It’s 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, and the 160th �ֲ���ý Commencement procession has just set off from Alumni Walk. It will wind along campus walkways en route to the Historic Quad and its final destination, Coram Library. 

Jeremy Caron of Lewiston has been waiting in his wheelchair on the Quad for nearly three hours. He got there early to secure a location where he could easily see and greet the �ֲ���ý seniors he’s come to know over the last four years.

For many, Commencement is a whirlwind, one-time visit to �ֲ���ý. But for some like Caron, who choose to attend year after year, it is an annual touchstone, a chance to support the graduates while reconnecting with a community that has shaped their lives and created a lifetime of memories.

Not far from Caron, a trio of octogenarian �ֲ���ý retirees — Judy Marden ’66, her classmate Bill Hiss ’66, and Elaine Freeman — watch the proceedings from a prime perch, the steps of Hathorn Hall. Collectively, they’ve seen around 150 Commencements.

Marden joined the �ֲ���ý Advancement staff shortly after her own graduation, which was held in the Armory a few blocks from campus. (Lore has it that the Armory was an especially stuffy venue because the circus and its elephants had just left town.) By the mid-1970s, Marden had assumed a new position created by President Thomas Hedley Reynolds, “liaison officer for college functions.” A veteran World War II tank commander, Reynolds might’ve pulled the job title from an Army handbook. 

A big part of Marden’s job was to run Commencement and Convocation, plus summer programs, which she did with help from Freeman, a director in Facility Services. Marden also advised the �ֲ���ý Outing Club. 

Decades later, the twin �ֲ���ý events help anchor and give meaning to Marden’s annual trip around the sun. “My year ends with Commencement and begins with Convocation,” she says. “If it did not, it would have no form.”

Ever since Reynolds introduced the tradition, a bagpiper has led the �ֲ���ý Commencement procession. (Reynolds was also responsible for relocating Commencement from the Armory to the Quad.) On Sunday, the piper’s arrival on the Quad reminds Marden and Freeman of a Commencement task back in the day: appearing with goblets and scotch so Reynolds could share a down-the-hatch drink with the piper at the end of the ceremony.

For Hiss, a retired �ֲ���ý admission dean who forged the college’s famed test-optional admission policy, attending Commencement is an act of bearing witness. “Commencement is about �ֲ���ý doing, and continuing to do, what America needs. It’s that simple,” he says. 

Meanwhile, down on the Quad, Caron awaits the procession. He hasn’t missed a �ֲ���ý graduation since 2006, but he’s more than just a Commencement regular. He attends scores of campus events each year, especially Bobcat sports. Which ones? “Every single one,” he says. That’s around 125 contests annually. “I love sports, and I always tell the athletes that I’ll support them through thick and thin,” he says. “I want to celebrate all their hard work and effort.”

By 9:45, the seniors are nearing Caron’s spot on the Quad. The procession route is full of parents standing elbow to elbow taking pictures and the passing grads, seeming to tower above Caron in his wheelchair. But no matter: They spy their loyal fan, break from the ranks, and reach out for a fist bump, handshake, or hug.

That included Zach Rosenthal ’26, a politics and history double major from Chicago who handled game-day operations for �ֲ���ý Athletics as a student worker. Seeing familiar �ֲ���ý faces like Caron’s on Commencement day was “really cool,” he said later. “It’s cliché, but it’s a full-circle moment. You see these people all the time throughout the past four years, and to see them at the final stop of your academic journey is really special.”

Caron was born without the use of his legs. At age 10, he learned to use an adaptive bicycle, and he’s been an avid biker ever since, including riding in the annual Dempsey Challenge for cancer support. Asked to offer advice to seniors, Caron reflects on his own experience. “There are times you have to adapt,” he says. 

Longtime Lewiston resident Ernie Ashton, a retired local elementary school teacher, has been a driver for the Bobcat Express student shuttle for 23 years. Ashton wasn’t shuttling on Sunday, but there’s no way he would miss graduation. “It’s a pleasure to be here year after year. I just love them,” he says. “You watch these kids for four years, and they do such a great job. They keep me young.” 

