called for her to speak.

Best inspiring graduation speeches 2022. Courtesy Photo.

In her brief, impromptu speech, she congratulated the graduates. And urged them to remember that everyone is entitled to the kind of education they were fortunate to have received.

Also: “there is work to be done to ensure justice, equality and freedom. ” These words encapsulate the scale of the challenge that this generation will face. As the many commencement speakers’ encouragements suggest, these graduates are more than capable of rising to the occasion. We can’t wait to watch them succeed.

Inspiring quotes from the best graduation speeches in 2022

Those are quotes from 10 of the best and most inspiring 2022 college graduation day speeches from famous commencement speakers like Taylor Swift, President Biden and more. Which one was your favorite, dear reader?

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Abbie Martin Greenbaum

Abbie Martin Greenbaum is a writer, reader, and pop culture connoisseur, who loves storytelling, coffee, and dessert. Her work has also appeared in Playbill.

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Inspiring words commencement speakers shared with 2022 graduates

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/inspiring-words-commencement-speakers-shared-with-2022-graduates

It is graduation season and that means politicians, actors, athletes and even some of us at NewsHour have been giving commencement speeches, hoping to impart some encouragement and advice to college grads as they head into their next chapter.

Read the Full Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Judy Woodruff:

It is graduation season, and that means politicians, actors, athletes, and even some of us from here from the "NewsHour" have been giving commencement speeches, hoping to impart some encouragement and advice to college grads as they head into their next chapter.

Dr. Ken Jeong, Comedian/Actor:

Your class is the toughest class to have ever graduated college in recent history. You started out your sophomore year when the pandemic again. You survived COVID, hurricanes, lockdown, online classes.

You have gone through vaccines, Omicron, BA.2. You have been through so much and have come out stronger for the experience. And now you are here. You are graduating and more than ready to face the real world, because you already have.

Tyler Perry, Actor/Producer:

I heard a saying once that, if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. I'm sure you have heard that.

But I want to challenge that, because, if you do what you love, you will work harder than you ever have worked and harder than you can ever imagine. Your dreams will call for that kind of commitment.

Taylor Swift, Singer/Songwriter:

Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends in high school. The people who want it the most are the people I now hire to work for my company.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: If you stay in your comfort zone, sticking to what you know, then you are making a bet. You are betting that your life and the world will stay the same. But let me tell you, you are going to lose that bet every single time.

Abby Wambach, Former U.S. Soccer Player:

As you head out into the big world, forget about the big world.

But don't you dare abandon the small worlds, the ones you can see and hear and touch. The only worlds you are obligated to change are the small ones, the office you are in, the relationship you are in, the Uber you're in, the dinner table you're at and the community in which you live.

Elizabeth Bonker, 2022 Valedictorian (through computer voice): God gave you a voice. Use it. And know the irony of a nonspeaking autistic encouraging you to use your voice is not lost on me, because, if you can see the worth in me, then you can see the worth in everyone you meet.

Billie Jean King, Former U.S. Tennis Champion:

Don't let others define me define you, because, believe me, they will try. But don't you dare let them define you. You define yourself.

Amna Nawaz:

Go where you are wanted, where you and your voice and your talents are needed.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

Surround yourself with the people who see you, who really see you, and don't waste your time with the people who can't. Welcome into your world the ones who will tell you the hard truths, not because they want to bring you down, but because they want to help you get where you are going.

Tim Cook, CEO, Apple:

I hope you will be kind and compassionate. I hope you will see there is wonder in being part of something bigger than yourself and magic to be found in the service of others.

I hope you will be good stewards of the planet we inhabit and participants in the fight to make it better, more equal, more accessible, more just.

Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand: Through genuine debate and dialogue, through rebuilding trust and information and one another, through empathy, let us reclaim the space in between. After all, there are some things in this life that make the world feel small and connected. Let kindness be one of them.

Continue to spend time with people who are different from you. Seek out people who are not in your circle. They will bring different experiences. Maybe they need a friend.

I am confident that each one of you has the ability and the determination to make a difference in the world. We are counting on you. Congratulations.

And on our Web site, we — some of us were surprised by that, but we are glad to share it with you.

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This writer analyzed 100 graduation speeches — here are the 4 tips they all share

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Steve Jobs has been credited over the years with popularizing any number of other people’s inventions, from the personal computer to the tablet to the mobile phone. But none of these gifts may be as enduring as one of his rarely credited contributions to contemporary life — popularizing the viral commencement address.

On June 12, 2005, Jobs stood before the graduating class of Stanford University and reminded them that he had never graduated from college. “Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.” He then told three stories about his life. “That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.”

That speech , coinciding as it did with the rise of internet virality (the first TED Talk would be posted on TED.com exactly 12 months later; the iPhone was introduced exactly 12 months after that), launched a global obsession with pithy, inspirational talks. Jobs’s speech has since been viewed more than 40 million times on YouTube.

Graduation speeches, long viewed as the burdensome interruption before diplomas were granted and mortar boards were tossed, have since become big business. Kurt Vonnegut, Ann Patchett, Carl Hiaasen, J.K. Rowling, Mary Karr, David Foster Wallace and many others have all had their commencement speeches published as books.

I’ve been fortunate to give a handful of commencement addresses over the years, and I confess to a fascination with the genre. The internet has been a boon this hobby. There are thousands of commencement speeches on the web. Can we learn anything from their messages?

I’ve spent the last few years gathering and coding hundreds of life stories, looking for patterns and takeaways that could help all of us live with more meaning, purpose and joy. I decided to put some of my coding tools to work, analyzing 100 of the most popular recent commencement speeches.

Here are the four tips they all contain:

1. Dream big

“I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. I know that sounds completely nuts. But, since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition. There are so few people this crazy that I feel like I know them all by first name. They all travel as if they are pack dogs and stick to each other like glue. The best people want to work the big challenges.” — Larry Page at University of Michigan , 2009

“We don’t beat the reaper by living longer. We beat the reaper by living well and living fully. For the reaper is always going to come for all of us. The question is: What do we do between the time we are born, and the time he shows up? Because when he shows up, it’s too late to do all the things that you’re always gonna, kinda get around to.” — Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University , 2009

“Graduates, we need you. We need you to run companies and make decisions about who has access to capital. We need you to serve at the highest levels of government and determine our country’s standing in the world. We need you to work in our hospitals and in our courtrooms and in our schools. We need you to shape the future of technology. We need you because your perspective — the sum total of your intellect and your lived experience — will make our country stronger.” — Kamala Harris at Tennessee State University , 2022

2. Work hard

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” — Steve Jobs at Stanford University , 2005

“I just directed my first film. I was completely unprepared, but my own ignorance to my own limitations looked like confidence and got me into the director’s chair. Once there, I had to figure it all out, and my belief that I could handle these things, contrary to all evidence of my ability to do so was half the battle. The other half was very hard work. The experience was the deepest and most meaningful one of my career.” — Natalie Portman at Harvard University , 2015

“When you’re doing the work you’re meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you’re getting paid … But make it your life’s work to remake the world because there is nothing more beautiful or more worthwhile than working to leave something better for humanity.” — Oprah Winfrey at Stanford University , 2008

3. Make mistakes

”Fail big. That’s right. Fail big … It’s a new world out there, and it’s a mean world out there, and you only live once. So do what you feel passionate about. Take chances, professionally. Don’t be afraid to fail. There’s an old IQ test with nine dots, and you had to draw five lines with a pencil within these nine dots without lifting the pencil, and the only way to do it was to go outside the box. So don’t be afraid to go outside the box.” — Denzel Washington at University of Pennsylvania , 2011

“The world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up.” — Aaron Sorkin at Syracuse University , 2013

“My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best thing in my life. Being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience of getting back up dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it. That’s a gift. The times I was told no or wasn’t included wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut, looking back it really feels like those moments we’re as important if not more crucial than the moments I was told yes.” — Taylor Swift at NYU , 2022

“Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.” — Conan O’Brien at Dartmouth College , 2011

“Empathy and kindness are the true signs of emotional intelligence.” — Will Ferrell at the University of Southern California , 2017

“So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it: What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded … sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly. Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth? Those who were kindest to you, I bet. It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.” — George Saunders at Syracuse University , 2013

So what can we learn from these themes?

Every era in American life has its own standards of what it means to be a success. Shortly after America’s founding, success was all about character. Led by Benjamin Franklin, Americans embraced virtue, industry, and frugality. In the twentieth century, success was all about personality. Led by Dale Carnegie, Americans embraced salesmanship, reinvention and charisma. Today, led by Steve Jobs, Americans are embracing meaning, authenticity and bliss. Or, as Kermit the Frog put it in a 1996 commencement speech at Southampton College , “May success and a smile always be yours … even when you’re knee-deep in the sticky muck of life.”

Dream, work, fail and smile are as good a foursome of American identity today as I know. And if those ideas don’t inspire you, you can always embrace the far more practical advice erroneously attributed to Kurt Vonnegut in a commencement speech that he never gave at MIT, but was instead delivered by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich in an imaginary speech to graduates she published in an old-fashioned newspaper, “Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97: Wear sunscreen.”

This post was adapted from one published on his newsletter The Nonlinear Life; go here to subscribe.

Watch his TEDxIEMadrid Talk now:

About the author

Bruce Feiler is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, both of which became the subject of TED Talks. His latest book, Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age, from which this post and TEDx Talk are adapted, describes his journey across America, collecting hundreds of life stories, exploring how we can navigate life’s growing number of transitions with more meaning, purpose and joy. To learn more, visit brucefeiler.com, follow him on Twitter (@brucefeiler), or sign up for his newsletter The Nonlinear Life. 

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2022 UCLA College Commencement

Graduates, families, friends and guests, Regents of the University of California and our distinguished speaker: Welcome to UCLA, the nation’s #1 public university!

As UCLA’s chancellor, it is my great honor to join you for this celebration. And I have been looking forward to it for a very long time…for today we pay tribute to the incredible, the inimitable, the unshakeable UCLA Class of 2022.

Graduates, this is your day. It is a day to reflect on your monumental achievement, especially in light of all that you have faced and all that you have overcome. It is also a day to look ahead to the many ways in which you will surely shape the future.

But while you are the stars of this show, there are so many others who have helped you get to where you are today. So let’s give another round of applause for the parents and guardians, grandparents and great-grandparents, brothers and sisters, children, mentors, friends, and everyone else who has stood by you with unflagging love and support.

After two years of virtual and hybrid commencement events, it is a joy to be back in Pauley Pavilion for today’s ceremony. A tradition like this one bonds you to generations of UCLA students who have come before. Today’s ceremony is a ritual, not unlike the rituals of talking with friends late into the night on the Hill, doing the 8 clap alongside cheering fans at Bruins games, or stopping by the sculpture garden on a warm spring evening. Commencement is a point of connection you share with UCLA graduates of years past, and one you will share with future generations as well.

Though you have much in common with Bruins of other eras, however, every graduating class’s experience is unique. It is colored by what took place on campus and in the broader world while you were a student here. And what you experienced in your college years was truly distinctive.

During your time at UCLA, you saw a world in the grip of crisis as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, bringing with it pain and fear and upheaval. Many of you felt the whiplash of moving back in with parents, turning kitchen tables into classrooms, taking up new roles as caregivers, grappling with feelings of isolation, and adapting to other transformations in your lives.

These past years were singular in other ways as well. You experienced, and likely voted in, one of the most polarizing presidential elections this nation has ever seen. You saw a shocking and brazen siege on the U.S. Capitol Building during the first week of 2021. You felt the effects of climate disasters — like wildfires and excessive heat here in California, severe flooding in Europe and south Asia, and brushfires in Australia. You experienced the troubling invasion of Ukraine this spring. And, far too many times, you witnessed the deep pain of racial injustices and horrific mass shootings throughout the country.

These experiences have challenged you…and they have shaped you. They have helped you to develop a tremendous ability to adapt to tectonic shifts in your life. They gave you a greater respect for science and truth, and a stronger recognition of the dangers of misinformation. They reinforced a need to fight for this planet’s future. And even as they stirred up anguish, they etched on you compassion and empathy, as well as a commitment to seeking justice and contributing to the greater good.

Members of the Class of 2022, today’s world may look like a harrowing one. But crises are also moments of immense possibility, when the traditional order can be shifted and new thinking applied to old problems. Shaped by your experiences and your sense of what is right and good — and with your UCLA degree in tow — you are incredibly well positioned to enact this change. You will be the ones to sculpt a more beautiful and more just future for the planet.

As you prepare to leave UCLA, I hope you will take with you the ties that bind you to this institution and its community. You are the newest members of the UCLA Alumni Association, and through that network you will find like-minded peers, free classes to continue your education and all kinds of resources to help you throughout your lives.

I also encourage you to reflect on the powerful forces that have shaped you these past few years. Consider what they mean for who you have become — and for where you will go from here.

Graduates, let me once again offer you my deepest gratitude and my best wishes. I hope the education you have received here will serve you well — and that you will use it not just to benefit yourselves, but to benefit all of society.

Congratulations to the UCLA Class of 2022 — I wish you much success and the very best of luck. And with, that I offer one last GO BRUINS!

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Taylor Swift’s NYU Commencement Speech: Read the Full Transcript

The pop star was honored with an honorary doctorate at NYU's Spring 2022 graduation ceremony.

By Hannah Dailey

Hannah Dailey

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If you heard some sort of deafening explosion-type sound emanating from somewhere on the East coast around 12:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday (May 18), don’t freak out — it was merely a stadium full of college graduates cheering with what must have been a record-breaking volume in response to Taylor Swift taking the microphone at NYU’s 2022 commencement ceremony to simply say, “Hi, I’m Taylor.”

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The 32-year-old singer-songwriter was the official guest of honor at the university’s spring graduation, taking place this year at New York City’s Yankee Stadium where tens of thousands of newly diplomaed people welcomed Swift with high-decibel cheers. Just a couple beats after accepting an honorary fine arts doctorate, she stepped up to the podium to charge the school’s graduates with a 20-minute speech in which she urged them to not be afraid to be enthusiastic and try hard when it comes to the things they love, before reminding them to accept that they will inevitably make mistakes as they go forward with their post-college lives.  

