A hand-made corsage. A thrift-shop dress found in Scotland during Short Term. An Eagle Scout medal.

As they gathered on Alumni Walk before Commencement on Sunday, these 13 graduating seniors (and the Commencement piper, Tom Ryan) told us how what they’re wearing says something about themselves, their families, and their �ֲ���ý experience.

Whether you were with us on the Historic Quad, watching online, or feeling sorry that you missed the festivities on May 27, this selection of images will bring Commencement 2018 to life again.

8:04 a.m. — Get me to the march on time

Seniors Emily Jolkovsky of Avon, Minn., and Madeleine Lachevre of Milton, Mass., walk through the Historic Quad on their way to join their classmates on Alumni Walk.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

8:37 a.m. — The mortarboard, the merrier

As seniors gather on Alumni Walk before Commencement, Maisie Silverman ’18 of Brunswick, Maine, and Delaney Nalen ’18 of Denver, Colo., observe as Kathleen Denoia ’18 of Falmouth, Maine, adjusts classmate Jack Maritz’s cap. Maritz is from St. Louis, Mo.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

8:43 a.m. — Cap and ground

With about 50 minutes to wait, Kawai Marin of Reading, Mass., rests near Alumni Walk prior to Commencement.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

9:14 a.m. — Break time

A senior gives her toes some relief from the demands of Commencement fashion.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

9:18 a.m. — Reflection perfection

Adam Blau ’18 of Pacific Palisades, Calif., adjusts his cap using the reflection in the sunglasses of Jared Baumann ’18 of Seattle while lining up along Alumni Walk.

Theophil Sylslo/�ֲ���ý College

9:30 a.m. — Marshaling the forces

Junior class marshal Michael Driscal ’19 of Cleveland and Rosemary Kyne ’18 of Nashville, Tenn., await the signal for the procession to begin.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

9:39 a.m. — From a distance

The Commencement procession as seen from the Gomes Chapel porch.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

9:40 a.m. — Taking the wide view

The Commencement procession winds past Parker Hall (right) and Gomes Chapel (center) on its way to its destination: Coram Library.

Emily McConville/�ֲ���ý College

9:46 a.m. — In place with the mace

Michael Murray, Phillips Professor of Economics and ceremonial mace bearer, leads the Commencement procession through the graduates-to-be and toward Coram Library.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

9:48 a.m. — ‘Now feel the blood a-leaping’

Piper Tom Ryan has a commanding view of the Quad and the processional during Commencement on May 27, 2018.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

9:51 a.m. — A quorum at Coram

The dais party stands ready for Commencement.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

9:53 a.m. — Memories are made of this

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

10:04 a.m. — Honored to be here

From left, honorand Lynsey Addario, Commencement speaker Bryan Stevenson, and President Clayton Spencer enjoy the proceedings on May 27, 2018.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

10:21 a.m. — ‘We learned to be the change’

In her address, senior speaker Rakiya Mohamed recounts how her optimism flagged during her first year at �ֲ���ý. “If I was going to make a change in this world, I needed to make a change in my world,” she told her fellow graduates. “Before I could be the change, I had to change myself.”

“This is what �ֲ���ý, and more important, the people in it, instilled in us during our four years”

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

10:21 a.m. — Listening and learning

The rituals of graduation are the focus of attention.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

10:27 a.m. — ‘A camera your instrument, your medium, your gift’

Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, listens to the conferral for her honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during Commencement at �ֲ���ý on May 27, 2018. Behind her is mace bearer Michael Murray, Phillips Professor of Economics.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

10:52 a.m. — ‘Your hope is your superpower’

Stevenson delivers the keynote address to the Class of 2018. He told the seniors to “get proximate” to those who suffer.

“When you get proximate to the excluded and the disfavored, you learn things that you need to understand if we’re going to change the world,” he told the �ֲ���ý seniors. “Our understanding of how we change things comes in proximity to inequality, to injustice.”

Stevenson’s �ֲ���ý appearance came about a month after he opened two institutions in Alabama that are dedicated to keeping alive the truth about the history of racial injustice in the U.S.: the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a monument to the victims of lynchings; and the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

11:09 a.m. — Voices raised

The Commencement Choir, conducted by Lecturer in Music John Corrie, sings “Who Is Wise” during Commencement on May 27, 2018.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

11:17 a.m. — A reason to smile

Elliot Chun of Bedford, N.H., receives his diploma.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

11:17 a.m. — Congratulations Leah!

As Leah Dy of Laguna Hills, Calif., walked across the stage, she might have seen her family hold up a sign — “Congratulations Leah Graduation 2018” — and heard them sound a small horn.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

Her father, Tom Dy, had arrived early with sign and horn to lay claim to several seats. As the diplomas were brought to the stage earlier this morning, he chatted with Jeremy Caron of Lewiston, who has attended seven or eight Commencements, by his count.

Dy was excited for and proud of his daughter, and he was looking forward to her Commencement speaker. “I can’t imagine how this guy does it,” he said of Stevenson’s tireless work on behalf of prisoners.

11:26 a.m. — Precious medal

President Spencer checks out the All-America medal worn by Adedire Fakorede of Newark, N.J.

He earned the honor on May 24 in the discus at the 2018 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

11:28 a.m. — C’mon, cheer up!