He likes to talk up Lewiston to his passengers on the shuttle, “places they should see before they leave,” like Thorncrag Nature Sanctuary and Veterans Memorial Park by the Androscoggin River. “And they do.”

This March, Paul Menice retired as head of Campus Safety after 36 years of service to the college. He’s seen and supported students at their best and worst. “Everyone makes mistakes when they’re young,” he says. When he sees students at Commencement, he sees maturity and appreciation. “It’s a highlight, getting hugs and handshakes, and them saying ‘thanks.’”

Another local at Commencement is Russ Dillingham, an award-winning photographer for Lewiston’s Sun Journal. He’s on the job today, but the event tugs at his heart. “I grew up over there,” he says, pointing to Campus Avenue, where there used to be wood-frame residences, replaced in recent years by college buildings like Bonney Science Center and Chu and Kalperis halls.

When he was a child, Dillingham wore corrective leg braces. A �ֲ���ý student who babysat the Dillingham children would bring Russ over to campus for walks. He got stronger, and his legs straighter. “I’m pretty sure that’s why I can walk straight today,” he says. He enjoys covering Commencement. “It’s relaxed, friendly, and joyful.”

On a walkway near Carnegie Science Hall is Peter Slovenski, son of legendary �ֲ���ý track coach Walter Slovenski. Retired after coaching track at Bowdoin for 34 years, Slovenski stopped by to support graduate Zach Jawor ’26 of Lewiston, one of his very best counselors at his Slovenski Camps on Panther Pond in Raymond.

Slovenski remembers being awed as a little kid by towering �ֲ���ý athletes of the day, figures like Howard Vandersea ’63 or Thom Freeman ’63. “As the years go by, as you see more and more students being able to grow into adults at a place like �ֲ���ý, you realize it’s less about individuals. More of a relay race, passing it forward.”

One of Walt Slovenski’s former �ֲ���ý runners, Tom Leonard ’78, is another Commencement stalwart. An accomplished amateur photographer based in North Granby, Conn., Leonard travels around the Northeast each year from his home to photograph Bobcat athletes in action. Commencement is the final meet of the year, as it were. “Today recognizes the fact that all �ֲ���ý students have accomplished something incredibly meaningful,” Leonard says. 

“When I was a student, I don’t know if I appreciated the scene as much as I do as an old person,” he adds. “I mean, my God, look at all these people who helped get these kids to where they are today. And that’s a beautiful thing.”

Throughout his time at �ֲ���ý, biochemistry major Sebenele Lukhele ’26 of Manzini, Eswatini, has been a researcher. But he’s also been a dancer. And a club volleyball player. And a track and field athlete. And a tutor, and a tour guide, and a member of student government. To sum it up, he was able to be “whatever I wanted to be.”

As he will explain when he delivers the Senior Address at Commencement, Lukhele believes this was possible because of the environment that �ֲ���ý cultivates — one that encourages exploration and discourages judgement. It is an environment that follows through on the college’s promise to be defined by inclusivity, community, and support, coupled with academic rigor. 

This promise, outlined in the �ֲ���ý mission statement and emphasized by Admission representatives, resonated so deeply with Lukhele that he enrolled at �ֲ���ý having never visited campus. He had a feeling he would love the place — and he was right.

�ֲ���ý’ belief in “the transformative power of our differences” is not just about helping students thrive on campus, Lukhele will explain, but also teaching them to be unabatedly curious members of a global society. 

Alexandra DeMarco of �ֲ���ý Communications and Marketing spoke recently with Lukhele. The following is a condensed and edited version of their conversation.

Students who are interested in delivering the Senior Address submit a speech and are selected by a committee. Why did you want to give the Senior Address?

As an international student and a person of color, I came to �ֲ���ý because it promised a community, a place where I can be myself without needing to assimilate or be someone different. I wanted to present a speech on Commencement as a way to show my gratitude for �ֲ���ý giving me that space to explore. I’ve grown so much as a person, and I feel like the community here has been supportive of me in many ways, and I’ve also contributed my support in different ways.

What is the theme of your speech?