Taylor Swift Rocks Her First Cap and Gown in NYU Commencement Address Prep Video

And in true Taylor fashion, she also spared a couple moments to poke fun at herself and reference a couple of her most fitting songs.

“Let me just say: Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you,” she said with a smirk at the beginning of her address, and at the end: “So let’s just keep dancing like we’re … the class of ’22.”

Read Taylor Swift’s full speech from NYU’s 2022 commencement ceremony, then watch it below, beginning at about the two-hour, 47-minute mark.

Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable.    I’d like to say a huge thank you to NYU‘s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Berkeley and all the trustees and members of the board, NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton, Provost Katherine Fleming, and the faculty and alumni here today who have made this day possible. I feel so proud to share this day with my fellow honorees Susan Hockfield and Felix Matos Rodriguez, who humble me with the ways they improve our world with their work. As for me, I’m…90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22’. And let me just say, I am elated to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate New York University’s Class of 2022.   Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that. Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by. Someone tried their best to explain every concept in this insanely complex world to the child that was you, as you asked a bazillion questions like ‘how does the moon work’ and ‘why can we eat salad but not grass.’ And maybe they didn’t do it perfectly. No one ever can. Maybe they aren’t with us anymore, and in that case I hope you’ll remember them today. If they are here in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination.    I know that words are supposed to be my ‘thing’, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and my dad, and my brother, Austin, for the sacrifices they made every day so that I could go from singing in coffee houses to standing up here with you all today because no words would ever be enough. To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now: Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you.    I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.   I never got to have the normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until tenth grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals. Then I went out on the road on a radio tour, which sounds incredibly glamorous but in reality it consisted of a rental car, motels, and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest.    As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm. I even set the ending of my music video for my song “Love Story” at my fantasy imaginary college, where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and with one single glance, we realize we had been in love in our past lives. Which is exactly what you guys all experienced at some point in the last 4 years, right?   But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass like a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it. Today you leave New York University and then you go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I.   So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it. I’ll go into this more later. I guess I have been officially solicited in this situation, to impart whatever wisdom I might have and tell you the things that helped me in my life so far. Please bear in mind that I, in no way, feel qualified to tell you what to do. You’ve worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today and so, you know what you’re doing. You’ll do things differently than I did them and for different reasons.    So I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that. I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.   The first of which is…life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.    Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’   I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.    And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say that I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things. It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of ‘unbothered ambivalence.’ This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to ‘want it.’ That people who don’t try hard are fundamentally more chic than people who do. And I wouldn’t know because I have been a lot of things but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic.’ But I’m the one who’s up here so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.    I started writing songs when I was twelve and since then, it’s been the compass guiding my life, and in turn, my life guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it’s directing videos or a short film, creating the visuals for a tour, or standing on stage performing. Everything is connected by my love of the craft, the thrill of working through ideas and narrowing them down and polishing it all up in the end. Editing. Waking up in the middle of the night and throwing out the old idea because you just thought of a newer, better one. A plot device that ties the whole thing together. There’s a reason they call it a hook. Sometimes a string of words just ensnares me and I can’t focus on anything until it’s been recorded or written down.    As a songwriter I’ve never been able to sit still, or stay in one creative place for too long. I’ve made and released 11 albums and in the process, I’ve switched genres from country to pop to alternative to folk. This might sound like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion but in a way, I really do think we are all writers. And most of us write in a different voice for different situations. You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do your senior thesis. You send a different type of email to your boss than you do your best friend from home. We are all literary chameleons and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things, all the time. And I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news : It’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: It’s totally up to you.   I said to you earlier that I don’t ever offer advice unless someone asks me for it, and now I’ll tell you why. As a person who started my very public career at the age of 15, it came with a price. And that price was years of unsolicited advice. Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, the media, interviewers, executives. This advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings. See, I was a teenager in the public eye at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day ‘running off the rails.’ That meant a different thing to everyone person said it me. So I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be entirely my fault and I would go to pop star jail forever and ever. It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life.    This has not been my experience. My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life.    And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.   The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes.’    Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely, but because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35-year-old housewives listen to country music and there was no place for a 13-year-old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home. But then I’d post my songs on my MySpace and yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.    I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat.  And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things.   I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.    Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take. There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t.

How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t. 

Scary news is: You’re on your own now.

Cool news is: You’re on your own now.   I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet. Anyway…hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.    As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.    I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re…   … the class of ’22.

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The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever

Looking for some new words of wisdom? Check out our hand-picked selection of commencement addresses, going back to 1774. Search over 350 speeches by name, school, date or theme — and find out what they have in common with pop songs — on our blog: n.pr/ed .

By Jeremy Bowers, Emily Davis, Danny DeBelius, Christopher Groskopf, Anya Kamenetz, Meredith Rizzo, Sami Yenigun

Thanks to Cristina Negrut, the creator of http://graduationwisdom.com/ where many of these speeches were first collected.

May 19, 2014, Last updated: July 2, 2015

• Inner voice
• Embrace failure
• Remember history
• Don't give up
• Fight for equality
• Change the world

Showing   of   speeches. Reset Search

Aaron Sorkin

Syracuse University

Abigail Washburn

Colorado College

Adam Savage

Sarah Lawrence College

Adrienne Rich

Douglass College

Ahmed Zewail

University of Tennessee

Connecticut College

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Harvard University

Alexis Ohanian

Carthage College

Alice Greenwald

Amy poehler, anderson cooper.

Tulane University

Andrew Young

Andy samberg, angela ahrendts.

Ball State University

Angela Davis

Pitzer College

Anita L. DeFrantz

Anna quindlen.

Villanova University

Anne Lamott

University of California, Berkeley

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Tufts University

Anthony Corvino

Binghamton University

Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw

University of Michigan

Arianna Huffington

Smith College

Vassar College

Arnold Schwarzenegger

University of Southern California

Art Buchwald

Atul gawande.

Williams College

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Barack Obama

Arizona State University

Barbara Bush

Wellesley College

Barbara Kingsolver

Duke University

Barnabas Binney

Rhode Island College (Brown University)

Barney Frank

Ben bernanke.

Princeton University

Benjamin Carson Jr.

Niagara University

Benno Schmidt Sr.

University of Missouri

Bernard Harris

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Bill Clinton

Yale University

New York University

Bill Watterson

Kenyon College

Billie Jean King

University of Massachusetts

Billy Collins

Berklee College of Music

Babson College

Auburn University

Bobby Knight

Trine University

University of Pennsylvania

Bradley Whitford

University of Wisconsin

Brian J. Dyson

Georgia Tech

Brian Kenny

Ohio Northern University

Callie Khouri

Sweet Briar College

Candy Crowley

Maharishi University

Drexel University

Carl Schramm

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Carly Fiorina

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Carrie Chapman Catt

Charles w. colson.

Geneva College

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chris gardner, chris matthews.

Fordham University

Chris Sacca

University of Minnesota

Chris Waddell

Middlebury College

Chuck Norris

Liberty University

Clayborne Carson

Colin powell.

Northeastern University

Conan O’Brien

Dartmouth College

Cornel West

Wesleyan University

Cory Booker

Cynthia enloe.

Stanford University

Daniel S. Goldin

David broder.

Kalamazoo College

David Brooks

Wake Forest University

Rice University

Sewanee: The University of the South

David Byrne

Columbia University

University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism

University of New Hampshire

David Foster Wallace

David l. calhoun.

Virginia Tech

David McCullough Jr.

Wellesley High School

David Remnick

David woodle, dennis lehane.

Eckerd College

Denzel Washington

Dillard University

Dolly Parton

Doug marlette.

Durham Academy

Douglas Smith

DeVry University

Loyola University

Drew Houston

Dwight eisenhower, earl bakken.

University of Hawaii

Knox College

Cornell University

University of Virginia

Edward O. Wilson

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Edward W. Brooke

Elias a. zerhouni, elie wiesel, ellen degeneres, emir kamenica.

University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

Eric Greitens

Whitman College

Estelle Parsons

Eugene mirman.

Lexington High School

Fareed Zakaria

Bates College

Francine du Plessix Gray

Barnard College

Frank McCourt

Franklin d. roosevelt.

Oglethorpe University

Fred Armisen

Oregon Episcopal School

Fred Rogers

Gabrielle giffords.

Scripps College

Gary Malkowski

Gallaudet University

George C. Marshall

George plimpton, george saunders, george w. bush.

Calvin College

Gerald Ford

Chicago State University

Gloria Steinem

Greil marcus.

School of Visual Arts

Guido Calabresi

Guy kawasaki, gwendolyn brooks.

University of Vermont

Marquette University

Henry A. Wallace

Howard gordon.

Goucher College

J.K. Rowling

Jaclyn rossi, james b. angell, james bryce, james carville.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Jamie Hyneman

Janet napolitano, janet yellen.

USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

Jason Kilar

Emerson College

Jean Andrews

University of Texas, Austin

Jefferson Smith

University of Oregon

Jeffrey Sachs

Jennie cyran, jennifer lee, jerry zucker, jessica lange, jill abramson.

Maharishi University of Management

Jimmy Iovine

Jimmy tingle, joan didion.

University of California, Riverside

Jodie Foster

Joe plumeri.

College of William and Mary

John F. Kennedy

American University

John F. Kerry

Butler University

John Jacob Scherer

Roanoke College

John Legend

Kean University

John Mackey

Bentley College

John McCain

John roberts, john seely brown.

Wheaton College

Jon Stewart

Jonathan safran foer, jonathon youshaei.

Deerfield High School

Joseph Brodsky

Joss whedon, julia keller.

Dominican University

Julianna Margulies

Los Angeles Trade Technical College

Kati Marton

Central European University

Katie Couric

Georgetown University

Kermit the Frog

Southampton College

Kirk Schneider

San Francisco State University

Kurt Vonnegut

Agnes Scott College

Larry Lucchino

Boston University

Florida State University

Leonard A. Lauder

Lewis black.

University of California, San Diego

Lewis Lapham

St. John’s College

Lisa Kudrow

Louis b. susman, lyndon baines johnson.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Madeleine Albright

Madeleine l’engle, makoto fujimura.

Belhaven University

Margaret Atwood

University of Toronto

Margaret J. Geller

Margaret spellings.

Montgomery College

Maria Shriver

Marian fontana.

Massachusetts School of Law

Marissa Mayer

Illinois Institute of Technology

Mark S. Lewis

Marlee matlin.

Wilkes University

Martha Nussbaum

Martin marty.

Eastern Mennonite University

Martin Scorsese

New York University Tisch School of the Arts

Marvin Bell

Northwest Institute of Literary Arts

Mary Robinson

Maya rudolph, meg greenfield.

West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Melissa Harris-Perry

Meredith monk, meredith vieira, meryl streep, michael bloomberg.

University of North Carolina

Michael Dell

Michael ignatieff, michael j. burry.

University of California, Los Angeles

Michael Lewis

Michael oren.

Brandeis University

Michael Uslan

Indiana University

Michelle Obama

Spelman College

Mike Tomlin

Saint Vincent College

Mindy Kaling

Harvard Law School

Mother Teresa

Muriel siebert.

Case Western Reserve University

Natalie Portman

Neil gaiman.

The University of the Arts

University of Mary Washington

Neil deGrasse Tyson

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Njabulo S. Ndebele

Nora ephron, omid kordestani.

San Jose State University

Oprah Winfrey

Howard University

Patricia McGowan Wald

Paul glaser, paul hawken.

University of Portland

Peter Dinklage

Bennington College

Phil Rosenthal

Hofstra University

Porochista Khakpour

Desert Academy

Rachel Maddow

Rahm emanuel.

George Washington University

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Randy pausch.

Carnegie Mellon University

Ray Bradbury

Edwin O. Smith High School

Rev. David O’Connell

Rev. dennis h. holtschneider, rev. joseph l. levesque, richard costolo, richard feynman, richard russo.

Colby College

Robert Ballard

Robert krulwich, robert m. gates.

University of Georgia

Robert Pinsky

Robert rodriguez, roger goodell.

University of Massachusetts Lowell

Roger Rosenblatt

Brigham Young University

Ron Suskind

Lewis & Clark College

Ronald Reagan

Eureka College

Ronan Farrow

Dominican University of California

Russell Baker

Ruth westheimer.

Trinity College

Salman Rushdie

Bard College

Sandra Soto

University of Arizona

Sanjay Gupta

Seamus heaney, sean lebowitz, sergio marchionne.

University of Toledo

Seth MacFarlane

Sharyn alfonsi.

University of Mississippi

Sheryl Sandberg

City Colleges of Chicago

Soledad O’Brien

University of Delaware

Stephen Colbert

Northwestern University

Stephen King

Stephen r. kellert.

University of Western Sydney, Australia

Steve Ballmer

Steve blank.

Philadelphia University

Sue Monk Kidd

Sumner redstone, susan sontag, sutton foster, suzan-lori parks.

Mount Holyoke College

Terry Gross

Bryn Mawr College

Terry Teachout

Hamilton Holt School

Theodor ‘Dr. Seuss’ Geisel

Lake Forest College

Thomas L. Friedman

Tiffany shlain, tim minchin.

University of Western Australia

Tim Russert

The Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale

Toni Morrison

The Catholic University of America

Tracy Chevalier

Oberlin College

Ursula K. Le Guin

Mills College

Vaclav Havel

Vernice armour.

Ashford University

Vernon Jordan

Victor hwang.

Austin Community College

Wangari Maathai

Warren burger.

Pace University

Wesley Chan

Whoopi goldberg.

Savannah College of Art and Design

Will Ferrell

William allen white, william chiu.

Halsey Junior High School

William H. Gass

Washington University

William Kunstler

State University of New York, Buffalo

Woody Hayes

Ohio State University

Wynton Marsalis

Maine College of Art

Yvonne Thornton

Tuskegee University

Zadie Smith

Zubin damania.