Hope French of London greets a classmate as she returns to her seat, diploma in hand.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

11:30 a.m. — Shake on it

�ֲ���ý granted degrees to 473 members of the Class of 2018 during Commencement on May 27.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

11:30 a.m. — Perfect handoff

Dacota Griffin of Fryeburg, Maine, receives his diploma.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

11:35 a.m. — Faces tell all

The many emotions of a �ֲ���ý Commencement.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

11:43 a.m. — Support and gratitude

Christina Olali of New York City walks back to her seat after receiving her diploma while her mother, Wendy Morales; her sister, Stephanie Vann; and six other friends and family members cheer.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

Earlier in the morning, as they waited for the procession to begin, Olali’s family was gearing up for the “showcase and display” of Commencement, said her mother, Wendy Morales.

But they were still thinking back to the Baccalaureate Service the day before, at which Olali had given an offering of gratitude, reading selections from an interview with Maya Angelou.��

“It’s reassuring that her time here was meaningful,” said Stephanie Vann.

11:56 a.m. — Tassel time

The tassel shift from right to left marks the seniors’ transition from students to graduates.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

12:10 p.m. — It all adds up

Mathematics major Gabriel Burton of Chicago hugs Associate Professor of Mathematics Adriana Salerno as faculty members, in an annual ritual, congratulate the new graduates at the end of Commencement.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

12:12 p.m. — Good chemistry

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Andrew Kennedy hugs biology major Colin Eimers of Durham, N.C.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

“He’s also known as ‘Dega’ on the men’s ultimate team,” says Kennedy. “It’s short for ‘Talladega’ because he’s crazy fast. I know: I’ve raced him head-to-head on the field, and he nearly killed this old man.”

12:18 p.m. — Cheek to cheek

It’s a congratulatory kiss from her mother for Samra Husremovic of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She graduated with honors in chemistry, summa cum laude.

Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College

12:33 p.m. — Mixed feelings (in the best possible way)

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

From left, Sekerkhi Anderson of Washington, D.C., Anton Brown of New Orleans, and Gabriel Burton of Chicago show a range of emotions as they display their diplomas.

12:22 p.m. to 12:33 — Together time

Happiness abounds as Commencement winds down.

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College

Table of Contents

1. Processional
2. Welcome by President Clayton Spencer
3. Senior Address by Rakiya Mohamed
4. Conferral of Honorary Degrees
5. Commencement Address by Bryan Stevenson
6. Commencement Choir: “Who is Wise”
7. Presentation of Candidates for Degrees
8. Alumni Association Welcome by Lisa Romeo ’88
9. Senior Gift Presentation by Ainsley Jamieson and Pratap Khadka
10. Benediction by Multifaith Chaplain Brittany Longsdorf
11. Recessional

Procession

Welcome by President Spencer

Senior Address by Rakiya Mohamed

Conferral of Honorary Degrees

Commencement Address by Bryan Stevenson

Commencement Choir: “Who is Wise”

Presentation of Candidates for Degrees

Alumni Association Welcome by Lisa Romeo ’88

Senior Gift Presentation by Ainsley Jamieson and Pratap Khadka

Benediction by Multifaith Chaplain Brittany Longsdorf

Recessional

If you walk among the capped-and-gowned seniors lining up on Alumni Walk before Commencement begins, you can’t miss the occasional splash of color — the paint, paper, tape, and stickers that some graduates-to-be use to make their mortarboards their own.

On May 27, we asked members of the Class of 2018 to show us how they personalized their mortarboards, and what their decorations meant to them.

1. A ‘winna’ of a cap

The cap: “From ya wake up this morning, yous a WINNA”

Raegine Clouden Mallett ’18 of Brooklyn, N.Y., had a lot to feel great about on Commencement, so she and her sister Nyiesha, 17, decorated her cap with a lyric from the song “Cheers to Life,” by the soca artist Voice. In the corner of the cap is the flag of Grenada, Mallett’s mother’s home country.

2. Granite a degree

The cap:��“B.S. Geology — My adventures will never be taken for granite — Thanks Mom & Dad”

Ashley Kulesza ’18 of Great Falls, Va., painted her cap to commemorate her geology major. Kulesza and her sister spent a few hours making the cap.

3. You are strong

The cap:��“Hey Black Child — do you know how strong you are?”

Aria Sanders ’18 of Fort Worth, Texas, used lines from a poem by Useni Eugene Perkins to represent strength, particularly when it comes to hair. “I wanted to show that even if you have curly hair, you can wear your graduation cap with pride,” she said.

4. A perfectly square piece of home

The cap: Jamaican flag

Mickoy Nichol ’18 of Dennis Port, Mass., decorated his cap with the Jamaican flag. “It’s where I call home,” he said.

5. Girl Power, proven

The cap:��“Grl Pwr”

Economics major Leah Dy ’18 of Laguna Hills, Calif., noticed there weren’t many women in her major or in her field, and she has worked to change that. She said she felt gratified upon learning that the company she’ll work for after graduation, the investment research firm Morningstar, had hired many women. Friend Sarah Daehler ’19 made the cap for her to celebrate. “I wanted to carry that theme through Commencement,” Dy said.