Difference and diversity. I have perspectives, or lived experiences, that are very different from my colleagues here. We all have traits that make us different. My speech is highlighting that those differences are our strengths rather than our weaknesses because those are the things that bring us together as a community, if we celebrate them and appreciate them.

At �ֲ���ý, I feel like I was able to be whatever I wanted to be and express myself in whatever way I wanted without needing to be someone different. The speech does try to address a very complex issue of diversity and differences amongst people and how you can approach being a global community that accepts or appreciates each other — coexistence, in a sense.

Could you share an example of a time where you felt like differences were really being celebrated at �ֲ���ý?

Dancing in the 2026 Cultural Showcase, “Here to Stay: Rhythms that Raised Us.” I prepared a piece with one of my friends, Mohamed Al-jabry ’28 from Shinyanga, Tanzania, and we wanted to showcase an African style of dancing. We didn’t feel that we had to do something that was going to be “accepted” by the community, but we felt like we could do something to express ourselves as we are. The crowd was very, very excited. 

People here at �ֲ���ý take anything as long as it’s good and it’s full of energy. No one is looking like, “Oh, this is not something that I’m used to, so I’m going to criticize or judge.” People accept or appreciate those kinds of expressions. That was a very heartwarming moment, and those very small moments are the things that accumulate to make this community what it is. 

I’ve experienced a lot of these moments where people will sit down and listen to you when you have something to say. It also gives you the responsibility to listen to others because when people appreciate and accept you like that, you have a natural instinct to be appreciative of others. 

In my major, biochemistry, professors are able to build a space for differences as things that don’t really affect the way you are viewed in the major. The differences themselves are something that makes it even more interesting, in a sense, because it allows for different perspectives that push research forward. 

You have completed a lot of research during your time at �ֲ���ý, both on campus and during an internship in the summer of 2025 at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. How has research shaped your career plans?

It actually has shaped my career so much because I came here as a pre-med student from a typical African household. When I was young, I was talented in the sciences. With that came a lot of pressure to become a doctor, and that propelled me toward a medical career. I wanted to come to liberal arts school because I wanted to really discover myself and make sure that I’m in a career that gives me purpose.

Being a biochemistry major gave me a very different perspective into what I can do with my passion for science. As time went on, I felt like I would have a greater impact being a researcher. I felt like that would be, at least for me, an approach to science that serves a greater community.

I really like the fact that �ֲ���ý changed my perspective on what my career could be and provided me with options that I didn’t know existed. There were people who were also able to talk to me through that — the Center for Purposeful Work, advisors, research supervisors. 

You did a senior thesis project. What was it about and how did you choose your subject?

I’m very curious about the impact of changes in cells at the molecular level and how those things drive how cells behave and how everything ends up working in the body of a person. This kind of research, even though it sounds very abstract and not very applicable to the real world, drives a lot of the efforts that end up being very impactful to society itself because they end up making new treatments for very threatening diseases. 

I was very interested in the overarching topic of the research, which was manipulation of sphingolipid metabolism in cells by common cold coronaviruses. That basically is analyzing how viruses affect the structure of a cell, specifically the membrane of the cell. My experience involved a lot of method development, which was very different from the research experiences that I’ve had before. My advisor, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Scotty Farley, was also there to support me. Other students were doing similar projects, and we were able to talk about different things and discuss how our data is working and help each other through the process.

What on-campus support have you found as you’ve balanced your various interests — biochemistry, dance, global engagement?

�ֲ���ý is very academically rigorous, and, at the same time, there’s a lot of effort by the institution to support students to make sure that they are succeeding both as people and also as students. I have really explored that and took advantage of those support systems. 

The relationships that professors build with students at �ֲ���ý was something that was very substantial to me in balancing things. I also used to be on the track and field team, and I appreciated Curtis Johnson, head coach of men’s and women’s track and field, so much. He’s a very great guy who goes beyond viewing students just as athletes and is concerned about what is going on in your academic life and your personal life, if you so wish to talk about that. 

I want to give a shout out to James Reese, who was the dean of international students and is now the associate dean of students. People say he’s the “father of international students” because he’s supportive in many different ways. 

Also, being part of student government and working with Campus Life on many things, like organizing TEDx�ֲ���ý last fall, opened a window where I could know a lot of the support systems that existed — from major advisors to student advisors and the deans who are waiting for you to talk to them about anything that you need.