University of California, San Francisco

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Read Taylor Swift’s Inspiring Speech for NYU’s Class of ’22

By Brittany Spanos

Brittany Spanos

Taylor Swift received a warm welcome to New York University on Wednesday when she accepted an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, from the institution. Swift attended the 2022 all-school commencement ceremony at Yankee Stadium and delivered a rousing speech for this year’s graduates. 

Earlier this year, Swift was the subject of a half-semester course at NYU (taught by the author of this post) in the Clive Davis Institute of Recording Arts. The majority of the 20-person class were studying to either be recording artists or work in the music industry, and the curriculum provided a close analysis of both Swift’s songwriting as well as her career trajectory during one of the most quickly evolving periods in music history. 

Since releasing  Red (Taylor’s Version) — her re-recorded take on her lauded fourth album — Swift has largely laid low. She has yet to confirm which of her albums she’ll be re-recording next, though many have suspected that it will be 1989 or  Speak Now . Earlier this year, a new song titled “ Carolina ” was teased in the trailer for  Where the Crawdads Sing . Her only release of 2022 so far has been the re-recorded version of 1989 cut “ This Love ,” which appeared in the trailer for  The Summer I Turned Pretty . 

In June, Swift will make an appearance at Tribeca Film Festival for a special screening of  All Too Well: The Short Film at New York City’s Beacon Theater and then will sit down for a conversation about writing, directing and producing it. She’ll also make her first film appearance since 2019’s  Cats  in David O. Russell’s star-studded film  Amsterdam . It’ll hit theaters in November.

Taylor Swift’s Full NYU Commencement Speech  

Hi, I’m Taylor.

“As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm.”

“You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go.”

“The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.”

“My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life. And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience.”

“Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.”

How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t.

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Scary news is: you’re on your own now.

Cool news is: You’re on your own now.

Cassie's Husband to Diddy After Assault Video: 'Men Who Hurt Women Hate Women'

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21 Best Graduation Speeches That Everyone Should Hear

Read life advice from Ree Drummond, Bill Gates, Oprah, and more!

Included in this list is the Pioneer Woman herself—Ree Drummond has witnessed her fair share of milestones with the Drummond kids and to top it off, she delivered an iconic keynote address at Oklahoma State University . Of course, who could forget Oprah Winfrey's speech to the class of 2020? In this heartfelt and emotional address, Winfrey encourages graduates to find their purpose in life and make a difference in the world. Those two are just a taste of what's to come. So, turn on the graduation songs , grab your tissues, and get ready for some solid life advice. Whether you're a recent graduate or just in need of a little pick-me-up, these speeches are sure to leave you feeling inspired and ready to take on whatever life throws your way.

Bill Gates: Northern Arizona University, 2023

Despite famously dropping out of Harvard after two years of study, Bill Gates shared a few pieces of advice he says he could have used at his hypothetical graduation. The Microsoft founder emphasized the importance of being open to career changes and learning to take a break.

"You are not a slacker if you cut yourself some slack. When I was your age, I didn’t believe in vacations. I didn’t believe in weekends. I pushed everyone around me to work very long hours. In the early days of Microsoft, my office overlooked the parking lot—and I would keep track of who was leaving early and staying late. But as I got older—and especially once I became a father—I realized there is more to life than work. Don’t wait as long as I did to learn this lesson. Take time to nurture your relationships, to celebrate your successes, and to recover from your losses."

Ree Drummond: Oklahoma State University, 2022

Ree hardly needs an introduction, but she knows a thing or two about life as a published author, Food Network host, and most importantly, mother of five.

"Buckle up, you have good times and rough seas ahead. It is just part of life, but enjoy the ride and laugh a lot... Life is about to unfold for you in all its forms. Love, heartache, accomplishments, disappointment, testing of faith... life is beautiful, so I repeat, buckle up and laugh along the way. It makes life fun."

Hamdi Ulukaya: Northeastern University, 2022

You may not know his name, but you might just love Chobani, the hugely successful yogurt brand Hamdi started. He reminded graduates why we are here on earth.

"As we started to grow, we hired everyone that we could. I realized an hour away there was a community of refugees who were having a hard time finding jobs. I said, 'Let's hire them.' I promise you that there is nothing more rewarding than showing up in the world for other people, no matter how hard it may be."

Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda: University of Notre Dame, 2021

As obvious as it sounds, you don't know what you don't know. That's the lesson from this acclaimed Notre Dame professor and environmental researcher.

"As much as I want to highlight the importance of the expertise you have developed, I also want to make the point that you will face situations in the years ahead where you will have no relevant expertise; you will have no evidence base to rely upon; your intellect will not be able to supply a needed answer. In those situations, I would like to suggest that you respond with love."

Oprah Winfrey: Class of 2020 Virtual Speech

Oprah had one of the hardest commencement speeches to give: it was for the class that graduated during the pandemic. She found a profound lesson in the chaos of those early months.

"Look who turns out to be essential! Teachers—your teachers!—healthcare workers of course, the people stocking grocery shelves, the cashiers, those who are caring for your grandparents, those who clean the places where we work and shop and carry out our daily lives. We are all here because they, at great and profound risk, are still providing their essential service. What will your essential service be? What really matters to you? How will you use what matters in service to yourself, your community, and the world?"

Tim Cook: Tulane University, 2019

Tim Cook took a similar approach to his late co-worker Steve Jobs when it came to the theme of his graduation speech.

"There's a saying that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. At Apple, I learned that's a total crock. You'll work harder than you ever thought possible, but the tools will feel light in your hands. As you go out into the world, don't waste time on problems that have been solved... Look for the rough spots, the problems that seem too big, the complexities that other people are content to work around. It's in those places that you will find your purpose. It's there that you can make your greatest contribution."

Ken Burns: Stanford University, 2016

In his 2016 Stanford speech, America's most famous documentary filmmaker asked listeners not to forget the lessons found in our history.

"Be for something. Be curious, not cool. Feed your soul, too. Every day. Remember, insecurity makes liars of us all. Don't confuse success with excellence. Educate all of your parts. You will be healthier. Seek out—and have—mentors. Listen to them. Bite off more than you can chew. Do not get stuck in one place. Visit our national parks. Their sheer majesty may remind you of your own 'atomic insignificance,' as one observer noted, but in the inscrutable ways of nature, you will feel larger, inspirited, just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self-regard. Insist on heroes. And be one."

Sheryl Sandberg: UC Berkeley, 2016

The former COO of Facebook offered graduates a realistic look at the life ahead and how to move through the hard times. "Some of you have already experienced the kind of tragedy and hardship that leave an indelible mark. The question is not if some of these things will happen to you. They will. Today I want to talk about what happens next. The easy days ahead of you will be easy. It is the hard days—the times that challenge you to your very core—that will determine who you are. You will be defined not just by what you achieve but by how you survive."

Admiral William H. McRaven: University of Texas at Austin, 2014

During Admiral McRaven's speech at his alma mater, he looked to the lessons he learned serving his country. One of which was so simple, yet profoundly impactful.

"If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter... And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better."

George Saunders: Syracuse University, 2013

Bestselling author and professor George Saunders offered grads a guiding principle to move through life with, no matter what they pursue.

"Travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop)—but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality—your soul, if you will—is as bright and shining as any that has ever been."

Kerry Washington: George Washington University, 2013

Actress Kerry Washington told graduates to think of this achievement during the difficult or uncomfortable parts of life.

"The lesson is that you're here because you too learned how to answer the call. You don't earn a degree by doing and being and existing in the comfort zone of what you already know. Look back on the journey that brought you here. What moments challenged you most? When were you asked to step outside of your familiar territory in order to rise to the occasion of your potential? I want you to remember those moments, because they will embolden you."

Neil Gaiman: University of the Arts, 2012

Neil wasn't always an acclaimed author of fiction, comic books, graphic novels, nonfiction, and films. His speech may have been given to a group of young artists, but the advice applies to anyone starting out in a turbulent career.

"People who know what they are doing know the rules, and they know what is possible and what is impossible. You do not. And you should not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. And you can. If you don't know it's impossible, it's easier to do. And because nobody's done it before, they haven't made up rules to stop anyone doing that particular thing again."

Aaron Sorkin: Syracuse University, 2012

Aaron has carved an incredible career writing plays, movies, and television shows, but success clearly hasn't impacted his sense of humility.

"Decisions are made by those who show up. Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world. Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day: civility, respect, kindness, character."

Atul Gawande: Williams College, 2012

Being a surgeon means you have to think on your feet when things go wrong, and for Dr. Gawande, that holds an immense life lesson.

"A failure often does not have to be a failure at all. However, you have to be ready for it. Will you admit when things go wrong? Will you take steps to set them right? Because the difference between triumph and defeat, you'll find, isn't about willingness to take risks. It's about mastery of rescue."

Conan O'Brien: Dartmouth College, 2011

This famous late-night host delivered a hilarious graduation speech riddled with stories, each with their own lesson.

"David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson and was not, and as a result, my generation of comedians wanted to be David Letterman. And none of us are—my peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways. But the point is this: It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can be a catalyst for profound re-invention."

Steve Jobs: Stanford University, 2005

The entrepreneur, inventor, and pioneer of the personal computer revolution had his fair share of ups and downs in life. But one of the things that made him so persistent was his love of technology.

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."

Toni Morrison: Wellesley College, 2004

Toni Morrison disputed the usual platitude that youth is the best time of your life. Instead, she told students that there is nothing more satisfying or gratifying than the true adulthood which stretches out before them. "What is now known is not all that you are capable of knowing. You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human without wealth. What it feels like to be human without domination over others, without reckless arrogance, without fear of others unlike you, without rotating, rehearsing and reinventing the hatreds you learned in the sandbox. And although you don't have complete control over the narrative (no author does, I can tell you), you could nevertheless create it."

Bill Gates: Harvard University, 2007

Who wouldn't take the Microsoft founder's advice?

"In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue—a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that to make an impact... don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on big inequities. I feel sure it will be one of the great experiences of your lives."

Nora Ephron: Wellesley College, 1996

When Nora Ephron wasn't reporting, she was writing some of our most beloved romantic comedies. She reassured grads that they will always continue to change and grow.

"What are you going to do? Everything is my guess. It will be a little messy but embrace the mess. It will be complicated but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it's going to be like, but surprises are good for you. And don't be frightened. You can always change your mind. I know. I've had four careers and three husbands. And this is something else I want to tell you, one of the hundreds of things I didn't know when I was sitting here so many years ago: you are not going to be you, fixed and immutable you, forever."

Barbara Kingsolver: DePauw University, 1994

The sentiment of Barbara Kingsolver's speech resonates today just as much as it did in 1994.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and give you one little piece of advice and that is like the idea of a future. Believe you have it in you to make the world look better rather than worse seven generations from now. Figure out what that could look like. And then if you're lucky, you'll find a way to live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides."

Micaela Bahn is a freelance editorial assistant and recent graduate from Carleton College, where she majored in English literature. She loves running, photography, and cooking the best new recipes.

Nitya Rao is the editorial assistant at The Pioneer Woman, covering stories ranging from food, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, news, and more.

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The official news site of the College of Charleston.

2022 spring commencement: everything you need to know.

Graduation is a rite of passage at every university. But at the College of Charleston, Spring Commencement is a truly special event – a visually stunning ceremony that bonds generations of CofC alumni.

Each May, graduating seniors clad in white dinner jackets and dresses process to the picturesque Cistern Yard for one of the country’s most indelible commencement ceremonies. This year, undergraduate and graduate degree candidates will take to the stage in front of Randolph Hall on Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7, 2022, to celebrate this seminal academic milestone.

Here are answers to some common questions about College of Charleston Commencement ceremonies:

When is Commencement?

There are three commencement ceremonies this year, with students broken up into groups based on their academic school. Graduating students must attend a mandatory rehearsal on Wednesday, May 4. Each commencement will last between 2 and 2 1/2 hours beginning at the following times:

• 4 p.m. Friday, May 6, 2022, for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs. A rehearsal is set for 11 a.m. on Wednesday, May 4.
• 10 a.m. Saturday, May 7, 2022 , for the School of Business and the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance. A rehearsal is set for 9 a.m. on Wednesday, May 4.
• 4 p.m. Saturday, May 7, 2022, for the School of the Arts; School of Sciences and Mathematics; and the Graduate School. A rehearsal is set for 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 4.

What kind of bag can I bring?

In order to expedite entry and provide a safe and secure environment, the College of Charleston has implemented a  Clear Bag Protocol for events, including commencement. Only clear bags and small, clutch-size purses are allowed. Approved bags include the following:

• Clear plastic, vinyl or PVC bags that do not exceed 12″ x 6″ x 12″ – A logo no larger than 4.5″ x 3.4″ can be displayed on one side of a permissible clear bag.
• One-gallon clear plastic freezer bag (Ziploc bag or similar)
• Small clutch bags no larger than 4.5″ x 6.5″ – approximately the size of a hand, with or without a handle or strap

Please read our  Prohibited Items List  (which includes, but is not limited to, unapproved bags, alcohol, food, cans and bottles, and weapons). Please note that the College of Charleston is a tobacco-free campus.

Can infants or toddlers enter the Cistern Yard without a ticket?

No. Due to fire and safety restrictions, everyone who enters the Cistern Yard must have a ticket, regardless of age.

Each commencement ceremony is scheduled to be held in the Cistern Yard, located at 66 George St. A ticket is required for admittance. Barring any unforeseen changes due to COVID-19 restrictions, each graduate may request up to the maximum of four tickets for the appropriate ceremony in Cistern Yard. Tickets are ceremony specific and may not be used for any other ceremony. With no pandemic pivots, tickets will be loaded directly to the graduate’s CofC email account beginning Monday, May 2.