6. Reppin’ squatchin

The cap:��“Gone squatchin”

Kelly Philbrook ’18 of Auburn, Maine, is a Bigfoot believer who once went “squatching” — searching for Sasquatch — in the White Mountains. She ordered a sticker to put on her cap.

7. Sunny state

The cap: sunflower

Ivette Partida ’18 of Norwalk, Conn., painted a sunflower on her high school graduation cap. She decided to do the same for college.

At the start of his undergraduate career, Bryan Stevenson loved college. In fact, he would say it to people all the time. “I was a very uncool college student,” he told a �ֲ���ý audience on May 27.

But as a senior, he looked at different choices for graduate study and wondered if he’d find one that he could love and one that would align with his concerns about advancing social justice. Stevenson got his answer at Harvard Law.

Rakiya Mohamed '18 of Auburn, Maine, hugs her brother Mohamed Mohamed, who just graduated from UMaine-Augusta, after graduation on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Adedire Fakorede '18 of Newark, N.J., listens to President Clayton Spencer during Commencement. (Theophyl Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Piper Tom Ryan has a commanding view of the Quad and the processional during Commencement on May 27, 2018. (Theophyl Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Brooke Drabkin of Roslyn Heights, N.Y., celebrates her �ֲ���ý Commencement on May 27, 2018.

Lindsey Beauregard of Hollis, N.H., listens to President Clayton Spencer speak while �ֲ���ý celebrates its 152nd Commencement on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

In the context of a course, he spent a month working with death-row inmates. “I got proximate” to the prisoners, he said. “In proximity to the condemned, everything changed for me. I found a calling.” And that experience set Stevenson, now a nationally esteemed human rights lawyer, on the path he still follows.

Offering an address that was a riveting mixture of reminiscence, humor, and urgent exhortation, Stevenson was the featured speaker and one of four honorary degree recipients at �ֲ���ý’ 152nd Commencement. He spoke to 473 graduating seniors, their loved ones, faculty, and staff on a cool gray morning under the trees of the Historic Quad.

�ֲ���ý granted degrees to 473 members of the Class of 2018 during Commencement on May 27. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Also receiving honoraries were:

• Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist;
• Jill Lepore, historian, professor, and New Yorker staff writer;
• and Bob Ludwig, whose expertise in the field of audio mastering has made him a music industry legend.

There may be no shortage of “change the world” messaging at college graduations, but Stevenson and Senior Speaker Rakiya Mohamed of Auburn, Maine, tackled the concept in ways that were disparate but equally convincing and appealingly personal. Stevenson offered four steps to making the world a better place, of which “getting proximate” was the first.

Video playlist of the �ֲ���ý College Commencement on May 27, 2018:

Meanwhile, Mohamed, a double major in biological chemistry and African American studies, recounted how, at �ֲ���ý, a first-year slump led her to really understand Gandhi’s well-known maxim, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” in a new way.

She told her fellow seniors that she set her sights on �ֲ���ý early on. She was inspired by the students (including her mother) studying in Ladd Library, and by her Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor, who was a �ֲ���ý student.

“I never thought of �ֲ���ý College as just any ordinary school,” she said. “As a child, to me, it was a magical place where only the best of the best went.”

Lindsey Beauregard ’18 of Hollis, N.H., listens during Commencement on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

And it was the place, she believed, where she’d become a “certified world changer.” So it was — but not as easily as she thought.

It was only after a bad grade, serious thoughts about quitting college, and some helpful mentoring from Assistant Dean of Students Jessica Perez that Mohamed really grasped Gandhi’s meaning. “If I was going to make a change in this world, I needed to make a change in my world,” she told her fellow graduates. “Before I could be the change, I had to change myself.”

“This is what �ֲ���ý, and more important, the people in it, have instilled in us during our four years” — people like faculty, friends, teammates, like-minded peers in student organizations, and �ֲ���ý’ “small but strong community of black people.”

“We have taken it upon ourselves to make sure we change one another for the better. For that I am immensely proud to be a part of this class.”

Rakiya Mohamed ’18 of Auburn, Maine, delivers the Senior Address during Commencement at �ֲ���ý College on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which has, among other achievements, won freedom or reduced sentences for more than 125 wrongly condemned death row prisoners.

His �ֲ���ý appearance came about a month after he opened two institutions in Alabama that are dedicated to keeping alive the truth about the history of racial injustice in the U.S.: the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a monument to the victims of lynchings; and the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration.

Before Stevenson presented his prescription for bettering the world, he offered a few numbers clarifying what needs fixing, at least in the criminal justice system. He noted that 2.3 million people are in American jails and prisons — up from 300,000 in 1972 — making ours the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

One of four honorary degree recipients at �ֲ���ý’ 152nd Commencement, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson delivers the keynote address to the Class of 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

The percentage of women in prison has increased 646 percent in last 25 years, and 70 percent of those women are single mothers with minor children, with all that implies for family stability and child-raising.

“The statistic that keeps me up latest at night,” he said, comes from the U.S. Justice Department, which “predicts that in the United States, one in three black male babies born in this country is expected to go to jail or prison during his lifetime.”

None of Stevenson’s four steps toward bettering our world sounds easy, but their necessity was obvious. “Wherever you do, find ways to get proximate to people who are suffering,” he began.