How have those experiences and campus activities helped you build community, especially a diverse and inclusive one, at �ֲ���ý? 

TEDx�ֲ���ý started off with a conversation in Commons with my friends about how diverse communities can be truly diverse and what kinds of things are never talked about that make communities less practically diverse than they should be. You can have statistics, but what we want really with diversity is people to interact and be part of an active community — talk to each other and collaborate, which is what the �ֲ���ý mission statement is all about. 

Our motivation was to bring the topic of diversity to a place where a lot of people can interact with it and not at a professional level, but at a very lowkey, chill level. We called Tedx�ֲ���ý “Unasked Questions,” which basically speaks to the questions that we never ask as communities and the things that we don’t really talk about that would have a great impact in making us a strong community.

I wanted a team full of leaders who think in diverse perspectives and see things that I didn’t see myself. Something I learned being part of leadership roles is that you don’t know everything. Being able to see who can help you in different ways is a great skill. 

I was involved in the Africana Club this past semester, as a community liaison on the executive board. I was not just making a community for myself but also building a community for a lot of people and showcasing my identity as an African person. This allowed me to meet new people that I never thought I would interact with on campus. I was able to have conversations with people and have discussions, which were eye-opening in different ways.

I participated in club volleyball, and that was a way to meet new people through a very different platform, and enjoy the sport.

I was also an officer with student government’s Funding and Activities Board. That perspective made me appreciate the efforts and resources that are put into making sure that clubs thrive, there is equity being achieved, and every club has the chance to express their interest and identities in campus life. 

�ֲ���ý students are very intentional people who care about the things that they do, who care about the work that they do. They don’t just do it for the sake of doing it. That’s something that I’ve really, really appreciated about the people here. 

That’s built by the community that exists at �ֲ���ý — the support and the size of the community and the way the place is structured. We have one dining hall, for example, and that allows people to interact and be part of a community every day. That creates a space where people get more and more comfortable to step out of their comfort zone and become the most purposeful and genuine, happy versions of what they could be. 

What are your post-graduate plans?

I’m going to be a research associate at the UMass Chan Medical School in a lab that researches autoimmunity. There are two �ֲ���ý alumni (Olivia Dekker ’24 and Aurora Beaumont ’24) that also work there. They were really excited to see me come into the interview, and I had a lot of �ֲ���ýie conversations with them. 

I’m very excited about that both at the professional level —  it’s going to give me a chance to explore my research career even more and refine topics I really want to get into — and also being able to embody the characteristics that �ֲ���ý has built in me and taking that in the world out there. That’s my next chapter.

With the breadth of Maine’s four seasons, �ֲ���ý’ campus is ever-changing throughout the year. 

But, even in the most extreme weather, a few things always remain the same — such as the Adirondack chairs dotting the Historic Quad. They stay put through winter blizzards, under colorful fall foliage, and during summer heat, like reliable friends waiting for company.

For Mia Wetzel ’26 of Mashpee, Mass., those chairs evoke a feeling of community representative of her �ֲ���ý experience. That’s why the biochemistry major, with a concentration in art and visual culture,  chose to depict them in her design for this year’s ivy stone, which features two empty Adirondack chairs surrounded by a cascade of falling leaves.

“The fact that they’re empty, it’s like: There’s an open chair, you never know who you’re going to meet, what’s going to happen,” Wetzel said. 

Since 1878, it’s been tradition for a graduating student to design a decorative stone to represent their class year. Any senior can submit an idea, and members of the senior class vote on the final design. On May 26, Wetzel’s stone joined the ranks of more than 130 stones dotting buildings around campus. In keeping with campus tradition, she helped Ron Tardif, a �ֲ���ý Facility Services mason, install the stone on the southeast side of Pettengill Hall. 

Though its design depicts an opportunity for new beginnings, the stone itself reflects not only the departure of the Class of 2026 but also the end of an era for Tardif, who has worked at �ֲ���ý since 2016. He is retiring later this year, making Wetzel’s stone the last ivy stone he will install.