There will also be satellite viewing locations where additional guests who do not have tickets can watch the ceremonies live. Tickets are not required for admission to these sites, all of which have air-conditioning and easily accessible restrooms. The satellite viewing locations are:

• Stern Student Center Ballroom at 71 George St.
• Stern Student Center Room 205 at 71 George St .
• Stern Student Center Lounge at 71 George St .
• Rita Liddy Hollings Science Center Room 101 at 58 Coming Street .
• School of Sciences and Mathematics Building Auditorium at 202 Calhoun St.

How can family and friends watch commencement at home?

All ceremonies will be livestreamed on the College of Charleston Facebook page  and the  College of Charleston YouTube page . Recordings of the ceremonies will also be archived and made available for viewing approximately four weeks later on the commencement website .

What if it rains? 

The College of Charleston monitors the weather for Commencement weekend 24 hours a day. In the event of rain or other inclement weather, ceremonies will be moved to the College’s TD Arena .

If inclement weather occurs, the President’s Office will make an announcement that will be prominently displayed on the homepage of the College of Charleston website ( www.cofc.edu ) as well as on local TV and radio stations. There is a possibility that this will delay the start time of the ceremony, and if so, this information will be included in the announcement.

What should guests wear? 

There is no particular dress code for guests, but please take the heat and humidity into account. Women typically wear lightweight dresses and men tend to wear khakis and blazers, seersucker or some other lightweight fabric.

Can I take photos?

Family and friends are welcome to take photos of the event, but aren asked to be respectful of other guests. If you want to leave your seat to take a photo of your graduate crossing the stage, you may do so, but please quickly return to your seat so others can see their grads cross the stage.

GradImages will also be providing professional photography at each ceremony.

Visit the commencement page for more information about photography of commencement .

Where should graduates and guests park? 

Garage parking will be available in the core of campus at the following locations:

• The George Garage, located at 34 St. Philip Street between George and Liberty streets (next to CVS)
• The College’s St. Philip Street Garage, located at 81 St. Philip Street between Vanderhorst and Calhoun streets (next to the BellSouth building)
• The Wentworth Street Garage, located on the corner of Wentworth and St. Philip Streets at 81 Wentworth St.

The hourly rate for these locations is $1 per half hour, or portion thereof, with a daily maximum of $18 per day.

There is also a City of Charleston surface lot located at 31 George St. Parking at this location is pre-paid at the entrance, with a daily maximum of $40 per day.

For complete details on parking for commencement ceremonies, visit the Commencement Information website .

What about lodging for guests who are coming from out of town?

There’s no shortage of places to stay in downtown Charleston. Whether you’re looking for a waterfront hotel like the  Harborview Inn  or the  Courtyard Charleston Waterfront , a full-service hotel like the  Charleston Marriott  or a location close to campus such as the  Francis Marion Hotel , the Holy City has got you covered. For a full list of accommodations, visit the  Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau website .

When will my student get a diploma?

Diplomas will be ordered for students who graduate successfully in the term in which they apply after their degree has been conferred. Diplomas will be mailed four to eight weeks after conferral, provided the graduate doesn’t have a financial hold.

Who are this year’s commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients?

FRIDAY, MAY 6, CEREMONY

• Commencement speaker: Susan Farrell, professor of English at the College of Charleston
• Honorary degree recipient: Philanthropist John Winthrop

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 10 a.m. CEREMONY

• Commencement speaker: Steve Litvin

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 4 p.m. CEREMONY 

• Commencement speaker: Judge Richard M. Gergel
• Honorary degree recipients: State Representative Leon Stavrinakis ’88 and State Representative Gary Simrill

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16 Best Graduation Speeches That Leave a Lasting Impression

By Kristi Kellogg and Noor Brara

Some of the most impactful and inspiring sentiments are shared during graduation speeches delivered by the leaders we look up to. Graduation speeches from celebrities , entrepreneurs, authors and other influential thinkers are motivational, inspiring, thought-provoking and just might make you reach for the nearest tissue. After four years of hard work, stress, and exhausting self-discovery, lucky graduates are privy to a life-changing speech to top it all off.

Here, we rounded up up 16 of the best graduation speeches of all time, including words of wisdom from Natalie Portman, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and more.

1. Steve Jobs: Stanford, 2005

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."

2. Michelle Obama: Tuskegee University, 2015

"I've found that this journey has been incredibly freeing. Because no matter what happened, I had the piece of mind knowing that all of the chatter, the name-calling, the doubting...all of it was just noise. It did not define me, it didn't change who I was, and most importantly, it couldn't hold me back."

3. Natalie Portman: Harvard, 2015

"I just directed my first film. I was completely unprepared, but my own ignorance to my own limitations looked like confidence and got me into the director's chair. Once there, I had to figure it all out, and my belief that I could handle these things, contrary to all evidence of my ability to do so was half the battle. The other half was very hard work. The experience was the deepest and most meaningful one of my career."

4. Amy Poehler: Harvard University, 2011

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"What I have discovered is this: You can't do it alone … Listen. Say 'yes.' Live in the moment. Make sure you play with people who have your back. Make big choices early and often."

5. Meryl Streep: Barnard College, 2010

"This is your time and it feels normal to you but really there is no normal. There's only change, and resistance to it and then more change."

6. David Foster Wallace: Kenyon College, 2005

"Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master."

7. Barack Obama: Howard University, 2016

"You have to go through life with more than just passion for change; you need a strategy. I’ll repeat that. I want you to have passion, but you have to have a strategy. Not just awareness, but action. Not just hashtags, but votes."

8. Kerry Washington: George Washington University, 2013

"You and you alone are the only person who can live the life that can write the story that you were meant to tell."

9. Conan O'Brien: Dartmouth College, 2011

"There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. Today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality … Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen."

10. J.K. Rowling: Harvard, 2008

"I stopped pretending to be anything than what I was. My greatest fear had been realized. I had an old typewriter and a big idea. Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

11. Oprah Winfrey: Harvard University, 2013

"Learn from every mistake because every experience, encounter, and particularly your mistakes are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are. And then figure out what is the next right move. And the key to life is to develop an internal moral, emotional G.P.S. that can tell you which way to go."

12. Joss Whedon: Wesleyan University, 2013

"You have, which is a rare thing, that ability and the responsibility to listen to the dissent in yourself, to at least give it the floor, because it is the key—not only to consciousness–but to real growth. To accept duality is to earn identity. And identity is something that you are constantly earning. It is not just who you are. It is a process that you must be active in. It's not just parroting your parents or the thoughts of your learned teachers. It is now more than ever about understanding yourself so you can become yourself."

13. George Saunders: Syracuse University, 2013

"Do all the other things, the ambitious things … Travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop)—but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness."

14. Nora Ephron: Wellesley College, 1996

"Be the heroine of your life, not the victim."

15. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Wellesley College, 2015

"As you graduate, as you deal with your excitement and your doubts today, I urge you to try and create the world you want to live in. Minister to the world in a way that can change it. Minister radically in a real, active, practical, get your hands dirty way."

16. Admiral William H. McRaven: University of Texas at Austin, 2014

"If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right."

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Here’s who is speaking at 2022 college commencements in and around Boston

College graduation season is upon us, with some schools holding their first in-person commencements since the pandemic hit. Below is a list of schools around Boston and what they plan to do to celebrate their graduates this year.

Wentworth Institute of Technology

The Wentworth spring commencement ceremony is scheduled for April 30 on the Wentworth Quad. A livestream will be available for those unable to attend. The commencement speaker is Yanel de Angel, a principal of the global architectural and design firm Perkins&Will.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

UMass Dartmouth’s commencement will take place on May 6 at Cressy Field. Students Narcisse Kunda and Thais Sousa will speak.

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Berklee College of Music

Berklee will host a commencement concert on May 6 and a commencement ceremony on May 7. Both will be held at the Agganis Arena.

Boston Conservatory at Berklee

The Boston Conservatory commencement will take place on May 7 at the Berklee Performance Center. Honorary doctorates will be presented in-person to conductor Thomas Wilkins and virtually to Tony Award–winning actor and singer Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Regis College

Regis College will hold its commencement ceremony on May 7 at the Leader Bank Pavilion. Donato J. Tramuto, health care and social justice activist, philanthropist, and author will deliver the commencement address.

Emerson College

Emerson will have its commencement ceremony May 8 at Agganis Arena, and the ceremony will be livestreamed. The commencement address will be given by screenwriter and director Adele Lim.

Northeastern University

Northeastern’s commencement ceremony will be held May 13 at Fenway Park, and livestreams will be available on the commencement office website. The undergraduate commencement speaker will be Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Chobani, and the graduate speaker will be Leila Fadel, award-winning journalist from NPR.

Roxbury Community College

RCC will host its commencement on May 13 at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center with Robert T. Hale, co-founder and president of Granite Communications and owner and director of the Boston Celtics, giving the keynote address.

University of Massachusetts Amherst

The UMass Amherst undergraduate commencement will take place May 13 at McGuirk Stadium. US Representative Jim McGovern will be the featured speaker.

MGH Institute of Health Professions

The MGH Institute will hold its commencement ceremony May 13 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The ceremony will begin at noon, and the speaker will be Ashley Lena Victor, a selected student from the graduating class.

Lasell University

Lasell will host its commencement on May 13 and 14 with an address given by Razia Jan, an award-winning humanitarian, social innovator, and advocate for women and girls in her native Afghanistan.

University of Massachusetts Lowell

UMass Lowell’s undergraduate commencement will be held on May 14 in the Tsongas Center. Dr. Ashish Jha, White House’s COVID-19 coordinator, and Sian Proctor, the first Black woman to pilot a spacecraft, will deliver the keynote speeches at the two separate undergraduate ceremonies.

Babson College

Babson College will hold its commencement ceremony on May 14 in the Babson Recreation Athletic Complex. Joanna Berwind will speak at the undergraduate commencement and Marcelo Claure will address the graduate students.

Fisher College

Fisher College’s 118th commencement will take place on May 14 at The Lawn On D.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

The WPI undergraduate commencement will take place on May 14 under the tent in the Institute’s Quad. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will give the undergraduate address, and US National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan will give the graduate address.

Emmanuel College

Emmanuel College will host its hundredth commencement on May 14 on the Fenway Campus.

Ben Franklin Institute of Technology

BFIT’s commencement ceremony is scheduled for May 14 and will be held in-person in the BFIT Auditorium. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Zipcar’s president, Tracey Zhen, will serve as keynote speakers.

Smith College

The Smith College commencement ceremony will take place on May 15 with an address given by Luma Mufleh, a Smith alumna who founded Fugees Family Inc. , a nonprofit education organization.

Olin College of Engineering

Olin will hold commencement on May 15 on the Needham campus. Dr. Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College, will address the Class of 2022.

Massachusetts College of Art and Design

MassArt will hold its commencement ceremony on May 19 at the Leader Bank Pavilion. The commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient will be Kim Janey, Boston’s former interim mayor.

Salem State University

Salem State will hold its commencement ceremonies from May 19 to May 21, with each school having a separate ceremony. The speakers and honorary degree recipients will be rapper, cartoonist, social activist, and Salem State alumnus Keith Knight, Eastern Bank Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board Bob Rivers, and LVCC President and CEO Pamela Scott.

Bay State College

The Bay State College commencement ceremony will be held on May 20 at the Old South Church. The commencement speaker will be Jose Perez, an entrepreneur and current co-owner of DPV Transportation Worldwide, Rami & Sons Plumbing, Roads Consulting Group, & WeReach Organization.

Simmons University

Simmons’ commencement will be held on May 20 at the Leader Bank Pavilion in three ceremonies: one undergraduate ceremony and two graduate ceremonies.

Endicott College

Endicott’s ceremony will be May 21 at the college’s Hempstead Stadium in Beverly. US Secretary of Labor and former Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh will deliver the commencement address.

Bentley University

Bentley University will have its first commencement ceremony on campus in three years on May 21. The ceremony will be available on livestream. Valerie Mosley, founder of the financial technology platform Upward Wealth, will deliver the undergraduate keynote address and Robert L. Reynolds, president and chief executive officer of Putnam Investments, will deliver the graduate keynote address.

Wheaton College

Wheaton will hold its commencement on May 21 on its Norton campus. Deogratias “Deo” Niyizonkiza, founder and CEO of Village Health Works and an advocate for those who are impoverished and in need of health care, will deliver the keynote address.

New England Conservatory

NEC will hold its 151st commencement ceremony this year with a commencement concert on May 21, and commencement on May 22 at Jordan Hall. The commencement speech will be given by singer-songwriter James Taylor, who will also receive an honorary degree.

Lesley University

Lesley will honor students from 2020, 2021, and 2022 at its commencement ceremony this year on May 21 at the Leader Bank Pavilion.

The commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients will be Shelly C. Lowe, the first Native American chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Geeta Pradhan, president of the Cambridge Community Foundation. Olivia Parker, an internationally recognized fine art photographer, will also receive an honorary degree.

Curry College

Curry College’s commencement will take place May 22 at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield. Michael Curry, chief executive officer of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree.

Stonehill College

The Stonehill commencement will take place on May 22 at the College’s Quad with speaker John Judge, president and CEO of The Trustees.

Boston University

Boston University will hold its all-university commencement on May 22 at Nickerson Field. There are no tickets or guest limits for the event, with over 20,000 people attending. Bob Woodward, investigative journalist, author and Pulitzer Prize winner, will be the commencement speaker, and a livestream of the event will be available.

Suffolk University

Suffolk University’s commencement will take place on May 22 at the Leader Bank Pavilion. The speakers will be Claire Cronin, US ambassador to Ireland; Manny Lopes, executive vice president of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; and Tim Ryan, US chair and senior partner of PwC.

Brandeis University

Brandeis will hold its commencement on May 22 at the Gosman Sports Convocation Center. The classes of 2020 and 2021 are also invited to a rescheduled (re)commencement beginning that day at 5 p.m. The address for the class of 2022 will be given by former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, and the (re)commencement address will be given by Marta Kauffman, one of the originators of “Friends.”