The Commencement Choir, conducted by Lecturer in Music John Corrie, sings “Who Is Wise” during Commencement on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“When you get proximate to the excluded and the disfavored, you learn things that you need to understand if we’re going to change the world,” he told the �ֲ���ý seniors. “Our understanding of how we change things comes in proximity to inequality, to injustice.”

“Proximity will empower you,” he said — noting that it was a lesson he learned in part from a grandmother whose fiercely loving hugs help keep her memory alive in him.

Step Two is to change prevailing narratives intended to justify and perpetuate injustice. A fundamental one is the narrative of racial inequality that accompanied the genocide of Native Americans during colonization, that excused slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath, and that persists today.

Lynsey Addario listens to the citation for her honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during Commencement at �ֲ���ý College on May 27, 2018. Behind her is mace bearer Michael Murray, Phillips Professor of Economics. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“I don’t think we’re free in America. I think we’re burdened by our history of racial inquality,” he said. “It’s in the air in Maine, just like it’s in the air in Mississippi. It doesn’t matter where you go, there is this contaminant that we’re all breathing in.”

“I don’t think the great evil of American slavery was involuntary servitude and forced labor,” Stevenson said. “I really believe that the real evil of American slavery…was this narrative of racial difference, this ideology that we created that black people aren’t like white people.”

“In our new world, we’ve got to make it so that no black or brown person is ever presumed dangerous or guilty because of their color,” he said. “We’ve got to break all of the ceilings that will limit some of you graduates from achieving your dreams.”

Elliot Chun ’18 of Bedford, N.H., receives his diploma during Commencement at �ֲ���ý College on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Next, Stevenson urged, stay hopeful. “Your hope is your superpower. Hope is what will get you to stand up sometimes when other people say, ‘Sit down.’ Hope is what will get you to speak when other people say, ‘Be quiet.’”

“I believe that hopelessness is the enemy of justice, and injustice prevails where hopelessness persists,” he said.

The fourth and final step in Stevenson’s formulary was that “to change the world, you’re going to have to be willing to do things that are inconvenient and uncomfortable. You cannot change the world if you insist on only doing what’s comfortable and convenient.”

Bryan Stevenson (center) accepts his honorary degree from President Clayton Spencer during Commencement at �ֲ���ý College on May 27, 2018. At left is mace bearer Michael Murray, Phillips Professor of Economics. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Which isn’t to say comfort has no place at all in the good fight. In one of a number of stories that leavened his talk, Stevenson recounted arriving in a Mississippi town where he was going to speak. He was greeted by event sponsors who had inferred from his rigorous approach to justice work that he wouldn’t want to be coddled by staying in “the luxurious Double Tree Inn.”

“I said, ‘What is wrong with you? Of course I want to stay in the luxurious Double Tree Inn,’” he replied. “I like those chocolate chip cookies just like everybody else.”

The many emotions of a �ֲ���ý Commencement are seen on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

If we’re going to effect meaningful change, Stevenson concluded, it can’t be measured “just by looking at how well we treat privileged people and powerful people and celebrated people. Our true test, our true reflection is going to be measured by how we treat poor people, excluded people, marginalized people, disfavored people.”

Jill Lepore receives an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during Commencement at �ֲ���ý College on May 27, 2018. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

In her welcome, �ֲ���ý President Clayton Spencer presented a few facts about the graduates-to-be. The 473 seniors, she pointed out, represent 39 states, plus the U.S. territories and District of Columbia, and 42 other countries.

One in nine was the first in their family to graduate from college. Two-thirds of the class studied abroad, 20 percent are double majors, and 41 individuals received departmental honors for a yearlong thesis. And 13 — plus two recent alumni — received 2018 Fulbright fellowships.

Bob Ludwig receives an honorary Doctor of Music degree during Commencement at �ֲ���ý College on May 27, 2018, as mace bearer Michael Murray prepares to present Ludwig’s honorary hood. (Theophil Syslo)

Senior Gift Committee chairs Pratap Khadka and Ainsley Jamieson reported that the committee raised $6,450 dollars from 398 members of the Class of 2018 — reaching the goal of 84 percent participation.

Just before the Atlantic Clarion Steel Band sent the new graduates and their loved ones dancing away toward a campus picnic and their next chapters of life, Multifaith Chaplain Brittany Longsdorf offered a few words of blessing:

“Remember that you are capable of incredible feats,
You are strong and courageous,
You are a piece of something expansive and transcendent.”

Adedire Fakorede ’18 of Newark, N.J., listens to President Clayton Spencer during Commencement on May 27, 2018. (Theophyl Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Daunting challenges for the world and America tend to emerge when one looks at �ֲ���ý Commencement speeches from the past half-century. Themes around the environment, the economy, social justice, and war, for example.

But there are comforting themes, too, like our capacity for kindness, love, and optimism. And, yes, the idea that Commencement is a time for simple congratulations. As Robert De Niro said in 2013, “This isn’t an occasion for me to urge you on a path you have already chosen. This isn’t a day for advice; this is a day for pats on the back.”

1971: ‘All Americans Will Lose Some of Their Liberties’ — Coretta Scott King, civil rights advocate, author, and widow of Martin Luther King Jr.