“I feel blessed to have this job,” Tardif said. “�ֲ���ý is a generous employer. To be able to interact with the students is just one benefit. We have some really good kids here, and I enjoyed installing the ivy stones with them.”

For her design, Wetzel wanted to depict something that was personal but also specific to the Class of 2026. She remembered how, arriving at �ֲ���ý in 2022, she realized that her class would be the first since the COVID-19 pandemic to have a fully in-person campus experience.

“That’s when everything started returning to normal,” Wetzel said. “I used that as my inspiration — the idea of connection, reconnection, after being isolated or socially distanced.”

The Adirondack chairs came to mind as a fitting symbol of on-campus community. �ֲ���ý purchased the chairs in 2020 as a means to encourage socially distanced and safe ways to be together,  so they have always been a feature of Wetzel’s �ֲ���ý. She intentionally included two chairs in her design, representing the inherent connection in being a pair.

As for the personal side of the artwork, Wetzel arrived at �ֲ���ý ready to slow down and form deep connections after moving twice during high school — from Zimbabwe to the U.S., then from the U.S. to Germany — for her dad’s work with the Foreign Service. The chairs, with their wide, inviting seats and spacious arms, reflect the relationships she created on campus, including with her professors, who she said have been incredibly supportive, and friends she met through academics and extracurricular activities. Wetzel was the president of the Asian Students Association for two years, a violinist with the �ֲ���ý Orchestra, a Student Academic Support Center tutor, and, most recently, an emergency medical technician with �ֲ���ý EMS.

“Sometimes the people you connect the most with are the people you least expected to,” Wetzel said. “That’s part of what drew me to �ֲ���ý, knowing that there was a friendly atmosphere and that people can talk to whoever, and you might find a connection.”

At the start of her �ֲ���ý Commencement address, Angela Duckworth asked President Garry W. Jenkins to hold her phone, to avoid potential distractions.

Then, Duckworth asked Jenkins to give her his phone. And then she asked everyone in the audience to hand their phones to their neighbor — again, to avoid distraction.

There was a message to the unusual exercise. A psychologist and author of the bestseller Grit, Duckworth focused on the power of “situation modification”: how we can use “physical distance to create psychological distance,” especially the proximity of our phones to our selves.

It’s what successful people do, she said. “Achieving what you want out of life has to act in one way or another. [S}uccessful people rarely rely on inner fortitude to resist temptations in the heat of the moment.”

Instead, they find ways to avoid temptations or distractions altogether. “Successful strivers…deliberately design their situations in ways that make wise choices easier.”

Here are 12 tips from Duckworth’s talk about how to pursue situation modification to live more mindfully:

1. Use physical distance to create psychological distance

“If you don’t like how your phone grabs your attention, directs your thoughts, triggers your desires, then push it away. On the other hand, if you want something to take up more of your conscious awareness — art, poetry, a really good novel — keep close, as close as possible.”

2. Out of sight, out of mind 

“When you need to focus deeply — put your phone in another room. Out of sight is out of mind.”

3. Change your sky-to-screen ratio 

“Get up and walk out the door. The blue canopy above, even on this cloudy day, while it has no marketing department, no fancy algorithm designed to keep you hooked — but whoa, what an awesome alternative to the glowing blue rectangle in the palm of your hand.”

4. Don’t let your phone ruin dinner 

“When you’re having dinner with people you care about… agree to keep your phones off the table, ideally in a zipped pocket where your habit of reaching for it will be interrupted.”

5. Keep it out of reach behind the wheel 

“Each year, distracted driving causes nearly 800,000 accidents, more than 300,000 injuries, and more than 3,000 deaths.”

6. Move your phone out of the bedroom 

“Don’t keep your phone in your bedroom. As , if the last thing you stroke before bed and the first thing you caress in the morning is your phone, you are not moving in the right direction.”

7. Try intentional listening 

“When you decide, deliberately, that you want to listen to something on your phone, look up the Ezra Klein podcast featuring the British author Zadie Smith.”

In the interview, Smith told Klein that the thought of having a phone, and being subject to intrusions and expectations of social media, was intolerable: “I cannot imagine what my mind would be, what my books would be, what my relationships would be, what my relationship with my children would be.”

