With an emphasis on the many faces and emotions of 乐播传媒 College seniors, highlights of the 2015 Commencement ceremony at the college on May 31, 2015. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

For 484 members of the Class of 2015, four years of study culminated in several joyous hours in Merrill Gymnasium, the site of Commencement this year as rain showers fell outside.

Here are 19 moments, in photographs and video, from those final four hours on May 31, 2015.

7:56 a.m.
Precious Cargo

Workers with Facility Services guide their precious cargo, 484 乐播传媒 diplomas, into Merrill Gymnasium.

8:20 a.m.
Getting with the Programs

Student workers, including Anan Ahmed ’17 of Mal茅, Maldives, place Commencement programs on chairs.

Within 90 minutes, the gym will fill to capacity with 3,300 seniors, family, friends, faculty, and honorands. Eight hundred and fifty guests will watch from overflow locations on campus with another 2,000 tuning in for the livestream. (Marc Glass ’88/乐播传媒 College)

9:20 a.m.
Thinking Caps

The Commencement speaker, mathematician Manjul Bhargava (left), winner of the Fields Medal in 2014, gets some expert advice on mortarboard style from President Spencer (second from left) and fellow honorands Joan Benoit Samuelson, Mark Abelson, and Thomas Moser. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

9:28 a.m.
Selfie Aware

Honorand Mark Abelson takes a selfie with his faculty host, John Kelsey, professor emeritus of psychology.

Kelsey was the academic and thesis adviser to Mark’s son, Stuart Abelson, a 1997 neuroscience graduate who is now a 乐播传媒 trustee. Stuart is also the CEO of Ora, the company that Mark Abelson founded and that is now the world鈥檚 leading ophthalmic research and product development firm. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

9:33 a.m.
Persuasive Tricolon

They came, they robed, they selfied: Faculty members of the Department of Rhetoric pose for a memento. Jonathan Cavallero holds the phone. Next to him is Stephanie Kelley-Romano, and Jan Hovden is below. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

9:39 a.m.
The Party Arrives

Professor of Sociology and Mace Bearer Sawyer Sylvester leads the academic procession, including the platform party headed by President Clayton Spencer, into Merrill Gymnasium. (Phyllis Graber Jensen)

10:33 a.m.
Wide Audience

Manjul Bhargava delivers his Commencement address in Merrill Gym. This line got a big laugh:

“I suspect that when you all exited your last class here at 乐播传媒 and were getting ready for graduation, you probably weren鈥檛 thinking, ‘I wish I could have had one more math class!’ In case you were thinking this, your dream has just come true.”

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

10:44 a.m.
‘Ideally Prepared

乐播传媒 professors applaud as Manjul Bhargava concludes his Commencement address. He ended with this sentiment:

“Use all these wonderful experiences, these things you enjoy, these connections, to find a job but beyond that, to do good work聽鈥� in the language of 乐播传媒, to find your Purposeful Work聽鈥� to have fun, to make new friends, to take care of your family, your friends and others, and to do good work in the world. Of course, I believe the experiences that you鈥檝e had at 乐播传媒 already ideally prepare you to do exactly this.”

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

10:50 a.m.
Sad Songs Say So Much

Emotion shows on the faces of the Commencement Choir, composed of underclassmen, as they perform “For Good” from the musical Wicked, which ends with the line, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

10:54 a.m.
The A’s Have It

The first seniors march聽 to the stage to receive their 乐播传媒 diplomas.

The first two seniors, Cody Abbott and Eric Adamson, have already passed the photographer at this point, so the seniors you see are, from right, Alexandra Adolph of Amherst, Mass., Olalekan Afuye Ado of Ekti, Nigeria, Yaa Agyare of London, David Alfaro of Los Angeles, John Allen of Westfield, N.J., and Hannah Allerton of New York City. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

11:24 a.m.
Call and Response

The cheering section for senior Asha Mohamud of Lewiston calls out as she receives her diploma. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

11:33 a.m.
Stepping Out

President Spencer approves as senior Isaiah Rice, a dance and politics double major, does some quick moves as he arrives for his diploma. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

11:37 a.m.
To a Certain Degree

Hannah Siegel of Tokyo, an environmental studies major who graduated cum laude, holds her diploma. The Class of 2015 has 14 Fulbright Fellows, 93 double majors and one triple major, 37 honors thesis students, and 69 All-Academic athletes. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

11:41 a.m.
Fotograf铆a Final

Cody Tracey, a cum laude Spanish major from Baltimore, poses for the official photographer after leaving the stage. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

11:46 a.m.
Right Left

Bryan Lehrer of Armonk, N.Y., adjusts the tassel of Thomas Leonard of North Granby, Conn., after the seniors made the traditional tassel move from their right to left. At right is Vasu Leeaphon of Bangkok; at left, Frances Leslie of Wiscasset, Maine. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

11:53 a.m.
The Handoff

Professor of Sociology Sawyer Sylvester, the senior member of the 乐播传媒 faculty and thus the bearer of the college mace at ceremonial events, hands the mace to his successor, Charles Franklin Phillips Professor of Economics Michael Murray. Sylvester retires from the 乐播传媒 faculty on July 31.