While I sharply disagree with the politics of Miss [Angela] Davis, I must say that if her Blackness, her politics, and her womanhood are being judged, and not the crime, then all Americans will lose some of their liberties along with her.

King was addressing the jailing of activist and scholar Angela Davis in 1971 for her role in the armed takeover of a courtroom in Marin County, Calif.

Coretta Scott King marches in the 1971 academic procession at Commencement. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

1978: ‘Serial, Kaleidoscopic Exposure’ — Robert MacNeil, journalist

The trouble with having been born into the mass media age — the television age — is that it discourages concentration. It encourages serial, kaleidoscopic exposure. It diminishes your attention span, reduces it to that a small child. Its variety becomes a narcotic, not a stimulus. You consume not what you choose and when, but when they choose — and what.

1982: ‘The First and Only Black Woman’ — Charlayne Hunter-Gault, PBS journalist

When I entered the University of Georgia, it was not because the admissions committee had reviewed my application and realized that I was third in my class of 160, had scored decently on the SATs, had been in the honor society, editor of the school paper, and a host of other things that made me desirable college material.

It was because a federal judge had reviewed not only my application, but had reviewed the university’s behavior to it and came to the conclusion that the only reason I had been denied admission was because of the color of my skin. And then he ordered me in — the first and only black woman in the entire school of 20,000 students.

The students — not all, to be sure, but enough — greeted me in a mob, attacked the dormitory where I had just begun to unpack my clothes, hurled bricks and bottles through the window — some of the shattered glass flew into my suitcase, showering my skirts and blouses with debris — and shouted threats late in the night, demanding on the one hand that I leave immediately, but insisting on the other that they would kill me if I showed my face.

1994: ‘Being Blacker than Thou’ — Henry Louis Gates, literary critic, historian, and Harvard University professor

At Yale, I was secretary of our political organization called the Black Student Alliance at Yale — BSAY — and I remember my first year there, attending my first meeting of this political group.

And most of all, I remember the trepidation that I experienced as a transplant from the back hills of Appalachia in the company of these largely urban black people. Black and smart, and elegant, and from elsewhere, as we’d say in the valley where I grew up. A group with a definite sense of what was and what was not authentically black, jockeying for position by being blacker than thou…

Filing out, I asked a friend, a man named Linwood from North Carolina, whether he found it hard to fit into this meeting. And I’ll always remember his response to me. “Skip,” he said to me, shaking his head sadly at all the posturing that had been going on, “I’ve been black my whole life.”

It was as if a load had been lifted from me. Or, as Benjamin Mays put it, put this realization so well in 1970, “I’m glad that I didn’t have to wait 70 years for someone in the 1960s to teach me to appreciate what I am: black.”

Henry Louis Gates listens to his honorary degree citation at Commencement 1994. At right is the late Rev. Peter Gomes ’65, Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard. (David Wilkinson for �ֲ���ý College)

1995: ‘The Best-Educated Electorate’ — Garry Wills, author, journalist, and historian, and 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner

Our politics is now described as snarled, orchestrated by people like Rush Limbaugh. But ours is, after all, the best-educated electorate and the best-informed one in history. Our journalism is the most accurate and self-correcting that ever existed.

1967: ‘Reject the Glorified Pragmatists’ — Margaret Chase Smith, U.S. senator from Maine

If our nation is to maintain the moral fiber that is necessary to the survival of our way of life, then we must reject the glorified pragmatists who advocate cutting corners, who preach the propaganda of expecting “something for nothing,” who espouse the doctrine that the “end justifies the means,” and who caution against “getting involved on matters of principle.”

2013: ‘We Will Be Loving’ — Tommy Holmberg ’13, first student speaker at Commencement

You see, it’s a beautiful cycle we’ve got here. The goodness of �ֲ���ý is passed on out of admiration and gratitude for what was, and excitement and pride for what will be.

[As graduates] we will be intelligent, because of the ardor and devotion of the good people of this institution. We will be passionate, because �ֲ���ý allowed us to follow our passions and realize our dreams. We will be fun, because we’ve had fun here. We will be loving, because the �ֲ���ý community showed us so much love.

Tommy Holmberg ’13 delivers the student address at Commencement on May 26, 2013. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

1996: Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic

No one is, or should be, so naive as to believe that all the problems of the world will be solved by goodwill and civility alone. Indeed it may well be true that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. But it is at the same time inconceivable that the road to the other place will be paved with bad intentions.

Commencement speaker Chinua Achebe greets Peter Gomes ’65 following the 1996 ceremony. At right are President Donald Harward and famed ornithologist Edmund Wilson. (Marc Glass ’88/�ֲ���ý College)

1991: ‘Science as Organized Unpredictability’ — Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist and mathematician

It used to be said that science was organized common sense. In the modern times, it would be more accurate to define science as organized unpredictability. So the great task before us now, as citizens of the world, is to learn to organize our societies in such a way that unpredictable things have a chance to happen.

A number of revolutions in our thinking are long overdue [but] if you believe your lives are predictable, you lose your task to be leaders of revolutions. It is your chance, both in science and in society at large, to prove the conventional wisdom wrong, and to make your unpredictable dreams come true.