8. Reclaim your attention

“Situation modification isn’t about abstinence. It’s about intentionality. It’s about creating space between stimulus and response, between notification and reaction. And it’s about reclaiming your attention.”

9. Be aware of digital junk food

“More and more, people are turning to chatbots for life advice, for companionship, and even for love…. [But] chatbots may be the equivalent of social junk food — providing short-term gratification at the cost of long-term nourishment.”

10. Design your life for connection 

“Starting today, maintaining your friendships will require more deliberate effort. You’ll need to schedule time, travel distances, and prioritize showing up for the people who matter to you. All that becomes infinitely harder when your default response to free time is to dive into your phone.

11. You worship what you sit next to 

“One of my closest friends… removed the flatscreen TV from the family living room. [Her] boys complained, but she reminded them of the Hindu proverb her own mother had passed on to her: ‘You worship what you sit next to.'”

12. Remember: how we spend our days… 

“When you make your choices, remember what : ‘How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.’”

At �ֲ���ý’ 159th Commencement on Sunday, May 25, Commencement speaker Angela Duckworth began her address with one simple request to members of the audience: to take out their phones and hand them to someone next to them.

The 504 members of the Class of 2025, along with their families, faculty, and staff — whether strangers or kin to their neighbors — obliged. 

Onstage, Duckworth traded phones with President Garry W. Jenkins. Free from their digital companions, Commencement attendees turned their attention forward.

With this striking exercise, perhaps unique to the 2025 graduation season, Duckworth began to drive home a compelling, useful, and relevant message: Through “situation modification, we have the power to shape and alter our surroundings in ways that help us thrive.

 “This is what mindfulness looks like in the digital age,” said Duckwork, who is a psychologist, leading voice in the study of human behavior, and author of the New York Times bestseller Grit. “Not willpower, but the wisdom to shape the situations that shape you.”

View the 159th �ֲ���ý College Commencement. Speaker Angela Duckworth’s address begins at the one-hour mark.

This emphasis on self-determination and its relationship to our surroundings — whether the latter be the location of a cellular device, the campus that the Class of 2025 has grown to call home, or �ֲ���ý’ spot in an uncertain world — echoed throughout the Commencement speeches, including Jenkins’ welcoming remarks and the 2025 Senior Address given by Aanika Patel ’25 of Needham, Mass.

On the heels of last week’s atypical May northeaster that covered campus in rain, the 159th Commencement was one of the chilliest in recent memory, with the temperature at 56 degrees but feeling cooler thanks to clouds overhead and a northwest breeze, which prompted a number of audience members to arrive with fleece throws.

Members of the Class of 2025 are from 38 states, the District of Columbia, and 31 countries. Among those students were 126 with double majors and four with triple majors, including five students who received Fulbright grants for the 2025–26 academic year. Sixty percent of the Class of 2025 studied abroad, and more than 40 percent played on varsity sports teams. 

Duckworth received a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree, and three other honorands were also recognized: 

• Mary Bonauto, a lawyer and activist for LGBTQ+ rights who successfully argued Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) before the Supreme Court, received a Doctor of Letters degree;
•  Stanley Nelson, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who tells the dynamic stories of Black Americans, received a Doctor of Fine Arts degree; 
• Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts and former U.S. assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, received a Doctor of Laws degree.

In his opening remarks, Jenkins acknowledged the unique and challenging moment that the Class of 2025 faces as they enter the world beyond �ֲ���ý.

“You have probably heard more than once that these are uncertain times,” Jenkins said. “Perhaps so much so that you may be a bit tired of hearing it.”

But, Jenkins said, there is good and bad news on this front. On one hand, “there will always be uncertainty,” Jenkins said. “Life is defined by change, by the unexpected, by the yet-unknown and the always-unknowable.”

The Class of 2025 is well-equipped to handle uncertainty, Jenkins said, having ended high school and begun college during a pandemic and gained an education preparing them to handle a changing future.

As they venture onward, the Class of 2025 has much to offer, Jenkins said, and he hopes that they will bring forth the skills they’ve acquired at �ֲ���ý to continue to do good.