11:54 a.m.
Pomp and Circumdance

Faculty members move to the jubilant recessional music by the Atlantic Clarion Steel Band. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

11:59 a.m.
Embraceable You

Outside of Merrill Gym, as the graduates march past the faculty during the recessional, Daniel Oyolu, a Spanish major from Houston, receives a congratulatory embrace from Associate Professor of Spanish Claudia Aburto n. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

12:08 p.m.
Touching Moment

The formal ceremonies over, it’s time for families to reunite. Julia Ofman ’15, a religious studies major from Brooklyn, N.Y., gets a loving squeeze from her sister, Kaitlin, as their mother, Ursula, watches her two daughters. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

We don’t get our full names publicly announced that often, and even less often to an audience of several thousand.

But that’s what happens at Commencement. A few minutes before their full names would be announced, one by one, to the huge crowd in Merrill Gymnasium, we asked these 乐播传媒 senior to explain what’s in a name…their name.

Livestream video clips of 乐播传媒 Commencement
May 31, 2015

Processional

President’s Welcome

Senior Address

Presentation of Honorands

Commencement Address

Commencement Choir

Conferral of Degrees

Alumni Association Welcome

Benediction

Recessional

“If there is nothing else that I have learned from this campus,” 乐播传媒 senior Alex Bolden told a gymnasium full of people gathered to see him and his classmates graduate, “it is that there are no bounds to the change a community can effect when it is grounded in love.”

In the Senior Address that Bolden, a double major in philosophy and rhetoric from Cleveland, offered at 乐播传媒’ 149th Commencement, he explored the kind of love that bonds a class with a college and the classmates with each other, and how that love should now be directed outwardly.

“It is out of love that we have become allies to those who are struggling,” he said, “and it is out of love that we stand for those who cannot stand for themselves.”

But Bolden’s speech was charged with love of a more immediate kind, too. He said, “I want to give special recognition to my fianc茅e,” classmate Jamilia Davis of Oak Park, Ill. “Thanks for saying ‘yes’ last night.”

That was one of several peak moments in a May 31 ceremony also highlighted by a Commencement address by honorary degree recipient and award-winning mathematician Manjul Bhargava.

In his talk, Princeton professor and Fields Medal recipient Bhargava celebrated the liberal arts education through an exploration of his own fascination with the unities among music, poetry, and math.

Receiving honorary degrees in addition to Bhargava were two internationally acclaimed Mainers, furniture designer Thomas Moser and Olympic runner and environmentalist Joan Benoit Samuelson; and Mark Abelson, a ophthalmological researcher responsible for numerous eye remedies.

The college conferred bachelor’s of arts and of science degrees on 484 乐播传媒 graduates.

Held in Merrill Gymnasium because of rain, the ceremony began with a welcome from President Clayton Spencer. Perhaps inspired by Bhargava, a specialist in the properties of whole numbers, Spencer quantified some of the accomplishments of the graduating class 鈥� which contains, for example, 14 Fulbright Fellows, 93 double majors and one triple major, 37 honors thesis students, and 69 NESCAC All-Academic athletes.

That last figure, by the way, gave the president a chance for a shout-out to the women’s rowing team, whose win in the NCAA Division III championship yesterday in Gold River, Calif., gave 乐播传媒 its first-ever NCAA team championship.

In another memorable development, Professor of Sociology Sawyer Sylvester, appointed to the faculty in 1969, carried the college mace for the last time.

As senior member of the faculty, Sylvester had the honor of bearing the mace at the head of the academic procession. But he is retiring this year, so while he carried the ceremonial mace into Commencement, he didn’t leave with it.

As he led the academic procession from the stage during the recessional, Sylvester handed over the mace to his successor, Charles Franklin Phillips Professor of Economics Michael Murray.

“The surprising unity of all fields of human endeavor.”

Bhargava began his address in a light vein. “When you all exited your last class here at 乐播传媒 and were getting ready for graduation, you probably weren鈥檛 thinking, ‘I wish I could have had one more math class!’ ” he said. “In case you were thinking this, your dream has just come true.”

But not really. Bhargava devoted most of his time at the podium to an examination of, in his words, “the relationships that exist between mathematics and art, between sciences and the humanities 鈥� and more generally the surprising unity of all fields of human endeavor 鈥� and what this all means in terms of the value of a liberal arts education.”

Bhargava is known as a theorist who perceives math’s complexities in the context of a greater whole in which, for him, music and ancient Sanskrit poetry also figure prominently.