2010: ‘Life Is Too Interesting to Miss’ — Elizabeth Strout ’77, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist

My college roommate and I, when we lived together in Hacker House sophomore year, used to wash our faces at night in the bathroom and discuss everything that happened during the day. I can’t remember how many times she said to me, “Well, Strout, no matter what: You gotta admit, life is too interesting to miss.” And she was right: It really is.

2000: ‘The Ethic of Family Is a Radical Ethic’ — Desmond Tutu, South African cleric and theologian, and anti-apartheid and human rights activist

The ethic of family is a radical ethic. In the family that you come from, you don’t say, “Oh, dear Granny: The contribution that you are making to the budget is minimal.” “Baby: You are a nuisance most of the time; you make very little contribution to the family budget. You will get from the resources of the family in proportion to what you put in.”

You never say that! You don’t say about family that you get only in proportion to what you contribute. No! In the healthy family, it is from each according to their ability; to each according to their need.

Desmond Tutu waves to the Commencement audience. At left and right are then-trustees Colin Fuller ’69 and Trish Morse ’60. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

2006: ‘�ֲ���ý College Too Is the Real World’ — author and historian David McCullough

Choose work you love. Work hard. Take your work seriously, not yourself. Don’t let setbacks or skeptics get you down. And when, as is bound to happen, some supposedly all-knowing somebody says to you, “Well, welcome to the real world,” remember that �ֲ���ý College too is the real world. Remember that Shakespeare, and Cervantes, Botticelli and Tchaikovsky are the real world.

Historian David McCullough receives his honorary degree hood from Professor of Sociology Sawyer Sylvester in 2006. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

1987: ‘Charter for Change’ — Ellen Ash Peters, chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court

A liberal education, like our Constitution, is a charter for change. You, too, have been given by your years at �ֲ���ý a structure of learning and a core of values, and you, too, have ahead of you a lifetime of interpreting experience and knowledge and art. That is a difficult enterprise, but I commend you, in Yeats’ phrase, to “the fascination of what’s difficult.”

2016: ‘I Feel Blessed’ — U.S. Rep. and civil rights icon John Lewis

I feel more than honored, I feel more than lucky, I feel blessed to be standing here on this campus to speak to you, the graduates, where a man by the name of Benjamin Mays once stood. Many, many years ago I got to know Dr. Mays. He was part of my inspiration, he was my friend, my leader.

1966: ‘Art Is No Escape’ — William Schuman, composer

If each of you has not seen to his own exposure to the riches of the arts, then each of you had better do something about it, and immediately…. If you think that I am suggesting this to you because art is an escape, you are absolutely wrong.

Art is no escape. Art is heightened experience. Art is a distilled, highly concentrated presentation of the human intellect, spirit and heart — presented through creators and performers in such a way that it engages you in a manner that is unparalleled in any other form of human connection.

2004: ‘Keep in Touch’ — longtime Dean of Admission Milt Lindholm ’35

Cherish the memories of the four years that you have been here. Come back as often as you can. Rejoice in the friendships you have made. Keep in touch.

Milton Lindholm ’35, who spoke and received an honorary degree in 2004, walks hand in hand with his close friend, Peter Gomes ’65, as the ceremony ends. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

1990: ‘Harder than Reading a Benetton Ad’ — Catharine Stimpson, feminist scholar and later director of the MacArthur Fellows Program

Being a cultural democrat, living with cultural differences, can be exhausting. It demands pragmatism and patience, courage and civility. It is much harder than adding a book or two to a general education course; much harder than ordering an ethnic item from a mail-order catalogue; much harder than reading a Benetton ad.

1981: ‘The Way You Feel Things Ought to Be’ — former Deputy Secretary of State and future Secretary of State Warren Christopher

The campus traditionally has been a place where policies are measured not simply on the basis of what is effective, but also what is just; not only what is expedient, but also what is right. What I ask is that you bring those measurements along as you embark on the next stage in your lives; that instead of molding yourself too much to fit the way things are, you strive to shape your next environment to the way you feel things ought to be.

2009: ‘We Can All Describe the Problems We Face, But…’ — Fareed Zakaria, journalist and author

In the 1760s, an English clerk, Thomas Malthus, predicted that England would run out of food…. Malthus was entirely right in describing the problem. He did not understand the human response. England invented an agricultural revolution, then an industrial revolution, went on not simply��to feed its people but a large part of the world.

If you look at the current economic crisis, we can all describe all the problems we face. But it is very difficult to know what you will do in response to it. What we will do in response to it. What government will do, what industry will do, what nonprofit organizations will do, and how the collective human response will thus change history.

https://youtu.be/aCKQcxdyhm4

2007: ‘My Jumping-off Place’��— Corey Harris ‘91, musician and MacArthur ‘genius grant’ recipient

You can box off a place, count off the people, and say, “You’re the minority.” But if you’re looking at the whole planet, I don’t like to talk in those terms. And I feel that �ֲ���ý really helped me to expand my view of the world.

It was at �ֲ���ý that I got to interact with people I never thought I’d interact with: people from Africa, people from the Caribbean, people from East Asia, from West Asia, from all over the world. This was my jumping-off point to discover the world.