“The world needs �ֲ���ý graduates — the world needs you — to bring all the tools and talents you have acquired during your time on this campus to bear for lives of leadership and purpose, ameliorating uncertainty, fueling prosperity and innovation, standing up for what is right, caring for those around you,” Jenkins said.

The Class of 2025 has much to offer, Jenkins said. They embody grit, creativity, and a commitment to seeking justice and asking the hard questions, values instilled by a liberal arts education.

“It is at places like �ֲ���ý that we prepare students to think critically, to problem solve, to engage across difference, to connect, both the dots and with each other,” Jenkins said. “And then those students become graduates who contribute to their communities around the world in all their vibrancy, diversity, and complexity.”

Jenkins charged the Class of 2025 and Commencement attendees with carrying forward a message about the importance of higher education in changing our world for the better, and “the reason it matters to a healthy democracy.”

“Higher education has long fueled American progress — driving innovation, preparing leadership, and enhancing civic life. Of all this, I am certain,” Jenkins said. “And, I can tell you — our amazing graduates, as well as friends and visitors — I call on you all to be ambassadors for �ֲ���ý and for higher education.”

Senior Speaker Aanika Patel ’25, an environmental studies major from Needham, Mass., began her speech by recounting a very-�ֲ���ý tale. 

Picture this: It was winter in Lewiston, and Patel was preparing for the first outdoor lab in the course “Scientific Approaches to Environmental Issues.” Ahead of the lab, her professor, Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies Holly Ewing, encouraged her students to dress appropriately for the trek up Mount David in the snow. 

That was really no big deal, thought Patel. She showed up wearing a jacket and Blundstones, not a glove in sight, and declined to sport the college-provided snowshoes, despite a foot and a half of snow on the ground.

“About 30 minutes into it, I felt the snow slowly seeping into my socks, and my hands turned a terrible pale shade of white,” Patel said. “This class had suddenly become one of those David Attenborough Planet Earth ��dz��ܳ���Գٲ��������.”

Patel learned her lesson: proper preparation frees the mind to revel in the surrounding natural wonders. 

“After learning to dress properly, I began noticing the Maine beauty around me that I continue to be grateful for,” Patel said. 

On Mount David, Patel saw a maple tree, which, even in its stateliness, grew while leaving room for a nearby birch tree to also extend its roots. Each species, she noticed, played a role in the delicate dance of nature. She imagined the birch tree falling over, and its fellow trees stepping up to take over its ecological responsibilities.

“Each species finds a new place in space,” Patel said. “In this way, communities form, diverse but intertwined and interdependent through relationships forged over many years.”

�ֲ���ý’ community is not indifferent from these intertwining natural relationships, Patel said. Since the first week of freshman year, the Class of 2025 has constructed its own “ecosystem,” rooted firmly in place and defined by the lessons students have learned from one another and the memories they’ve shared.

“Place is a network of relationships carrying histories, contexts, stories, and identities,” Patel said. “In order for a place to remain, there needs to be this acknowledgement of what has created it and how our identities are framed by it.”

Like Jenkins, Patel acknowledged that the Class of 2025 has dealt with tremendous change, from enrolling in college during a pandemic, to grieving in the aftermath of the October 2023 Lewiston shootings, to processing the 2024 presidential election.

But they didn’t go it alone. The Class of 2025 persisted and thrived thanks to support from many entities on campus.

“It is on this campus we found a community to fight against isolation, to mourn loss and find hope in change, and to fight for the things worth fighting for just by being there and adjusting and relying on each other,” Patel said.

Wherever the members of the Class of 2025 end up next, despite the fear and uncertainty of a path untrodden, they will always have �ֲ���ý, Patel said.

“Like the trees standing their ground on Mount David, we will always have these histories we created in our back pockets, and their memory will be a reassurance to stand tall, stay grounded in who you are, and be courageous in this next chapter of our lives.”

In her Commencement address, Angela Duckworth also discussed the importance of staying grounded, specifically by improving our relationship with the devices that now live ubiquitously beside us.

“If being on your phone were a paid job, we would be getting overtime,” Duckworth said.