He told the 乐播传媒 audience a bit about the numerical relationships that determine which frequencies of sound are pleasing to the ear, and therefore musical.

He pointed out that several central concepts in mathematics, such as Fibonacci numbers, “were first discovered . . . in the context of poetry.” In fact, the structure of the Sanskrit poetry that Bhargava studied with his grandfather “naturally led early poets and linguists to consider various mathematical and scientific questions that one might not immediately expect from a poet.”

In fact, hundreds of years ago math was taught through poetry, Bhargava said, offering an example of a poem from 1150 that uses jasmine, a fragrant lotus blossom and the buzz felt between a male and a female bee to teach square roots and fractions.

In one of several generous references to his fellow honorands, Bhargava cited ophthalmologist Abelson to exemplify how concepts from outside one’s own discipline can catalyze important breakthroughs 鈥� disciplines, in Abelson’s case, including pharmacology, pathophysiology, economics, chemistry, and cellular biology.

A second example was the mathematician and Nobel Laureate John Nash, subject of the film A Beautiful Mind and creator of so-called Nash equilibrium, a broadly useful theory for analyzing competitive situations. Clearly moved by the recent deaths of Nash, a colleague from Princeton, and his wife in a car crash, Bhargava said that Nash equilibrium was not only a mathematical masterpiece, “but also contained extremely artistic, creative ideas and constructions that were inspired by phenomena in neighboring disciplines.”

Nash’s example “clearly show[s] that creativity and technical know-how are both needed in this world, and are needed together, and creativity or inspiration often comes from the connections, relations, and analogies that one sees with other subjects.”

“Keep learning about other disciplines,” Bhargava told the graduates. “And don鈥檛 just appreciate the connections between different realms of human endeavor that you find but actively look for them 鈥� because they鈥檙e definitely out there.”

Directed and accompanied by music faculty member John Corrie, the Commencement Choir followed Bhargava with a performance of Stephen Schwartz鈥檚 song 鈥淔or Good鈥� from the musical Wicked. It was another way for the Class of of 2015 to offer a more-than-fond farewell: 鈥淏ecause I knew you / I have been changed / For good.鈥�

“What was the moment you fell in love with 乐播传媒?”

At the top of the ceremony, Bolden was pointed and eloquent in describing how the love 乐播传媒 students feel for each other and their school is, or should be, “a love that can change the world.”

“What was the moment you fell in love with 乐播传媒?” he asked his classmates. He explained how his own introduction to 乐播传媒 differed sharply from those of many 乐播传媒 students. Unmoved by the beautiful campus, respected professors, and so on, Bolden came instead for financial reasons, wishing he could attend a big city university instead.

For him, falling in love with 乐播传媒 was a gradual accretion of details: things like a party invitation in his second week at 乐播传媒 and a film course taught by Charles Nero that forever changed how Bolden interprets media.

But it was a love that Bolden awoke to only during study abroad thousands of miles away, studying in New Zealand.

“It was at that point that I realized that 乐播传媒 was not only the right choice for me, but where I belonged.”

Asking his classmates again when they fell in love with 乐播传媒, Bolden said:

“I challenge you to share the love of that moment . . . with those who need it the most, whether that be by writing a scholarly dissertation on women鈥檚 rights, reassuring that little boy or girl in your City Year or Teach for America class that ‘it gets better,’ or organizing a rally against fracking 鈥� or simply sharing on social media the fact that black lives do and have always mattered.

“Do it all with the same love that made you fall in love with those here next to you today.”

Held the day before Commencement on the Historic Quad, the annual Baccalaureate Service provides an opportunity for graduating seniors and their guests to reflect and celebrate, to rejoice and give thanks.

Photographs by Phyllis Graber Jensen and text by Doug Hubley.

A transcript of the 2015 Commencement address delivered by Manjul Bhargava,聽winner of the 2014 Fields Medal for mathematics and a professor at Princeton University.

President Clayton Spencer, Trustees, fellow honorary degree recipients, the professors and administrators and staff of 乐播传媒 College who are present here today, and of course, most importantly, the 乐播传媒 graduating class of 2015 and families. Congratulations and thank you so much. It鈥檚 such a great pleasure and honor to be here at this wonderful and storied liberal arts college on this grand occasion. I have to say I am such a big fan of all the honorary degree recipients that are here today 鈥� Mark Abelson, Thomas Moser, and Joan Benoit Samuelson 鈥� it鈥檚 really a true honor to be among them.

And it鈥檚 a real pleasure and honor to be giving this Commencement address on this occasion. It鈥檚 not often that a mathematician is asked to give a commencement address 鈥� perhaps this is for good reason! I suspect that when you all exited your last class here at 乐播传媒 and were getting ready for graduation, you probably weren鈥檛 thinking, 鈥淚 wish I could have had one more math class!鈥� In case you were thinking this, your dream has just come true. No, I鈥檓 just kidding. I won鈥檛 be giving a math lecture today.