At Commencement 2007, Corey Harris ’91 listens to the proceedings at center. From left are Professor of Sociology Sawyer Sylvester, children’s book author Eric Carle, and actor and author Anna Deavere Smith. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

1998: ‘History Held a Magic for Me as a Child’��— Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian

I can still remember as if it were yesterday sitting on our porch when I was 6 years old, waiting for my father to return from work so I could share with him the results of that day’s Brooklyn Dodger game which I had preserved play by play, inning by inning in the red scorebook he had given me for my sixth birthday.

There, no doubt, my love of history was planted in the nightly sessions when my father sat by my side in seemingly rapt attention as I recounted in excruciating detail the entire history of that afternoon’s game. (In fact, for years, my father never told me that all this was described in the newspapers the next day, so I thought without me he would never know what had happened to our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers.) Little wonder that history held a magic for me as a child which it continues to hold to this day.

2012: ‘I Still Got It’ — Robert De Niro, actor

I want you to know under this movie-star exterior is a real person. Just like you. — Naw, I really didn’t mean that. That was acting. You see, I still got it….

Thinking about and actually doing the right thing is a cliché, but so what? It’s also the worthiest of goals. When a director gives you a line reading that doesn’t feel right for your character, nod and agree with him or her, then do it the way you know your character would do it. If you’re an actor, always be true to your character; if you’re not an actor, have character, and always be true to yourself.

With a classic expression, actor Robert De Niro cracks up the Commencement audience in May 27, 2012. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

2001: ‘That Character Wall’ — Robert Reich, author and former U.S. Secretary of Labor

Knowledge is not enough. You’ll also need some wisdom. Wisdom involves self-knowledge…. In order to make wise choices about your life’s work, you’ll need to know something of who you are, and be able to imagine the kind of person you want to be. Gaining self-knowledge often comes from failing, crashing headlong into the walls of your character.

And have no doubt about it: You will fail. In some way, at some time, you will fail. In fact, you will keep crashing into that character wall again and again until you finally realize it’s there. And that you’ve either got to knock it down, or figure out how to get over it.

1968: ‘A Measure of Humility’ — Nils Wessell, former President of Tufts University

A sense of community, glibly talked about but rarely achieved, is and should be our aspiration. Such a sense of community is achieved in the derivation of common goals and through a free and honest interplay of ideas, whether originated by student or alumnus or teacher or administrator, when respect for the opinions of others is coupled with a measure of humility regarding one’s own competence and insight.

2012: ‘Look Up and Away from the Fear’ — Gwen Ifill, PBS journalist

I’m going to give you some advice, and it’s fairly simple piece of advice, and it is this: Look up. We’re all looking down. We’re all looking down as we walk, as we talk, as we text. How many of you are tweeting about this right now? Look up! Pay attention to what’s going on up here!

It’s so much simpler to look down. Your feet are down there, our screens are down there. But our fears are down there too. If you look up and away from the fear you will see the destinations you are headed toward, and you will see the opportunities.

If you look up, you will see the chance to speak and to act on behalf of the discouraged and the diminished. If you look up you will see the expectation you set for yourself can only be expectations that we are setting for you today.

If you look up, you will realize you have a responsibility to build a set of steps for those following behind you to climb up. If you look up you will see that a �ֲ���ý degree is the beginning of your life’s education but not the end.

Gwen Ifill listens to a fellow 2012 Commencement speaker. For several years, all the honorary degree recipients would address the gathering. Ifill was joined by actor Robert De Niro and biologist Bonnie Bassler. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

1970: ‘Prerequisites to Human Fulfillment’��— Russell Train, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

The need for diversity is another of evolution’s great lessons. Diversity is critical to further evolution and to survival. Change and, thus, progress can only occur through a process of selection. Selection requires both choice and the freedom to make choice….

Diversity and freedom are, therefore, prerequisites to human fulfillment. Limitations on diversity — whether ecological, political, or social — are harmful and, indeed, destructive of the potential of our spoils. Can we doubt that cultural uniformity leads to cultural vulnerability?

1966: ‘Fight the Battles of the Disinherited’ — William H. Hastie, first African American federal judge

Until we have close human association with people who have problems different from our own and whose outlook on life is colored by a different body of experiences, we don’t know the American scene.

2014: ‘The Very Word of God Was Segregated — Isabel Alexis Wilkerson, historian and author

When your grandparents (and for some of you when your parents) were born, it was actually against the law for a black person and a white person to merely play checkers together in Birmingham. You could go to jail if you were caught playing checkers with a person of a different race.

It was against the law for a black person to take out a library book in Mississippi; in living memory, throughout the South, there was actually a black Bible and an altogether separate white Bible to swear to tell the truth on in court. The very word of God was segregated. Throughout the South, black people were publicly executed for trying to vote and white people killed for trying to help them.

Isabel Wilkerson prepares to deliver the Commencement address in 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Acclaimed human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, whose work has freed wrongfully convicted death-row prisoners, reduced excessive sentences given to others, and brought greater equality to the U.S. criminal justice system, will deliver the �ֲ���ý College Commencement address and receive an honorary degree on Sunday, May 27.