Framingham State University

Framingham State will have one commencement ceremony for baccalaureate and master’s degree recipients at the DCU Center Arena and Convention Center on May 22. The commencement speaker will be Jonathan Lemire, the White House bureau chief for Politico and host of “Way Too Early” on MSNBC.

Clark University

Clark will host its commencement May 22, with civil rights activist Mary Frances Berry giving the address.

Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke will host its commencement on May 22 with addresses from poet Natalie Diaz, Katherine Butler Jones ‘57, Susannah Sirkin ‘76, and author Ocean Vuong.

Tufts University

The Tufts commencement ceremonies will take place in two phases on May 22 with the first including the academic procession, the awarding of honorary degrees, the commencement address given by Erika Lee, recognition of faculty emeriti, presentation of degree candidates by school, and the granting of degrees by the Tufts University Board of Trustees. Phase two will consist of individual degree ceremonies and luncheons.

There will also be a celebration of the class of 2020 on May 27 with Neil Blumenthal, a Tufts alumnus and the co-founder and co-CEO of Warby Parker, giving the address.

Boston College

Boston College will hold its 2022 commencement on May 23 at the Alumni Stadium. Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree.

Harvard University

Harvard will celebrate the class of 2022 at a commencement ceremony on May 26 in Harvard Yard. On May 29 there will also be a ceremony celebrating the graduates from 2020 and 2021 who were unable to have an in-person ceremony. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand will be the principal speaker.

Bunker Hill Community College

Bunker Hill will hold its commencement on May 26 with Mayor Michelle Wu giving the keynote address.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT will host its commencement ceremonies during the week of May 23 with the undergraduate ceremony being held on May 27 at Briggs Field. Graduates from 2020 and 2021 will be invited to another ceremony on May 28. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Association, will give the commencement speech for the OneMIT ceremony.

Wellesley College

The Wellesley commencement ceremony will be held on May 27 on Severance Green. Nergis Mavalvala, Marble Professor of Astrophysics at MIT and a 2010 recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award, will give the commencement address.

College of the Holy Cross

Holy Cross’s commencement will take place May 27 at the DCU Center. Dr. Abraham Verghese, infectious disease physician and best-selling author, giving the address .

University of Massachusetts Boston

The UMass Boston commencement ceremony will be held on May 27 at the Boston Convention Center and Exhibition Center. The commencement speech will be given by Mayor Michelle Wu.

Bridgewater State University

BSU will hold its undergraduate commencement ceremony on June 25 and its graduate ceremony on June 24 at Gillette Stadium.

Send commencement updates to [email protected]

Grace Gilson can be reached at [email protected] .

UCLA College Commencement 2022

Alumni speakers.

Academic Advancement Program

Medell briggs-malonson ’01, m.s. ’11.

“For over 25 years, UCLA has been my source of inspiration and purpose. UCLA instilled in me the principles of service, advocacy and excellence. I strive to uphold these principles each day, and I remain forever grateful to this institution.”  

Medell Briggs-Malonson, M.D., M.P.H., M.S.H.S. is the chief of health equity, diversity and inclusion for the UCLA hospital and clinic system. She is also an associate professor of emergency medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In her current role, she is responsible for the implementation and oversight of organizational structures and initiatives that promote inclusivity and equity among UCLA Health staff, patients and communities.

Briggs-Malonson prides herself in building a culture of innovation, collaboration and excellence. This has led her to become a nationally recognized health care improvement advisor, speaker and bestselling author. Throughout her career, she has held several administrative and academic roles focused on innovative health care system redesign to advance health equity within diverse communities.

Briggs-Malonson received her undergraduate degree from UCLA, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, her M.P.H. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and her M.S.H.S. from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She has received several awards of recognition, including being named among the 2015 top health care professionals under 40 from the National Medical Association and the Los Angeles Dodgers 2021 Healthcare All-Star.

Department of African American Studies

Jakobi williams m.a. ’02, ph.d. ’08.

“UCLA afforded me the opportunity to transform my vision and dreams into reality and to forge my own path toward success, and the work ethic to exceed my own expectations!” 

Jakobi Williams is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University–Bloomington, with a joint appointment in the Department of History. A civil rights, Black power, social justice and African American history scholar, he has provided hundreds of invited lectures domestically and abroad on the subjects of civil rights and social justice movements.

Williams serves as a civil rights issues and history consultant for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center, National Civil Rights Museum, Social Justice Initiative at the University of Illinois–Chicago, and Kairos Center for Religion, Rights and Social Justice. His most recent book, “From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago,” was published by the University of North Carolina Press under the prestigious John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. The book was the foundation for the script to the Oscar-winning Warner Bros. film, “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

His most recent awards include a Mellon Foundation-funded Black Metropolis Research Consortium fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, a National Humanities Center fellowship and the Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program award. He received his B.A. in history from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, and both his M.A. in African American studies and his Ph.D. in history from UCLA. He has held positions at UCLA, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Kentucky.

Department of Anthropology

Neetu s. badhan-smith ’99.

“UCLA is the place where dreams begin. It is there the hope for a better tomorrow is born in the hearts and minds of students to take into the world and promote lasting, promising and positive change. I am eternally grateful for my UCLA education and proud to be part of the Bruin community. UCLA broadened my mind, expanded my horizons, made me a better human being and continues to open doors both of understanding and opportunities.”

Born and raised in Sacramento, Neetu S. Badhan-Smith is a first-generation South Asian American. She attended a visual and performing arts public high school before she was accepted to UCLA. She was the second person in her family to attend college, and the first to go to graduate school. As a student at UCLA, Badhan-Smith worked with the Women’s Resource Center as a peer educator, participating in sexual and domestic violence awareness work, including the Clothesline Project and Take Back the Night. Throughout college, she worked at the library, as a note-taker and at a local arbitration firm. She was also active with the UCLA radio station and with Sangam, a South Asian student group.

Badhan-Smith is a graduate of Southwestern University School of Law, class of 2002. While in law school, she was the chair of the trial advocacy honors program, where she developed a love for trial and social justice work. She was a deputy public defender for 13 years in Los Angeles County, where she represented indigent individuals in criminal cases. Prior to that, she was a staff attorney for two years at the Southern California Housing Rights Center, where she represented individuals in housing discrimination cases in both state and federal court. She was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court in May 2017 by Governor Brown, and currently sits in a trial courtroom at the Van Nuys Courthouse. She lives in Los Angeles with her family of humans, two big dogs and a school of fish.

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Susan baumgarten ’73, m.s. ’76, m.b.a. ’79, executive program certificate ’91.

“My UCLA degrees gave me the entrée to my career; the educational experience gave me a breadth of knowledge which informs and enriches my life; and the campus to this day provides beauty and intellectual stimulation. Through all, the people of UCLA are a family, which is always there for me, and for others.”

Susan Baumgarten was a teenage ballerina who transitioned to STEM and an extensive career in electrical/systems engineering, business development, and executive leadership at Hughes Aircraft and Raytheon Company. She led a breadth of organizations in space and airborne sensor development, eventually as a corporate vice president. She later served as president of Raytheon International, integrating activities in 76 countries around the world. Throughout her career, Baumgarten led business and organizational turnarounds, demonstrating her abilities as a visionary leader of technology and as a business strategist. Additionally, she served as an executive-in-residence at the UCLA Anderson School of Management from 2009 to 2017, lecturing and counseling on leadership and advancement in technology companies. She holds three degrees from UCLA: a bachelor’s in mathematics and biochemistry, a master’s in electrical engineering, and a master’s in business administration.

Her efforts now focus on encouraging STEM education and arts access for all. She occasionally presents to Women in Engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and serves on the board of advisors for the UCLA Division of Physical Sciences, on the UCLA Chemistry Advisory Council, and on UCLA’s Women & Philanthropy board. She is president of Center Dance Arts at The Music Center of Los Angeles, and serves on The Music Center’s board of directors and on the board of Everybody Dance LA.

Department of Communication

Chip mclean ’87.

“To me, UCLA has always meant opportunity—the opportunity to be inspired and challenged in reaching for one’s potential, knowing that you are truly welcomed, supported and valued as a member of a rich and diverse community of scholars, students and others of the highest caliber and integrity on so many levels.”

Chip McLean serves as senior vice president, head of business affairs and business development for Disney Music Group (DMG) and as general manager of Disney Concerts Worldwide, which he helped to launch. He also serves as The Walt Disney Company’s senior executive responsible for Disney Music Publishing. Over his 16-year tenure with Disney, McLean has led the development and implementation of many innovative business initiatives and strategic alliances for the company, including recently overseeing DMG’s successful efforts in structuring, negotiating and closing new deals fortifying DMG’s global relationships with its recorded music and music publishing partners around the world.

McLean launched his career as an associate attorney with a prominent Washington, D.C., communications law firm. He later joined the new media practice group of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California. In 1995 he joined Warner Bros. Records, serving in various capacities there, including as vice president of business and legal affairs. A native of Southern California, he graduated magna cum laude from UCLA (B.A., communications with business emphasis) and from Stanford Law School (J.D.).

Department of Economics

Doug pak ’96.

“I was fortunate enough to get accepted and attend UCLA only four years after my family immigrated to the United States from South Korea. I feel indebted to UCLA, as it offered me education, fun, friendships and personal growth opportunities during a critical time in my life. Thank you, UCLA.”

Doug Pak is a serial entrepreneur and seasoned executive who founded a chain restaurant and franchise investment company, BLD Brands, with no money in his pocket and raised more than $120 million. The company grew from scratch to more than $200 million in eight years, and such fast growth earned him the MVP Award for Mega Growth Leadership. He recently launched BLD Ventures to focus on building and supporting companies and organizations that make a positive impact and deliver high value; the company also makes opportunistic investments. His prior work and startup experiences include such diverse areas as technology, real estate, finance and restaurants.

Pak graduated from UCLA in 1996 with a degree in business/economics and currently serves on two UCLA advisory boards. In addition, he established the Pak Family Endowed Speaker Series in Economics, which will launch in the 2023 academic year. He has also served on the Pepperdine University board and on the boards of several private companies and nonprofits.

Department of English

Shawn holley ’84.

“My mom and her brother both went to UCLA, and I grew up in L.A. with a real sense of pride about that. For that reason, UCLA is the only college I ever wanted to attend, but it wasn’t a certainty that I would get in. UCLA saw my passion and gave me a chance. For me, UCLA means pride and opportunity.”

Shawn Holley is a partner at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump Holley LLP, a boutique Santa Monica law firm, where she practices entertainment/business litigation and criminal defense. She started her career as a Los Angeles County public defender and later worked as an associate at the Law Offices of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., where she practiced civil litigation and criminal defense, notably as a highly visible member of the O.J. Simpson defense team.

Holley’s list of past and present clients includes Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Tory Lanez, T.I., Kathy Griffin, Rosario Dawson, Ryan Phillippe, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, the Kardashian/Jenner family, Katt Williams, Charlamagne tha God, Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Lamar Odom, Reggie Bush and members of Black Lives Matter. Holley is also co-executive producer on a scripted television show that was inspired by her life and career and will air on Hulu in the fall.

Department of History

Anthea m. hartig ’86.

“I am an eternally proud, third-generation Bruin! When I graduated in 1986, 60 years had passed since my great aunt received her diploma from ‘the southern campus’ in 1926. My grandmother, father, uncle and sister all hail as proud daughters and sons of Westwood. My training as an historian there truly shaped my life, career and advocacy, for which I am so grateful.”  

Anthea M. Hartig is the Elizabeth MacMillan director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the first woman to hold that position. Hartig stewards a collection that includes 1.8 million objects and more than three shelf-miles of archives, and has set a vision for the museum to be the most accessible, inclusive, relevant and sustainable public history institution possible. An award-winning public historian and cultural heritage expert, Hartig previously served as the executive director and CEO of the California Historical Society and as the director of the Western region for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She has been involved in historic preservation and public history projects since the 1990s.

Department of Linguistics

Kamil ud deen ’94, ph.d. ’02.

“UCLA has given me an identity and has opened doors for me. Since graduating, everywhere I go, I am identified as a graduate of UCLA linguistics, and upon that identification, opportunities have been opened to me. It is no exaggeration to say that I would not be where I am were it not for UCLA.”

Kamil Deen is currently a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, researching and teaching on child language acquisition. Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Deen came to UCLA as a freshman intending to study economics and business administration. He discovered linguistics in his second year, and eventually declared himself a linguistics major.

His B.A. in linguistics opened many doors, but he took the academic route, obtaining an Ed.M. from Harvard University in 1995 and returning to his alma mater to receive his Ph.D. in 2002. He has received numerous teaching and research awards, and has held a number of research grants over the 20 years of his time at the University of Hawaii. He credits much of his success to the outstanding education in linguistics he received at his beloved UCLA.

Department of Mathematics

Robert s. harrison ’86.

“UCLA provided me with the foundation for my career in banking with my applied math degree. It also allowed me to pursue my other love—a diverse selection of history classes. After all, it’s not all about the numbers!”

Bob Harrison is chairman, president and chief executive officer of First Hawaiian Bank. He has been CEO since January 2012, was reappointed president in August 2019 and has been chairman of the bank’s board of directors since May 2014. A 26-year veteran of the company who joined First Hawaiian Bank in 1996, he has over 30 years of financial industry experience working for banks in New York and in Hawaii.

Harrison currently serves on the boards of directors of the Hawaii Bankers Association, Hawaii Business Roundtable, Hawaii Community Foundation and Pacific Guardian Life and is chairman of Hawaii Medical Service Association, the Hawaii licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. He served in the U.S. Navy before earning a B.A. in applied mathematics from UCLA and an M.B.A. from Cornell University.

Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology

D’juan farmer ’10.

“UCLA is where I discovered my passions and where I made lasting relationships that changed the trajectory of my life. I am so thrilled to have found a way back!”

D’Juan Farmer is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA, with a joint appointment in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. He received his bachelor’s degree at UCLA with a major in molecular, cell and developmental biology and a minor in biomedical research.