But I thought I would say a few words about some of those things that inspired me to go into mathematics and about some of the things that inspired today鈥檚 honorary degree recipients to do what they鈥檙e doing. And hopefully what will inspire many of you to do what you will eventually do.

Namely, I wanted to say a few words about the numerous remarkable relationships among different fields of human endeavor, the relationships that exist between mathematics and art, between sciences and the humanities聽鈥� and more generally the surprising unity of all fields of human endeavor and what this all means in terms of the value of a liberal arts education, such as the one you received here at 乐播传媒. It鈥檚 something that I really believe you are so lucky and blessed to be walking out with today.

As you all know so well, liberal arts education allows one to learn and think critically across a wide range of disciplines. Of course, the overly pragmatic skeptic will always ask 鈥淏ut why do I need to know about disciplines that have nothing to do with the job that I鈥檒l eventually work in?鈥� Well, there are lots of answers to this question.

A liberal arts education allows one to learn and think critically across a wide range of disciplines.

First 鈥� and perhaps most importantly聽鈥� it enriches your life; it makes life so much more interesting when you can appreciate worlds that are outside your own. But secondly, you never actually know what your job is going to be, or what your work will entail. Our own Joan Benoit Samuelson was a marathon runner聽鈥� an Olympic gold medalist聽鈥� but what she has done since then for young women, for children in general, and for the environment聽鈥� all her vast philanthropic work聽鈥� is even more impactful than her Olympic gold medal or her world records.

Our own Thomas Moser was a tenured associate professor here at 乐播传媒 of rhetoric, and was the director of debate, before he became one of the world鈥檚 most artistic and beautiful furniture makers. As journalist Fareed Zakaria,聽 who is a former Commencement speaker here, has emphasized many times, a liberal arts education prepares you not just for your first job, but for your second job and your third job and your fourth job and beyond.

And thirdly, even if you do know what your job will be for the rest of your life, you still never know when certain ideas and concepts from other disciplines might make an appearance in what you鈥檙e doing, in a way that could totally transform the work that you are doing or at least improve what you are doing.

Our own Dr. Mark Abelson here is a wonderful example of this. Dr. Abelson obtained several of his critical breakthroughs in ophthalmology by applying creative problem solving methods across a diverse range of disciplines including pharmacology, pathophysiology, economics, chemistry, cellular biology, and more. Indeed, many of the world鈥檚 greatest innovations and breakthroughs have occurred due to such cross-fertilization of ideas across seemingly different fields.

X-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, and lasers in medicine all originally came about due to physicists and space scientists thinking about these things for completely different reasons. In some cases, the immediate purpose was just to have fun and play around, which is what pure scientists generally are doing. Radiocarbon dating in archaeology, anthropology, and history is another example where ideas from physics and chemistry resulted in a revolution in fields that seemed completely different.

One of the main interests of mine, music, is another subject that has had incredibly interesting influences from many areas: psychology, physiology, sociology, engineering, physics, and mathematics. The choices of frequencies that sound good in music are governed by mathematical principles; two notes sound good together if their frequencies occur in a simple whole number ratio like 2:1, which is called an octave in music, or 3:2 which is called a fifth in music. These simple whole number ratios are what sound good to the human ear.

Many of the world鈥檚 greatest innovations and breakthroughs have occurred due to such cross-fertilization of ideas across seemingly different fields.

And so the manner in which these different notes were chosen in different musical cultures around the world, and how scales of entire notes were chosen in different musical cultures were chosen, they were chosen by basically the solution to a mathematical problem. How can you choose a set of notes so that all ratios of those frequencies that are occurring are simple whole number ratios? It鈥檚 a problem in number theory. And different solutions were obtained across different cultures. And that鈥檚 how music developed all around the word in different traditions.

I always found the study of this problem and its solutions through the ages, absolutely fascinating. For me personally, it is such unexpected connections, with art of all things, that brought me into mathematics in the first place.

In school, mathematics is usually grouped together with the sciences. But a lot of people don鈥檛 know that mathematics actually has a lot of its origins in music, in poetry, and the arts in general. These amazing connections are part of the reason I personally became interested in mathematics and ever since then, it has been one of my goals聽鈥� one of my dreams 鈥� to get more young people interested in mathematics, not just through the sciences, but through the arts, through poetry, through music, through magic.

The reason it happened to me is that my grandfather was a scholar of Sanskrit and so a lot of what I learned about mathematics as a child was through what my grandfather taught me about the rhythms of Sanskrit poetry. The scientific setup of Sanskrit, both phonetically and poetically, naturally led early poets and linguists to consider various mathematical and scientific questions that one might not immediately expect from a poet.