For its 152nd Commencement, �ֲ���ý welcomes Stevenson, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and three other honorary degree recipients:

Lynsey Addario, a Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist who has documented the human impact of war and conflict around the world, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Jill Lepore, an intellectual and political historian, Harvard professor, and New Yorker staff writer who reveals the present through insightful explorations of the past, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Bob Ludwig, a multiple Grammy Award–winning mastering engineer and music industry legend based in Portland, Maine, will receive a Doctor of Music degree.

“These four inspiring individuals live and work with integrity, commitment, and purpose, and each in his or her own way has opened new worlds to others. We are thrilled to welcome this brilliant class of honorands to �ֲ���ý,” said President Clayton Spencer.

“It will be our particular privilege to welcome Bryan Stevenson as keynote speaker,” Spencer added. “In his fight against wrongful incarceration, he has essentially created a new body of law — and forced a necessary reckoning with institutionalized racism and injustice.”

Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson, who has fought against racial and economic inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system for more than three decades, will deliver the �ֲ���ý Commencement address on May 27. (Photograph by Michael Collopy)

Bryan Stevenson has for more than three decades. As founder and executive director of the in Montgomery, Ala., Stevenson has dedicated his life to exonerating innocent death-row inmates, reducing excessive sentences given to others, and challenging the convictions of individuals unjustly prosecuted as adult offenders, including children and the mentally ill.

Operating on the principle that “each person is more than the worst thing they have ever done,” Stevenson and the EJI have reversed more than 100 death sentences. Stevenson chronicled this work in Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, named one of the best books of 2014 by , The Washington Post, and Esquire, among other publications, and selected this past summer as the Common Read for the �ֲ���ý Class of 2021. In 2012, Stevenson successfully argued before the Supreme Court that mandatory life sentences, without the chance of parole, for crimes committed by juvenile offenders were unconstitutional, even for crimes of murder.

A graduate of the Harvard Law School and Kennedy School of Government, Stevenson serves as a professor of clinical law at New York University Law School. He takes no salary from the EJI, and donated the award from his 1995 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” to the organization. Stevenson’s other honors include the ACLU National Medal of Liberty and the SALT Human Rights Award. On April 26 in Montgomery, the EJI will open the nation’s first memorial dedicated to lynching victims, , and a companion museum, , devoted to dramatizing the enslavement of African Americans, racial terror lynchings, legalized racial segregation, and racial hierarchy in America.

Lynsey Addario

Lynsey Addario, a Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist who has documented the human impact of war and conflict around the world, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Photojournalist has witnessed, documented, and shared the human stories of the major conflicts and humanitarian crises of our time, traveling to Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, South Sudan, Somalia, and Congo. She has been kidnapped twice while on assignment, including being held for six days in Libya in 2011.

Admired for her intimate, empathetic studies of humanitarian issues, especially involving children and women, Addario was one of the New York Times journalists whose series in 2009. She was also part of a team nominated for a 2016 Emmy for a New York Times Magazine series that followed children displaced by war in Syria, Ukraine, and South Sudan. In 2010, Addario received a MacArthur “genius grant,” and in 2015, American Photo Magazine named her one of the five most influential photographers of the past 25 years.

Addario’s best-selling memoir, It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War, was as a book “about the difficult, and often unattainable, balance that most photographers struggle with in their professional and personal lives.”

Jill Lepore

Jill Lepore, an intellectual and political historian, Harvard professor, and New Yorker staff writer, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. (Photograph by Dari Michele)

Distinguished is a masterful guide through American history, culture, and identity, telling captivating stories about the past that resonate powerfully with the present. Author of nine nonfiction books, Lepore is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University.

Lepore’s award-winning books include The Name of War, about King Philip’s War and the emergence of American identity; Book of Ages, about Jane Franklin, sister of Ben Franklin; and The Secret History of Wonder Woman, a best-seller that has been called a “tour de force of intellectual and cultural history.”

Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, Lepore is widely respected for her ability to articulate broad truths about American life and culture by and personal stories of her subjects. Her recent have fixed on such topics as free speech on college campuses, the legacy of Rachel Carson, and the rise of dystopian literature. Her forthcoming book is titled These Truths: A History of the United States.

Bob Ludwig

Bob Ludwig, a multiple Grammy Award–winning mastering engineer and music industry legend based in Portland, Maine, will receive a Doctor of Music degree.

Millions have been touched by the work of Bob Ludwig — though they probably don’t know it. A , he is one of the world’s most in-demand mastering engineers, an artist-technician who applies the final sonic polish to a recording before its release.

Boasting 11 Grammys, two Latin Grammys, and , Ludwig founded in Portland in 1992. Along with major names in classical and jazz, he has worked on musical recordings from an A-to-Z list of rock and pop icons: Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, U2, Jimi Hendrix, Dire Straits, Gloria Estefan, Mariah Carey, Mumford & Sons, Beck, Pearl Jam, and many more. His artistry is rooted in a profound musicality and an encyclopedic grasp of acoustic science and recording technology.

Ludwig earned degrees at the Eastman School of Music and was assistant to recording legend Phil Ramone, taking part in sessions with Frank Sinatra, the Band, and Neil Diamond, among others. Ludwig worked at the mastering studios Sterling Sound and Masterdisk before founding Gateway and making Portland a record-industry destination that treats residents to glimpses of visiting clients like Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton. Ludwig’s industry honors include the inaugural Les Paul Award, in 1991, recognizing excellence in the creative application of recording technology.