Following a post-baccalaureate at the National Institutes of Health, Farmer received his Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, where he investigated the roles of microRNAs during organogenesis in the laboratory of Michael McManus. In 2017, he joined the laboratory of Gage Crump at the University of Southern California and investigated the development of cranial sutures using mouse and zebrafish models. His laboratory now focuses on investigating the inter-cellular and intra-cellular mechanisms of skeletal progenitor specification and function at cranial sutures.

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Donald m. korn ’65, m.s. ’66, ph.d. ’71.

“As a UCLA freshman, I was most impressed by the academic opportunities and the water polo team on which I played. Sixty years later, I recognize that much of my success is due to having been educated at the highest-ranked public university in the United States.”

Don Korn received his B.S. in physics in 1965, Phi Beta Kappa, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1971, both at UCLA. As a postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T. Lincoln Labs, Korn was recognized for identifying the residual impurities in ultra-pure semiconductors. He joined 3M Central Research Laboratory and pioneered the field of digital radiography by inventing a size-scalable digital X-ray sensor. For this work, he was awarded the Charles Ives Medal by the Journal of Applied Photographic Engineering.

Korn then joined Eastman Kodak, where he conducted research in medical imaging devices and simultaneously held three different vice president positions. After he retired from Kodak in 1999, the business that he pioneered sold for $2.3 billion and is now known as Carestream. Korn served as CEO of two different medical imaging startups and was a senior executive in Silverbrook Research, which brought the Memjet inkjet imaging technology to market. He is now retired in Sanibel, Florida, and has an interest in bird photography.

Department of Political Science

Marcellus mcrae ’85.

“ In many respects, UCLA opened and expanded my intellectual world across different historical periods, continents, languages and cultures. It also was a launching pad for my lifelong curiosity and fascination with ideas, political theory and philosophy. It was a seemingly endless source of knowledge that helped frame my view of the world and my place in it. And it is where I met my wife of 31 years.”

Marcellus Antonio McRae is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he serves as co-chair of the firm’s global trial practice group. California Lawyer magazine featured him as an honoree in its 2015 Attorney of the Year Awards. McRae has first-chaired numerous jury trials, bench trials and arbitrations in both federal and state courts. He also writes and speaks on trial and litigation skills, white-collar criminal defense, labor and employment law and other topics.

From 1995 until joining Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in February 1998, McRae served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division, Major Frauds Section, in Los Angeles. During this time, he investigated and prosecuted complex white-collar crimes (tax, securities, bankruptcy and other business frauds) and traditional crimes that involved both jury and non-jury trial experience with a 100% conviction rate at trial. He also drafted numerous appellate briefs filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and had several arguments before that court. Prior to joining the United States attorney’s office, McRae was an associate with Debevoise & Plimpton.

McRae received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1988 and earned a B.A. summa cum laude in 1985 from the UCLA Departments of Political Science and History. He currently serves on UCLA’s Social Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board and Political Science Board of Advisors.

Department of Sociology

Jeremi gorman ’99.

“UCLA is in my blood; my first words may have been the eight-clap. Both of my parents are UCLA sociology graduates, and my older sister has both a B.S. and a master’s from UCLA. Beginning in 1985, my family journeyed to Bruin Woods each summer, where I ultimately became a counselor for the summer of 1996. It’s no surprise I married a Bruin to keep the tradition alive. UCLA has meant family and lifelong friendships for as long as I can remember.”

Jeremi Gorman is chief business officer at Snap Inc., where she is a member of the executive team and is responsible for revenue and revenue operations, leading global sales, creative strategy and Snap’s newest creative studio for augmented reality, Arcadia. She has spent her entire career in tech, with leadership positions at Monster.com and Yahoo! Prior to joining Snap, she spent nearly seven years at Amazon, where she led global enterprise advertising sales.

Gorman is a proud 1999 graduate of UCLA in sociology. She serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the UCLA Division of Social Sciences, the board of directors of Samba TV and the board of Women for Women International. A travel-lover and thrill-seeker, Gorman has traveled to over 50 countries, with a goal to double that.

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Commencement

Sunday, may 19, 2024.

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Relive the Magic of Past Commencements

Watch the highlight reel of Spelman's 136th Commencement ceremony. The Spelman community joyously celebrates the hard work, sacrifice, accomplishments and promise of the Class of 2023.

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Watch the highlight reel of Spelman's 135th Commencement ceremony that celebrated the perseverance and achievements of the class of 2022 and honors our historic five valedictorians.

Watch the highlight reel of Spelman's 134th Commencement ceremony that celebrated the perseverance and achievements of the class of 2021 and honored the work of honorary degree recipient Dr. Angela Y. Davis and National Community Service Award recipient U.S. Rep. Alma S. Adams.

Watch the highlight reel of Spelman's 133rd Commencement ceremony that celebrated the achievements and resilience of the class of 2020 and recognized the work of honorary degree recipient Danai Gurira and National Community Service Award recipient Pearl Cleage, C’71.

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148th Commencement Exercises Monday, May 20, 2024

Boston college looks forward to welcoming the families and friends of our 2024 graduates to campus on monday, may 20, for the university's 148th commencement exercises..

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BC's Law School Commencement will be held on Friday, May 24.

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Baccalaureate Mass

Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 12:00 p.m.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.

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Individual School Diploma Ceremonies will begin approximately 30 minutes following the Main Commencement Ceremony.

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Biden's upcoming graduation speech roils Morehouse College, a center of Black politics and culture

President Joe Biden will have his most direct engagement with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war when he speaks at Morehouse College's commencement

ATLANTA -- When he gives the commencement address at Morehouse College, President Joe Biden will have his most direct engagement with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war at a center of Black politics and culture.

Morehouse is located in Atlanta, the largest city in the swing state of Georgia, which Biden flipped from then-President Donald Trump four years ago. Biden's speech Sunday will come as the Democrat tries to make inroads with a key and symbolic constituency — young Black men — and repair the diverse coalition that elected him to the White House.

The announcement of the speech last month triggered peaceful protests and calls for the university administration to cancel over Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Some students at Morehouse and other historically Black campuses in Atlanta say they vociferously oppose Biden and the decision to have him speak, mirroring the tension Biden faces in many communities of color and with young voters nationally.

Morehouse President David Thomas said in an interview that the emotions around the speech made it all the more important that Biden speak.

“In many ways, these are the moments Morehouse was born for,” he said. “We need someplace in this country that can hold the tensions that threaten to divide us. If Morehouse can’t hold those tensions, then no place can.”

The speech comes at a critical moment for Biden in his general election rematch against Trump, a Republican. Biden is lagging in support among both Black voters and people under 30, groups that were key to his narrow 2020 victories in several battleground states, including Georgia.

Fifty-five percent of Black adults approved of the way Biden is handling his job as president, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in March, a figure far below earlier in his presidency. Overall, 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds approved in the same poll.

“This is a global catastrophe in Gaza, and Joe Biden coming to pander for our votes is political blackface,” said Morehouse sophomore Anwar Karim, who urged Thomas and school trustees to rescind Biden’s invitation.

Recent scenes on American campuses reflect objections among many young voters about Israel’s assaults in Gaza. Biden has backed Israel since Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of hostages on Oct. 7. That includes weapons shipments to the longstanding U.S. ally, even as Biden advocates for a cease-fire, criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactics and the death toll in Gaza surpasses 35,000 people, many of them women and children.

Many younger Black people have identified with the Palestinian cause and have at times drawn parallels between Israeli rule of the Palestinian territories and South Africa’s now-defunct apartheid system and abolished Jim Crow laws in the U.S. Israel rejects claims that its system of laws for Palestinians constitutes apartheid.

“I think that the president will do himself good if he does not duck that, especially when you think about the audience that he will be speaking to directly and to the nation,” Thomas said.

Sunday's speech will culminate a four-day span during which Biden will concentrate on reaching Black communities. On Thursday, Biden met privately with plaintiffs from the Brown v. Board of Education case that barred legal segregation of America’s public schools. The following day, Biden will address an NAACP gathering commemorating the 70th anniversary of the landmark decision.

Former U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, a longtime Biden ally who helped broker his speech at Morehouse, said he understood students’ concerns but emphasized that Biden has pressured Netanyahu and supports a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians. Trump, meanwhile, has effectively abandoned that long-held U.S. position and said Israel should “finish the problem” in Gaza.

“That’s nowhere in the conversation,” Richmond said.

The debate over Biden's speech at Morehouse reflected a fundamental tension of historically Black colleges and universities, which are both dedicated to social justice and Black advancement and run by administrators who are committed to keeping order.

“We look like a very conservative institution” sometimes, Thomas said. “On one hand, the institution has to be the stable object where we are today in the world.”

But, he added, the university's long-term purpose is to “support our students in going out to create a better world.”

Blowback started even before Thomas publicly announced Biden was coming. Faculty sent executives a letter of concern, prompting an online town hall. Alumni gathered several hundred signatures to urge that Thomas rescind Biden’s invitation. The petition called the invitation antithetical to the pacifism Martin Luther King Jr., a Morehouse alumnus, expressed when opposing the Vietnam War.

Some students note that leaders of Morehouse and other HBCUs did not always support King and other Civil Rights activists who are venerated today. Morehouse, for instance, expelled the actor Samuel L. Jackson in 1969 after he and other students held Morehouse trustees, including King’s father, in a campus building as part of demanding curriculum changes and the appointment of more Black trustees.

Students organized two recent protests across the Atlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of historically Black institutions in Atlanta that includes Morehouse. Chants included “Joe Biden, f— off!” and “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide,” along with expletives directed at Thomas.

“Our institution is supporting genocide, and we turn a blind eye,” said Nyla Broddie, a student at Spelman College, which is part of the AUC. Brodie argued Biden’s Israel policy should be viewed in the broader context of U.S. foreign policy and domestic police violence against Black Americans.

Thomas said he “feels very positive about graduation” and that “not one” Morehouse senior — there are about 500 at the all-male private school — has opted out of participating. “That’s not to say that the sentiments about what’s going on in Gaza don’t resonate with people in our community,” Thomas said.

Thomas met privately with students as did several trustees. The Morehouse alumni association hosted a student town hall, featuring at least one veteran of the Atlanta Student Movement, a Civil Rights-era organization.

But there was a consistent message: Uninviting the president of the United States was not an option. When students raised questions about endowment investments in Israel and U.S. defense contractors, they said they were told the relevant amounts are negligible, a few hundred thousand dollars in mutual funds.

“I think folks are excited” about Biden coming, said Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Warnock said Biden is in “a great position” to talk about student debt relief, increased federal support for HBCUs and other achievements.

HBCUs have not seen crackdowns from law enforcement like those at Columbia University in New York City and the University of California, Los Angeles. However, Morehouse and the AUC have seen peaceful demonstrations, petitions and private meetings among campus stakeholders. Xavier University, a historically Black university in Louisiana, withdrew its commencement invitation for U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, citing a desire among students “to enjoy a commencement ceremony free of disruptions.”

Whether Morehouse graduates or other students protest Biden or disrupt the ceremony remains to be seen. Student protest leaders say they are unaware of any plans to demonstrate inside during the commencement.

Thomas, Morehouse's president, promised that forms of protest at commencement that “do not disrupt ceremonies” will not result in sanctions for any students.

But he also vowed to end the program early if disruptions grow.

“We will not — on Morehouse’s campus — create a national media moment,” he said, “where our inability to manage these tensions leads to people being taken out of a Morehouse ceremony in zip ties by law enforcement.”

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The Strange Ritual of Commencement Speeches

Where everything and nothing is at stake

They appear every spring, like crocuses or robins or perhaps black flies: commencement addresses. Thousands of them, across the country and across the variety of American higher education—two-year schools, four-year schools, small colleges, universities both public and private, schools of every kind. And they will appear again, despite how unusual this spring has been. Many campuses have been roiled by protests about the war in Gaza, and some institutions will curtail graduation ceremonies. But the members of this undergraduate class, who had their high-school graduations shut down by COVID in 2020, have long looked forward to a second chance at a commencement ceremony. Over the next month or so, even in the face of disruptions or cancellations, commencement addresses will be delivered to about 4 million students earning some kind of college degree.

Most of these addresses will pass into oblivion. It is a cliché for commencement speakers to open their remarks by confessing that they remember nothing about their own graduation: They have forgotten not just what was said, but who said it. Yet even if most commencement addresses prove far from memorable, the press and public eagerly anticipate them. News stories appear throughout the winter and early spring announcing who will speak where. Then, when the speakers have spoken, journalists and commentators rush to judge which should be considered the year’s best.

A few speeches are anointed as classics to be visited or revisited for years. Admiral William McRaven’s 2014 address at the University of Texas at Austin has had more than 60 million YouTube viewers, all eager to learn the 10 takeaways from his Navy SEAL training. Thousands of Americans likely hear echoes in their head every morning of his promise that if you “make your bed,” it will change your life. More than 60 million people have also watched Steve Jobs’s Stanford University speech from 2005, which eerily anticipates his own death and urges graduates to “ follow your heart .” J. K. Rowling’s 2008 Harvard talk about failure and imagination has attracted tens of millions of viewers, as has David Foster Wallace’s 2005 Kenyon College address, “ This Is Water. ” All of these also ended up in print as well, designed to make attractive gifts. Admiral McRaven’s book became a New York Times No. 1 best seller. When Wallace died, in 2008, The Wall Street Journal republished the speech in his memory.

Read: A commencement address too honest to deliver in person

Commencement greatest hits reach well beyond these chart-toppers. Time , The New York Times , The Washington Post , Slate , Elle , and countless other outlets run articles each year on the season’s winners. “Looking for some new words of wisdom?” NPR asks on its website. The headline of its online database lists the 350 “Best Commencement Speeches, Ever” in alphabetical order (but, curiously, by first name), from Aaron Sorkin to Zubin Damania. Can all 350 really be the “best”?