There were, for example, questions relating to how many poetic meters there were of different types, how one could improvise on these meters and on these rhythms, and how one could use mathematical principles to memorize really long rhythms.

As a result, central concepts in mathematics, such as recurrent sequences like Fibonacci numbers, binomial coefficients, generative algorithms, memory wheels, and more, were first discovered in history in the context of poetry. And that made learning math so much fun for me, coming from an initial interest in poetry.

A lot of what I learned about mathematics as a child was through what my grandfather taught me about the rhythms of Sanskrit poetry.

The divide between poetry and math, at that time, was so thin that essentially all mathematics was actually written in poetry at the time. And a lot of poetry was written about mathematics. Some of these poems were full of vivid imagery of nature, and animals, and beautiful stories. And when reading some of these poems, which I often did as a child with my grandfather, often at the end one would realize that one had been tricked into learning a mathematical theorem, or had been asked a mathematical question that you couldn鈥檛 get your mind off afterwards and you had to solve.

I鈥檒l give you an example. Here鈥檚 such a poem from Bhaskara鈥檚 Lilavati from the year 1150. It goes like this:

鈥淭he square root of half the number of bees has gone to a shrub of jasmine; and another eight-ninths of the whole swarm has gone there too; a female bee is buzzing towards a male bee that is itself buzzing within a lotus, having been allured to it by its fragrance at night. Tell me, O lovely maiden, the number of bees.鈥�

In case you鈥檙e wondering, the answer is 72 bees.

These stories really inspired me when I was growing up because they were wonderful examples of simple ideas in one subject that eventually grew into concepts so omnipresent, important, and deep in another, in this case it was simple ideas in poetry, that led to deep and lasting ideas in mathematics.

These ideas are still used in breakthroughs today. So these stories illustrated and unravelled for me the beautiful and surprising connections among different realms of thought. And such stories still happen today. A lot.

Steve Jobs was famous for his ideas for products that married top-notch aesthetics with top-notch engineering. When asked about why the Macintosh computer revolutionized computing, he remarked, 鈥淚 think part of what made the Macintosh so great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.鈥� Many of the world鈥檚 greatest new companies and startups continue to follow this line of thinking, this marriage of different disciplines to achieve greater heights.

Creativity and technical know-how are both needed in this world, and are needed together.

I want to end with one last example that鈥檚 particularly relevant this week. One of my inspirations in graduate school, who later became a colleague, and in more recent years, someone I called my good friend, Professor John Nash and his wife Alicia, were killed in a car crash earlier this week.

It鈥檚 been an extremely devastating moment for all those who knew him, as well as for all those who knew his work, which is of course much of the world due to his tremendous creative influence across disciplines, as well as due to the movie that was loosely based on his life.

Professor Nash really personifies the notion that a simple idea in one subject can have profound effects on other areas. Despite all the hardships that he had to endure, and that we all at Princeton watched him endure, Professor Nash pursued what he enjoyed most: mathematics.

His theory of non-cooperative games 鈥� he was playing games for a living 鈥� and his theory of what鈥檚 now called the Nash equilibrium, was not only a work of technical mastery in mathematics, but also contained extremely artistic, creative ideas and constructions that were inspired by phenomena in neighboring disciplines. As a result, his work has had major influences on numerous subjects including economics, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, law, diplomacy, and politics.

We will truly miss Professor Nash, but it鈥檚 obvious from the work that he did for all of us that his legacy will live on strongly and forever. His story, and all the stories that I鈥檝e mentioned today, clearly show that creativity and technical know-how are both needed in this world, and are needed together, and creativity or inspiration often comes from the connections, relations, and analogies that one sees with other subjects.

This is precisely why scientists ought to know about arts and the humanities, and similarly why artists and humanists should know about science. More precisely, that鈥檚 why it鈥檚 helpful for mathematicians to know about poetry and music; why it is helpful for sportspersons to know about environmental science and child welfare; why it is helpful for professors of rhetoric to know about woodworking; and why it鈥檚 so useful for doctors to know about economics in addition to the more traditional subjects for them like chemistry and biology; and why it can be useful for economists, biologists, and politicians to know about mathematics. And this is really what鈥檚 behind the value of a liberal arts education.

So, like Professor Nash and all the other wonderful people I鈥檝e mentioned, find something that you really enjoy. In fact, find two or three or four or more things that you really enjoy and do them. Keep learning about other disciplines.

And don鈥檛 just appreciate the connections between different realms of human endeavor that you find but actively look for them, because they鈥檙e definitely out there. And use all these wonderful experiences, these things you enjoy, these connections, to find a job but beyond that, to do good work. In the language of 乐播传媒, to find your 鈥淧urposeful Work.鈥�

To have fun, to make new friends, to take care of your family, your friends and others, and to do good work in the world. Of course, I believe the experiences that you鈥檝e had at 乐播传媒 already ideally prepare you to do exactly this.

Congratulations again Class of 2015. I can鈥檛 wait to hear about what you are going to do next, and best wishes for a very exciting array of future endeavors! Thank you so much.

The 2015 Senior Address at Commencement, as prepared by Alexander Bolden of Cleveland, Ohio.

Falling In Love as a Weapon against Injustice

Thank you all for coming to support your loved ones and sharing this special moment with all of us graduating today. It鈥檚 safe to say that everyone here has had an effect whether big or small on those receiving their diploma today and because of that you deserve honor too. Please give yourselves a round of applause.

Students everywhere are marching. Whether it be in the streets of Baltimore or the international recesses of Twitter; whether it be in the words we write in essays or the very act of marching across this stage.

Never forget that education in itself is a revolutionary act, and I want to begin my speech by asking you all to remember the people who aren鈥檛 able to have this moment, whether they would have walked this stage with us like Evan and John, or another stage somewhere in the world like Trayvon, Aiyanna, Mike, and 147 Kenyan students whose names, unlike our own, will not be read at a graduation.

I ask you to not commemorate them in a moment of silence but rather in action. Walk this stage for them and rejoice that much more in memory of them. Let your education be a tool of restorative justice by remembering them in the joy of this moment with a degree in one hand and a friend in another.

When is the moment you fell in love with 乐播传媒?

It is this love I want to capture, the loving atmosphere of 乐播传媒 which allows for us to hold each other in moments of elation and despair. It is this love which will allow us to change the world. This love has an origin. This love that allows for students, staff, faculty, and community members to march in solidarity with the Baltimore revolution comes from a special place in this community.

It is this realization, which prompts me to ask: When is the moment you fell in love with 乐播传媒?

Unlike the experience of many of my peers, my love of 乐播传媒 was not found on my AESOP trip nor did it hit me upon joining a sports team or through the family that was forged in an over-crowded Smith room. Mine is a story of gradually falling in love with 乐播传媒 while overcoming an overwhelming feeling of fear.

I did not come to 乐播传媒 after being intrigued by the beautiful campus, impressed by the highly respected professors, or charmed by the warm-hearted staff. I came to 乐播传媒 because it made financial sense despite my desire for a large university in a big city. In fact, my mother cried on move-in day after making my bed and giving me hugs filled with simultaneous pride, excitement, and sadness because she knew that her son was alone in a place that he did not want to be.

She feared that she had sent her son to his own demise, and I feared the same. I spent my first night at 乐播传媒 alone in my room in Parker overhearing others on Alumni Walk forging friendships that may have lasted to this day. I sat there and questioned my decision to come here, a question I would ask as a senior for different reasons, mostly thesis. Was 乐播传媒 the right place for me?

Little did I know that the next four years would become my answer to this question as I fell in love with a community that I had denied as my own.

My claiming of this community comes in a loose construction of memories that define my experience as a 乐播传媒ie. My love of 乐播传媒 grew as my relationships with this community grew. I didn鈥檛 just fall in love with my fellow students but also our professors, staff, and the L-A community that surrounds us.

I found myself missing things that I had previously not even liked at 乐播传媒.

My love is borne out of transformative events as big as Professor Nero鈥檚 eye-opening “White Redemption” class which prompted me to question the media and which has been formative in my life.

Anybody who has taken a film class here at 乐播传媒 knows that it not only makes you think about the past, but also stays with you into the future. I will never watch a film without questioning the implicit meanings hidden in the subtext of the cultural moment, like the grossly inaccurate casting of athletic young Black men in聽the 1997 film Amistad in order to make audiences comfortable by concealing the horrors of the emaciated men, women, and children who faced the middle passage in squalor.

I am sure all of us have had huge academic awakenings similar to this, but it is just as much the small moments as the big which made me fall in love with this community.

Things as small as being invited to a party in V1 by seniors in the second week of my freshman year, or professors telling me to add them on Facebook, or playing basketball with rambunctious聽seventh graders at Tree Street. These events, while seemingly small, were cumulatively a large factor in me falling in love with the 乐播传媒 community.

These events are, in fact, an indication of the type of community we have at this school. Here at 乐播传媒 there is a larger interconnectedness that transcends the divides that often fragment society. While we are far from perfect聽鈥� when on campus we all learn, play, and hoard an unimaginable amount of almond cookies as one community.

And within the larger 乐播传媒 community, there are pockets of solidarity and alliances that form. This makes me think there is something special about our class which defines us as slightly different. We have truly been a class in transition and experienced things that will never again happen on this campus.

For instance, we are the last class to know the true glory of Milt’s and wonder why Dean Reese is there at 1 a.m.

We are the last class to experience Throwback Night and all of its chaos. We are one of the last classes to remember that the OIE was once a house where people brought blankets and slept during finals week.