The assumption behind commencement speeches seems to be that even as graduates don their black robes and mortarboards, they don’t yet know quite enough. They must await, or perhaps endure, some final instruction, absorb some last missing life lesson, before they can be safely launched into what their education has supposedly prepared them for. Almost always these days, this instructional capstone is delivered by someone outside the institution, someone expected to have insight that extends beyond a university’s walls—perhaps representing a first step in the students’ transition into the “real world.” Many colleges and universities try to attract the most famous person they can. As graduation season approaches, speaker announcements take on the hallmarks of a competition: Which institutions did President Barack Obama choose for his three or four addresses each year? Who snagged Oprah Winfrey? Or Taylor Swift?

Seeking a famous speaker may, on one level, represent an unseemly preoccupation with celebrity. But it fits the logic of the occasion. What better time to hear from someone who is regarded as, at least in some way, distinguished? Someone who has led what an institution perceives to be an inspiring and successful life? Yet even before our present moment of cancel culture and partisanship, university leaders have had to worry about selecting a speaker who might spark disruptions in a ceremony meant to be a celebration. High Point University, in North Carolina, which in 2005 welcomed Rudy Giuliani—admired in the aftermath of 9/11 as “America’s mayor”—presumably would not make that choice again today. Every spring sees its complement of speakers who are protested, heckled, or disinvited.

Speakers, in turn, are attracted by a prestigious invitation, or perhaps by the presence of a child or grandchild in the graduating class—and, at times, by the offer of a substantial honorarium. Some institutions, though a minority, pay their speakers what can be hefty sums. One agent who represents a portfolio of prominent entertainers observed that fees for graduation speakers may go as high as $500,000. “Universities are vying for customers in the form of admissions, and this can be a great way to advertise and get people on campus,” she explained . When Matthew McConaughey’s $135,000 honorarium from the University of Houston was made public by inquisitive journalists in 2015, he quickly assured critics that he had donated it to charity. The Boston Globe touched off a small scandal when it reported the same year that three state schools had paid speakers $25,000 to $35,000 each.

Serving as a commencement speaker is not all glory. Usually the honored guest must perform as the centerpiece of the lunches, dinners, and meet and greets that surround the actual ceremony. And of course there is the speech. Someone has to write it. It seems unimaginable that anyone other than David Foster Wallace could have created “This Is Water,” and Kenyon students remember seeing him surrounded by sheets of paper, inking in edits and scribbling addenda right up to the start of the ceremony. At Harvard, J. K. Rowling opened her remarks by admitting to the months of anxiety she experienced as she wrote her address. At least, she noted, her worries had resulted in her losing weight. Rowling’s speech was greeted with a two-minute standing ovation. Yet she vowed never to give a commencement address again.

Many speeches are composed by someone other than the person who utters the words. Commencement speeches are not just a cultural ritual; they are an industry. A former Obama speechwriter told me recently that the springtime atmosphere at the Washington, D.C., public-affairs and communications firm where he now works is like the high-pressure environment of an accounting firm during tax season. Some of the market comprises regular clients, but a number of customers are one-offs. A lot of speechwriters hate doing commencement speeches, he said; they find it nearly impossible to come up with something fresh and compelling. These addresses, he went on, are unlike other genres of speeches, which tend to focus on the speaker. A commencement address has to be about the graduates: It is their day. Getting the “trite ideas out”—Pursue your passions! Turn failure into opportunity!—can be the first step toward “shaking loose” an idea, an angle that is distinctive to a particular speaker, place, and moment.

In any given year, a speaker in high demand will deliver addresses at several colleges and universities. Barack Obama gave 23 graduation speeches during his presidency. In principle, these speeches should not be the same; each audience, each institution, each graduate wants to feel special. Besides, in this digital age, you are going to get caught. When word got around, in advance of his 2005 Class Day speech at Harvard, that the Meet the Press host Tim Russert sometimes recycled his remarks, students at Harvard passed around bingo cards printed with some of his favorite phrases and encouraged attendees to play.

Senator Chuck Schumer doesn’t care about being caught. He loves graduations, and shows up, sometimes unannounced—perhaps even uninvited, though none of his hosts has ever said so—at as many as eight commencement ceremonies across the state of New York every year. He delivers the same speech every time. A student complained on a Reddit thread that he had heard the speech five times in six years—at his high-school, college, and graduate-school commencements, and at his sister’s high-school and college ceremonies. “OH FUCK,” his long-suffering family finally proclaimed, “NOT AGAIN.” (Perhaps, another Reddit contributor suggested, the graduates could arrange to do a sing-along.) When John Oliver, the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight , learned about Senator Schumer’s springtime follies, he couldn’t resist showing clips of him saying exactly the same thing year after year after year, with the same verbal sound effects and hand gestures—an “endless graduation-speech time loop.”

The peril of graduation speeches is that, however hard you struggle, you are in danger of repeating not just yourself but every person who has ever given one. Asked to generate a commencement address, ChatGPT produces a script that sounds like every speech you’ve ever heard, because it is in fact just that: a distillation of everything everyone has ever said, or at least everything that ChatGPT has found available in its training data. Graduates should practice resilience, pursue purpose, nurture relationships, embrace change, innovate, accept their responsibility to lead, and persevere as they embark on their journey into “a world of infinite possibilities.”

Read: What John F. Kennedy’s moon speech reveals 50 years later

We have all heard this speech. We’ll hear versions of it again this spring. But we hope for something better, and we’ll scour newspapers and the internet to see if it has been delivered somewhere. We ask powerful, accomplished people to stand before us and, for a moment, present a different self—to open up, become vulnerable, be reflective, let us see inside. What is a meaningful life, and how do I live one? These are questions that are customarily reserved for late nights in undergraduate dormitories, for the years before the at-once tedious and terrifying burdens of Real Life—careers, mortgages, children, aging bodies, disappointed hopes—overtake us.

Everything and nothing is at stake in a commencement address. Maybe you have already heard it eight times. Maybe there was nothing worth hearing in the first place. But perhaps you will encounter a speaker who, even in this tumultuous spring, can reach across the chasm of innocence and experience separating graduates and the person talking to them. The old endeavor to imagine themselves young and look through fresh eyes again; the young begin to imagine themselves old, as they will become all too soon.

The best commencement address is a gift—of self and of hope across generations. It is not surprising that these speeches so rarely succeed. The surprise should be when they do. Innocence can only faintly imagine experience. No generation can really explain to another what is to come. And experience can never recapture innocence, however wistful we may be for what has been lost. The beauty of commencement speeches is that they represent a moment when we try.

National Politics | Biden’s upcoming graduation speech roils…

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National politics | text message on john o’keefe a cliffhanger in karen read trial, national politics, national politics | biden’s upcoming graduation speech roils morehouse college, a center of black politics and culture.

ATLANTA (AP) — When he gives the commencement address at Morehouse College, President Joe Biden will have his most direct engagement with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war at a center of Black politics and culture.

Morehouse is located in Atlanta, the largest city in the swing state of Georgia, which Biden flipped from former President Donald Trump four years ago. Biden’s speech Sunday will come as he tries to make inroads with a key and symbolic constituency — young Black men — and repair the diverse coalition that elected him to the White House.

The announcement of the speech last month triggered peaceful protests and calls for the university administration to cancel over Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Some students at Morehouse and other historically Black campuses in Atlanta say they vociferously oppose Biden and the decision to have him speak, mirroring the tension Biden faces in many communities of color and with young voters nationally .

Morehouse President David Thomas said in an interview that the emotions around the speech made it all the more important that Biden speak.

“In many ways, these are the moments Morehouse was born for,” he said. “We need someplace in this country that can hold the tensions that threaten to divide us. If Morehouse can’t hold those tensions, then no place can.”

The speech comes at a critical moment for Biden in his general election rematch against Trump. Biden is lagging in support among both Black voters and people under 30, groups that were key to his narrow 2020 victories in several battleground states, including Georgia.

Fifty-five percent of Black adults approved of the way Biden is handling his job as president, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in March, a figure far below earlier in his presidency. Overall, 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds approved in the same poll.

“This is a global catastrophe in Gaza, and Joe Biden coming to pander for our votes is political blackface,” said Morehouse sophomore Anwar Karim, who urged Thomas and school trustees to rescind Biden’s invitation.

Recent scenes on American campuses reflect objections among many young voters about Israel’s assaults in Gaza. Biden has backed Israel since Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of hostages on Oct. 7. That includes weapons shipments to the longstanding U.S. ally, even as Biden advocates for a cease-fire, criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactics and the civilian death toll in Gaza surpasses 35,000 people, many of them women and children.

Many younger Black people have identified with the Palestinian cause and have at times drawn parallels between Israeli rule of the Palestinian territories and South Africa’s now-defunct apartheid system and abolished Jim Crow laws in the U.S. Israel rejects claims that its system of laws for Palestinians constitutes apartheid.

“I think that the president will do himself good if he does not duck that, especially when you think about the audience that he will be speaking to directly and to the nation,” Thomas said.

Sunday’s speech will culminate a four-day span during which Biden will concentrate on reaching Black communities. On Thursday, the White House is hosting plaintiffs from the Brown v. Board of Education case that barred legal segregation of America’s public schools. The following day, Biden will address an NAACP gathering commemorating the 70th anniversary of the landmark decision.

Former U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, a longtime Biden ally who helped broker his speech at Morehouse, said he understood students’ concerns but emphasized that Biden has pressured Netanyahu and supports a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians. Trump, meanwhile, has effectively abandoned that long-held U.S. position and said Israel should “finish the problem” in Gaza.

“That’s nowhere in the conversation,” Richmond said.

The debate over Biden’s speech at Morehouse reflected a fundamental tension of historically Black colleges and universities, which are both dedicated to social justice and Black advancement and run by administrators who are committed to keeping order.

“We look like a very conservative institution” sometimes, Thomas said. “On one hand, the institution has to be the stable object where we are today in the world.”

But, he added, the university’s long-term purpose is to “support our students in going out to create a better world.”

Some students note that leaders of Morehouse and other HBCUs did not always support King and other Civil Rights activists who are venerated today. Morehouse, for instance, expelled the actor Samuel L. Jackson in 1969 after he and other students held Morehouse trustees, including King’s father, in a campus building as part of demanding curriculum changes and the appointment of more Black trustees.

Students organized two recent protests across the Atlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of historically Black institutions in Atlanta that includes Morehouse. Chants included “Joe Biden, f— off!” and “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide,” along with expletives directed at Thomas.

“Our institution is supporting genocide, and we turn a blind eye,” said Nyla Broddie, a student at Spelman College, which is part of the AUC. Brodie argued Biden’s Israel policy should be viewed in the broader context of U.S. foreign policy and domestic police violence against Black Americans.

Thomas said he “feels very positive about graduation” and that “not one” Morehouse senior — there are about 500 at the all-male private school — has opted out of participating. “That’s not to say that the sentiments about what’s going on in Gaza don’t resonate with people in our community,” Thomas said.

Thomas met privately with students as did several trustees. The Morehouse alumni association hosted a student town hall, featuring at least one veteran of the Atlanta Student Movement, a Civil Rights-era organization.

But there was a consistent message: Uninviting the president of the United States was not an option. When students raised questions about endowment investments in Israel and U.S. defense contractors, they said they were told the relevant amounts are negligible, a few hundred thousand dollars in mutual funds.

“I think folks are excited” about Biden coming, said Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Warnock said Biden is in “a great position” to talk about student debt relief , increased federal support for HBCUs and other achievements.

HBCUs have not seen crackdowns from law enforcement like those at Columbia University in New York City and the University of California, Los Angeles. However, Morehouse and the AUC have seen peaceful demonstrations, petitions and private meetings among campus stakeholders. Xavier University, a historically Black university in Louisiana, withdrew its commencement invitation for U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield , citing a desire among students “to enjoy a commencement ceremony free of disruptions.”

Whether Morehouse graduates or other students protest Biden or disrupt the ceremony remains to be seen. Student protest leaders say they are unaware of any plans to demonstrate inside during the commencement.

Thomas, Morehouse’s president, promised that forms of protest at commencement that “do not disrupt ceremonies” will not result in sanctions for any students.

But he also vowed to end the program early if disruptions grow.

“We will not — on Morehouse’s campus — create a national media moment,” he said, “where our inability to manage these tensions leads to people being taken out of a Morehouse ceremony in zip ties by law enforcement.”

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N.F.L. Player Draws Rebukes (and Trolling) for Graduation Speech

Kansas City’s Harrison Butker quoted Taylor Swift lyrics while telling men to be “unapologetic in your masculinity” and women to focus on being homemakers.

By Scott Cacciola and Benjamin Hoffman

Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs is one of the best place-kickers in the N.F.L. That is enough to make him somewhat famous in the football world, but players of his position aren’t typically known by more casual observers — unless they do something especially great or terrible on the field.

Last weekend, with the N.F.L. solidly in its off-season, Mr. Butker found himself at the center of a great deal of vitriol on social media, and it had nothing to do with his job.

On Saturday, Mr. Butker delivered a 20-minute commencement address to the graduates of Benedictine College, a conservative Catholic school in Atchison, Kan., about 50 miles northwest of Kansas City. He packed his speech full of conservative political discourse, railing against “degenerative cultural values and media.” He rebuked President Biden for his stance as a Catholic who supports abortion rights, and urged women to forgo careers so that they could support their husbands.

“I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,” Mr. Butker said. “I’m on this stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation.”

He added: “It cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”

Mr. Butker, who appeared to be choking up, was greeted by a round of applause that lasted for nearly 20 seconds before he was able to continue. At the end of his speech, the crowd gave him a standing ovation.

The reaction online, however, was not nearly as receptive, with his comments being picked apart by posters on TikTok, Instagram and X.

Team officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the views Mr. Butker expressed prompted the N.F.L. to issue a statement saying the speech did not match the league’s values, and resulted in a rival team, the Los Angeles Chargers, trolling Mr. Butker on social media. More than 125,000 people, as of Thursday afternoon, had signed a petition on Change.org calling for Kansas City to cut ties with its star kicker.