Raise your hand if you have gotten one of Vinny鈥檚 riddles right. Now raise it if you鈥檝e gotten one wrong. How many of us have been made fun of by Dean Tannenbaum, aka Chief Keith, in the most brutal and loving way possible?

Many of us fell in love with 乐播传媒 through these experiences. It is because of this love that we demanded 乐播传媒 to be everything that we wanted. We became activists and allies with cars parked in front of Commons, banners hung from the third floor of P’gill, and bodies lying in front of the salad bar.

President Spencer herself has admitted that it is our class that pushes the administration to be better. I believe that this is because despite all of the change throughout this four-year transitional period聽the love that flourishes within the community and that exists inside of these graduation gowns never faltered, thus allowing for us to come together and demand that the love that we have for each other be reflected in the activity of the school and community at large.

We became activists and allies with cars parked in front of commons, banners hung from the third floor of P-gill, and bodies lying in front of the salad bar.

So I ask again: What is the moment you fell in love with 乐播传媒?

Was it in the omelet line? Was it in Alumni at a rowdy basketball game? Was it in a ridiculously titled Short Term class? Or a midnight run to Lewiston Variety? Or maybe it was the first time you heard your professor cuss in class.

For me the realization came while sitting in my dorm junior year. It just so happened that this dorm was a Pacific Ocean away from any of the places I just mentioned. You see, it took me going to New Zealand to realize that I had already fallen in love with 乐播传媒. I found myself missing things that I had previously not even liked at 乐播传媒聽鈥� like Sunday dinners at Commons or the 1 a.m. walk from the library to P’gill.

I realized that my love for 乐播传媒 had been hidden in all the things I took for granted. It became normal to complain about a 3.5-minute walk from 280 to Commons. It became normal to walk into your professor’s office unannounced to talk about a paper and what happened on the last episode of Scandal. And it became normal to see any dog and automatically pet it.

From a sparse room in New Zealand, I realized the uniqueness of my experience, and it is at that point that I realized that 乐播传媒 was not only the right choice for me,but is where I belonged. I took for granted the specialness of this community and only realized it retrospectively after noticing that I had been a 乐播传媒ie for three years without even knowing it.

However, it was not within this space that I realized this love. Not within this 乐播传媒 bubble between Russell Street and Campus Avenue, not within the confines of Ladd, P’gill, P’grew, or Chase, and not even sandwiched in between Lewiston and Auburn. It was not within any physical space that I realized the love聽鈥� it was not in any intellectual proof I could provide data for.

No, instead, it was in me and in my process of becoming a 乐播传媒ie. And although today we take our quarter-million-dollar diplomas and pack them in a box next to our Bean boots and leave this place, remember it is not here that your love belongs.

Part of the 乐播传媒 commitment to social justice demands that we take our love with us, out into the world. This love should travel with us in the hearts of any person who has heard the bell on Hathorn toll and realized they were late to their 8 a.m.聽It lies in the connections we have made with each other and the love that resounds in declaring, 鈥淚 am a 乐播传媒ie.鈥�

It is out of love that we have become allies to those who are struggling and it is out of love that we stand for those who cannot stand for themselves.

It is this love which will allow us to change the world.聽It is out of love that our class demanded change on this campus. It is out of love that we have become allies to those who are struggling and it is out of love that we stand for those who cannot stand for themselves. If there is nothing else that I have learned from this campus it is that there are no bounds to the change a community can affect when it is grounded in love.

So in this moment I ask you to love yourself, love your friends, love your parents, love your family, love your fellow 乐播传媒ie, and, most importantly, love those who are in need of love. And while, much like my experience at 乐播传媒, the loving of a community that is different from you might be hard at first, submerging yourself in their culture will provide you with moments, big and small, which over time will make you fall in love which is the only weapon we have against injustice.

I ask you one last time to recall: What was the moment you fell in love with 乐播传媒?

And I challenge you to share the love of that moment聽鈥� or that process聽鈥� with those who need it the most, whether that be by writing a scholarly dissertation on women鈥檚 rights, or by reassuring that little boy or girl in your City Year or Teach for America class that It Gets Better, or by organizing a rally against fracking, or聽simply by sharing on social media the fact that Black lives do and have always mattered.

Do it all with the same love that made you fall in love with those here next to you today. Do it with the compassion and faith that 乐播传媒 has prepared you to identify, critique and create solutions to injustice. Do it by upholding yourself to the standards of a 乐播传媒 College Class of 2015 graduate.

Seniors, left to right, Naima Qambi, Asha Mohamud, Allaina Murphy, Mekae Hyde and Alex Parker will聽graduate from 乐播传媒 College on May 31. All five came to 乐播传媒 from Lewiston-Auburn high schools. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

The Class of 2015 counts members from as far away as Arkansas and Zimbabwe, but this year鈥檚 graduates also include five young men and women who attended Edward Little High School, Lewiston High School, and Saint Dominic Academy – the largest number of Lewiston-Auburn students in any graduating class in recent memory.

It鈥檚 not unusual for young people to want to put some distance between where they grew up and where they go to college. In Maine, researchers have noted that approximately half of the state鈥檚 college-bound high schoolers opt for an out-of-state college. So why then did these five standout students choose 乐播传媒 when they had their pick of colleges and universities elsewhere?

Their reasons resemble those you hear from students from all over the country and the world who choose 乐播传媒: our unique sense of community, generous financial aid, and a rigorous liberal arts education, for example.

But there were other reasons too, such as a desire to continue an athletic career or the security of having a built-in support system of local friends and family.

The five seniors as they were as first-year students in September 2011. 鈥�(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Asha Mohamud said the opportunities 乐播传媒 offers rival those of much bigger colleges, which made choosing to go school close to home that much easier. Mohamud attended Lewiston public schools and so she knew from her years of interactions with 乐播传媒 student tutors that the college attracts young people with traits and ideals that appeal to her.

鈥淚 had 乐播传媒 mentors throughout elementary school who embodied all the essential elements of 乐播传媒,鈥� said Mohamud, a biology major and graduate of Lewiston High School. 鈥淭heir commitment to service as well as pursuing work that served the Lewiston community was touching. Their influence in my life contributed to me wanting to go to 乐播传媒.鈥�

Leigh Weisenburger, the college鈥檚 dean of admission and financial aid, is leading the college’s more focused outreach and recruitment at local high schools, exposing more Lewiston-Auburn and Maine students to the liberal arts and the diverse opportunities that await them close to home. Next September, for example, 乐播传媒 is sponsoring a Lewiston High School aspirations coordinator鈥檚 travel to and participation in a national conference on college admission and counseling.

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鈥淥ur hometown is of great importance to us, and we always try to have a steady representation from our Lewiston and Auburn communities,鈥� Weisenburger said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 exceptional that we have in the Class of 2015 five graduates who represent all three of our local high schools.鈥�

In addition to the five local seniors, there are about a dozen other Lewiston and Auburn natives enrolled at 乐播传媒. They are among the more than 175 Maine students attending the college, roughly 10 percent of the student body. Collectively, the Maine students receive more than $5 million in financial aid, scholarships, and grants from the college.

“Local students get the best of both worlds and it would be imprudent to pass up such a great experience simply because the college is located in Lewiston.”

Alex Parker, a Lewiston native and St. Dom’s graduate,聽chose 乐播传媒 because the college offered him the chance to continue playing baseball while pursuing a liberal arts education. Financial aid was also a big factor, he said.

鈥溊植ゴ� has so much to offer — a diverse curriculum with amazing professors, a strong school culture of inclusiveness, pride, and supporting each other, a beautiful campus and a great dining hall, and an athletics program that has grown each year I have been here,鈥� said Parker, a politics major and All-Academic NESCAC honoree in baseball.

鈥淗owever, the people you will meet at 乐播传媒 are the number one reason to consider 乐播传媒. I love attending a school with a diverse student body so that I could meet people from all over the U.S. and the world.鈥�

Allania Murphy said she too found the college鈥檚 diversity inspiring and educational in ways she did not anticipate.

鈥淏ecoming friends with kids from all around the world and from all different cultural, religious, racial, and socio-economic identities and backgrounds has opened my eyes to so much that I never realized or was exposed to growing up in the Lewiston community,鈥� said Murphy, who graduated from St. Dom鈥檚 in Lewiston and played three years on the 乐播传媒 women鈥檚 basketball team.

When Auburn鈥檚 Naima Qambi was considering colleges, she initially thought 乐播传媒 was just too close to home. She changed her mind after participating in one of the college鈥檚 visit programs where first-generation college-goers spend several days and nights on campus experiencing everything 乐播传媒 has to offer.

鈥淏eing from the community, it was important for me to give back,鈥� said Qambi, an education major and member of the Bonner Leader Program, which engages students in community service, work, and learning during their four years at 乐播传媒. 鈥淭hrough the Bonner program, I worked with the Lewiston Public Library tutoring program, Tree Street Youth, and the Hillview Housing Complex.鈥�

None of the local students graduating Sunday say they regret going to college so close to home. If anything, it enhanced their college experience and provided welcomed support systems.

鈥淪ome semesters I went home once a week, other semesters I did not go home at all,鈥� Murphy said. 鈥淚n my opinion, local students get the best of both worlds and it would be imprudent to pass up such a great experience simply because the college is located in Lewiston. Now as I get set to graduate, I feel prepared to enter the workforce or go to grad school because of my 乐播传媒 education.鈥