Mr. Butker, 28, who describes himself as a devout Catholic, has won three Super Bowls with Kansas City since joining the team as a rookie in 2017. He converted all 11 of his field-goal attempts in the team’s most recent playoff run, and set a record for the longest field goal in Super Bowl history (57 yards) in the team’s championship-clinching victory over the San Francisco 49ers in February.

But on a team full of stars — Patrick Mahomes is widely considered the best quarterback in the N.F.L., and the team’s tight end, Travis Kelce, is among the best to ever play his position and is dating Taylor Swift — Mr. Butker had never really stood out. His speech on Saturday may have changed all that.

In the speech, Mr. Butker encouraged men to be “unapologetic in your masculinity,” referenced “the deadly sins” of homosexuality, and criticized Catholic priests for deriving “their happiness from the adulation they receive from their parishioners.” In attempting to drive home his point, Mr. Butker invoked lyrics from Ms. Swift’s song “ Bejeweled ” without mentioning her or Mr. Kelce by name.

“This undue familiarity will prove to be problematic every time,” Mr. Butker said, “because as my teammate’s girlfriend says, ‘familiarity breeds contempt.’”

Quoting Ms. Swift’s lyrics in such a speech was unusual, considering her status as an entertainment mogul who speaks frequently of empowering women and is believed to have a net worth of more than $1 billion .

Mr. Butker had also weighed in on Ms. Swift earlier this year, in an interview with the Eternal Word Television Network, describing her as “so humble and so gracious.” He added, in a nod to the values he discussed in Saturday’s speech, that he hoped that she and Mr. Kelce would “get married and start a family.”

The views expressed during Mr. Butker’s commencement speech at Benedictine drew swift condemnation. Justice Horn, a former Kansas City commissioner, wrote : “Harrison Butker doesn’t represent Kansas City nor has he ever. Kansas City has always been a place that welcomes, affirms and embraces our LGBTQ+ community members.”

Jessica Valenti, a feminist author, addressed the speech in her “Abortion, Every Day” newsletter , saying “So let’s be very clear about this commencement speech: Butker’s remarks weren’t ‘fringe’ or radical — they’re the law. He was simply saying out loud what Republicans have already codified: that women’s role in this country is to bear children and support men, who are the actual stars of the show.” She said bans on abortion, like the ones Mr. Butker is advocating, are “the embodiment of the smallest men’s biggest wishes.”

The N.F.L.’s response was to issue a statement from Jonathan Beane, the league’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, in which he said that Mr. Butker’s “views are not those of the N.F.L. as an organization. The N.F.L. is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”

The Chargers, a rival team of the Chiefs, went a step beyond that, poking fun at Mr. Butker during a video announcing the team’s 2024 schedule. In the video, a Sims character with a striking resemblance to Mr. Butker was shown working in the kitchen.

As the week has unfolded, the discussion of Mr. Butker has expanded to looking into other aspects of his life. Among the details discussed by many on social media: Despite his stance on women in the workplace, his mother, Elizabeth Keller Butker, has a distinguished career. She is a medical physicist in the department of radiation oncology at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Scott Cacciola writes features and profiles of people in the worlds of sports and entertainment for the Styles section of The Times. More about Scott Cacciola

Benjamin Hoffman is a senior editor who writes, assigns and edits stories primarily on the intersection between sports, lifestyle and culture. More about Benjamin Hoffman

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Competing for Olympic Spots:  Two friends had run side by side for more than 10,000 miles. Both vied for a place in the marathon at the Paris Games .

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Biden's Upcoming Graduation Speech Roils Morehouse College, a Center of Black Politics and Culture

President Joe Biden will have his most direct engagement with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war when he speaks at Morehouse College's commencement

Biden's Upcoming Graduation Speech Roils Morehouse College, a Center of Black Politics and Culture

Patrick Semansky

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks in support of changing the Senate filibuster rules that have stalled voting rights legislation, at Atlanta University Center Consortium, on the grounds of Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, Jan. 11, 2022, in Atlanta. Biden will have his most direct engagement with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war when he speaks at Morehouse College's commencement. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

ATLANTA (AP) — When he gives the commencement address at Morehouse College, President Joe Biden will have his most direct engagement with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war at a center of Black politics and culture.

Morehouse is located in Atlanta, the largest city in the swing state of Georgia , which Biden flipped from then-President Donald Trump four years ago. Biden's speech Sunday will come as the Democrat tries to make inroads with a key and symbolic constituency — young Black men — and repair the diverse coalition that elected him to the White House.

The announcement of the speech last month triggered peaceful protests and calls for the university administration to cancel over Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Some students at Morehouse and other historically Black campuses in Atlanta say they vociferously oppose Biden and the decision to have him speak, mirroring the tension Biden faces in many communities of color and with young voters nationally .

Morehouse President David Thomas said in an interview that the emotions around the speech made it all the more important that Biden speak.

“In many ways, these are the moments Morehouse was born for,” he said. “We need someplace in this country that can hold the tensions that threaten to divide us. If Morehouse can’t hold those tensions, then no place can.”

The speech comes at a critical moment for Biden in his general election rematch against Trump, a Republican. Biden is lagging in support among both Black voters and people under 30, groups that were key to his narrow 2020 victories in several battleground states, including Georgia.

Fifty-five percent of Black adults approved of the way Biden is handling his job as president, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in March, a figure far below earlier in his presidency. Overall, 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds approved in the same poll.

“This is a global catastrophe in Gaza, and Joe Biden coming to pander for our votes is political blackface,” said Morehouse sophomore Anwar Karim, who urged Thomas and school trustees to rescind Biden’s invitation.

Recent scenes on American campuses reflect objections among many young voters about Israel’s assaults in Gaza. Biden has backed Israel since Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of hostages on Oct. 7. That includes weapons shipments to the longstanding U.S. ally, even as Biden advocates for a cease-fire, criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactics and the death toll in Gaza surpasses 35,000 people, many of them women and children.

Many younger Black people have identified with the Palestinian cause and have at times drawn parallels between Israeli rule of the Palestinian territories and South Africa’s now-defunct apartheid system and abolished Jim Crow laws in the U.S. Israel rejects claims that its system of laws for Palestinians constitutes apartheid.

“I think that the president will do himself good if he does not duck that, especially when you think about the audience that he will be speaking to directly and to the nation,” Thomas said.

Sunday's speech will culminate a four-day span during which Biden will concentrate on reaching Black communities. On Thursday, Biden met privately with plaintiffs from the Brown v. Board of Education case that barred legal segregation of America’s public schools. The following day, Biden will address an NAACP gathering commemorating the 70th anniversary of the landmark decision.

Former U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, a longtime Biden ally who helped broker his speech at Morehouse, said he understood students’ concerns but emphasized that Biden has pressured Netanyahu and supports a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians. Trump, meanwhile, has effectively abandoned that long-held U.S. position and said Israel should “finish the problem” in Gaza.

“That’s nowhere in the conversation,” Richmond said.

The debate over Biden's speech at Morehouse reflected a fundamental tension of historically Black colleges and universities, which are both dedicated to social justice and Black advancement and run by administrators who are committed to keeping order.

“We look like a very conservative institution” sometimes, Thomas said. “On one hand, the institution has to be the stable object where we are today in the world.”

But, he added, the university's long-term purpose is to “support our students in going out to create a better world.”

Blowback started even before Thomas publicly announced Biden was coming. Faculty sent executives a letter of concern, prompting an online town hall. Alumni gathered several hundred signatures to urge that Thomas rescind Biden’s invitation. The petition called the invitation antithetical to the pacifism Martin Luther King Jr., a Morehouse alumnus, expressed when opposing the Vietnam War.

Some students note that leaders of Morehouse and other HBCUs did not always support King and other Civil Rights activists who are venerated today. Morehouse, for instance, expelled the actor Samuel L. Jackson in 1969 after he and other students held Morehouse trustees, including King’s father, in a campus building as part of demanding curriculum changes and the appointment of more Black trustees.

Students organized two recent protests across the Atlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of historically Black institutions in Atlanta that includes Morehouse. Chants included “Joe Biden, f— off!” and “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide,” along with expletives directed at Thomas.

“Our institution is supporting genocide, and we turn a blind eye,” said Nyla Broddie, a student at Spelman College, which is part of the AUC. Brodie argued Biden’s Israel policy should be viewed in the broader context of U.S. foreign policy and domestic police violence against Black Americans.

Thomas said he “feels very positive about graduation” and that “not one” Morehouse senior — there are about 500 at the all-male private school — has opted out of participating. “That’s not to say that the sentiments about what’s going on in Gaza don’t resonate with people in our community,” Thomas said.

Thomas met privately with students as did several trustees. The Morehouse alumni association hosted a student town hall, featuring at least one veteran of the Atlanta Student Movement, a Civil Rights-era organization.

But there was a consistent message: Uninviting the president of the United States was not an option. When students raised questions about endowment investments in Israel and U.S. defense contractors, they said they were told the relevant amounts are negligible, a few hundred thousand dollars in mutual funds.

“I think folks are excited” about Biden coming, said Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Warnock said Biden is in “a great position” to talk about student debt relief , increased federal support for HBCUs and other achievements.

HBCUs have not seen crackdowns from law enforcement like those at Columbia University in New York City and the University of California, Los Angeles. However, Morehouse and the AUC have seen peaceful demonstrations, petitions and private meetings among campus stakeholders. Xavier University, a historically Black university in Louisiana , withdrew its commencement invitation for U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield , citing a desire among students “to enjoy a commencement ceremony free of disruptions.”

Whether Morehouse graduates or other students protest Biden or disrupt the ceremony remains to be seen. Student protest leaders say they are unaware of any plans to demonstrate inside during the commencement.

Thomas, Morehouse's president, promised that forms of protest at commencement that “do not disrupt ceremonies” will not result in sanctions for any students.

But he also vowed to end the program early if disruptions grow.

“We will not — on Morehouse’s campus — create a national media moment,” he said, “where our inability to manage these tensions leads to people being taken out of a Morehouse ceremony in zip ties by law enforcement.”

Copyright 2024 The  Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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FTCC celebrates record number of graduates at 62nd Commencement

Publish date.

FTCC President Dr. Mark Sorrells hands out diplomas on stage at the College’s 62nd Commencement Exercises on May 17, 2024. [Photo by Brad Losh]

Fayetteville Technical Community College celebrated a record-setting number of graduates Friday, honoring 3,045 students at its 62nd Annual Commencement Exercises.

That number is a 47-percent increase over 2022-23 as the college rebounds from a national dip in higher education enrollment in the wake of the pandemic.

The celebration was a daylong affair at the Crown Coliseum featuring two ceremonies to accommodate the number of graduates.

Students from programs in Allied Health Technologies, Nursing, College and Career Readiness, Business and Computer Information Technology were recognized in a morning ceremony, while graduates of the Arts and Humanities, Math and Sciences, Public Service and Engineering and Applied Technology programs participated in the afternoon.

James Sanders III delivered the keynote address at each ceremony. Sanders, a Communications instructor at FTCC, motivational speaker and radio host, offered congratulations and words of empowerment to the graduates.

“As you prepare to embark on the next chapter of your journey, I urge you to remember that your education is not for your benefit alone,” he said. “It is a powerful tool to mark a positive impact on your communities and to be able to make meaningful change in the world.”

Sanders encouraged the graduates to “be difference-makers” in their future endeavors.

“As you step out into the world, remember the power of your education here at FTCC and the responsibility that comes with it.”

FTCC President Dr. Mark Sorrells presided over the ceremonies, awarding more than 5,200 degrees, diplomas and certificates to 2024 graduates. Among degree-earners, 753 students graduated with Honors and 198 with Highest Honors.

“All of today’s graduates have earned distinction through their hard work, their dedication and commitment to achieving both their educational and career goals,” Sorrells said. “Graduates, we join your family and friends in celebrating your accomplishments. We commend you for crossing the finish line.

“You met life’s challenges head on, and you demonstrated success.”

Students Morgan Brady and Angie Saavedra were honored during the morning ceremony as recipients of college- and state-level awards.

Brady, a graduate of Speech-Language Pathology Assistant program, received the McLean President’s Award, an honor given by FTCC Foundation to a student selected by a committee of faculty and staff members.

Saavedra was chosen as FTCC’s recipient of the N.C. Community College System Academic Excellence Award. She graduated with an Associate in Arts and an Associate in Applied Science in Accounting.

Three FTCC students in the Associate in Fine Arts in Music program sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” at both ceremonies and one – Tyler Howard – graduated in the afternoon ceremony. Joshua Owens and Laura Bueno Rodriguez joined Howard in singing the anthem.

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Joplin Police Capt. honored for heroic actions during 2022 shooting spree

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - The Joplin, Mo., Police Captain has been honored for heroic actions he took during a 2022 shooting spree that took the lives of two of his coworkers.

U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) announced on Friday, May 17, that Joplin, Missouri, Police Captain William Davis was honored as a Champion of Missouri following his heroic actions. The announcement comes during National Police Week.

“Police don’t just represent the law in Missouri – their role in our communities is far deeper than that. They represent pillars of courage and sacrifice as well as a friendly helping hand for those in need, something every community is founded on,” Sen. Schmitt said. “Over my tenure in public service, I have had the chance to not only meet but develop deeper relationships with police forces in Missouri. Captain Davis went above and beyond the call of duty, putting his life on the line to protect his community. It is an honor to represent officers such as Capt. William Davis, a deserved Champion of Missouri.”

Schmitt noted that on March 8, 2022, Cpt. Davis put an end to a shooting spree that killed police Corporal Benjamin Cooper and Officer Jake Reed. The incident also seriously injured Officer Rick Hirshey.

The Senator also said Hermann Police Detective Sergeant Mason Griffith, his partner Adam Sullentrup and Missouri State Highway Patrol Cpt. Philip Gregory were honored as Champions of Missouri in January when the program was announced. Griffith died in the line of duty in 2023 while Sullentrup was critically inured. Meanwhile, Gregory was honored for his storied career in law enforcement.

For more information, click HERE .

Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.

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