Cell phone use and placement have a profound effect on personal performance and well-being, Duckworth explained. Research shows that having one’s phone within eyesight while taking an IQ test lowers scores, and high school students who study with their phones farther away from them perform better academically.

Additionally, she pointed out, the popularity of social media over the last two decades coincides with decreasing rates of in-person social interaction, and studies show that halting Facebook and Instagram use for just one month corresponds with increased levels of happiness and decreased levels of depression and anxiety.

Often, the choice to pick up our phones is not a conscious act but rather a habit that we turn to when we’re feeling awkward or anxious; cell phones are “effectively adult pacifiers,” Duckworth said.

The key to dealing with digital distractions, she said, is not about willpower but taking action to remove the distraction.

“Situation modification means using physical distance to create psychological distance,” Duckworth said.

Successful people change their environment to eliminate temptations or distractions instead of expending energy to resist them.

Due to her phenomenally successful book, Duckworth is famously linked to the concept of grit, which “might make it sound as if world-class performers just force themselves to do things. But that’s not accurate. They love what they do. And because they love what they do, they create sanctuaries where they cannot be distracted from their craft.”

Where we keep our phones is among the most important choices we make, Duckworth said. Luckily enough, it is not a choice that we make only once, but rather one that we can recommit to — or change — over and over again.

“I urge you to make a humble yet powerful vow: Commit to situation modification,” Duckworth said.

As such, Duckworth offered six suggestions:

• Put your phone in another room when you need to focus deeply.
• Go outside when you feel awkward, anxious, or bored.
• Keep your phones off of the table during group dinners.
• Keep your phone beyond arm’s reach while driving.
• Don’t keep your phone in your bedroom.
• When you do want to use your phone, listen to The Ezra Klein Show podcast featuring author Zadie Smith, who discusses why she refuses to buy a smartphone.

“Situation modification isn’t about abstinence. It’s about intentionality,” Duckworth said. “It’s about creating space between stimulus and response, between notification and reaction. And it’s about reclaiming your attention.”

Malcolm Hill, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, offered the honorary degree citations for Duckworth, Bonauto, Nelson, and Patrick.

Bonauto, a leader in legal efforts to advance marriage equality, has been senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD Law) since 1990.

In 2015, she successfully argued in front of the Supreme Court in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriage legal throughout the country.

“As she said at the beginning of this year, accepting the Presidential Citizen Medal from President Biden, ‘We each have a role to play in fulfilling our country’s promises of equality, dignity, and freedom,’” Hill said, quoting Bonauto.

“In her career, and her contributions to a more equitable society, we see the realization of her own hopes,” Hill said.

Stanley Nelson’s expansive documentary filmmaking has broached subjects including Harriet Tubman, Emmett Till, and historically Black colleges and universities.

“He is a prolific — and prolifically talented, and prolifically honored — documentary filmmaker, focused on telling the stories of Black Americans — lifting up those narratives that haven’t been told, and sharing other narratives, ones that we presume we know, in new and revelatory ways,” Hill said.

Deval Patrick focused on “student achievement, healthcare coverage, entrepreneurial activity, and veterans services” and defended Massachusetts’ law legalizing same-sex marriage, the first of its kind in the country.

“‘Community’ provides not only the through-line of his life and career — it is a value deeply held, frequently cited, and powerfully enacted,” Hill said.

Hill then read the Class of 2025’s names during the conferral of the degrees, the students’ short steps across the Coram stage marking a leap into the next phase of their lives.

After the conferral, Jenkins paused to recognize Hill for his contribution as dean of the faculty; after a sabbatical; he will returns to the classroom as a professor of biology and earth and climate sciences.

Then, Leah Elsmore ’12, president of the �ֲ���ý Alumni Association, offered parting words about the importance of building connections with fellow alumni and being prepared to support future �ֲ���ýies.

“Throughout the twists and turns of your professional and personal journey, you can always connect with a Bobcat in the wild,” Elsmore said. “And I urge you to pay it forward. Someday when you’ve established yourselves in your chosen fields, be ready to be there for the next generation of �ֲ���ý graduates.”

In a benediction coinciding nicely with the images of nature twisting through Patel’s address, and after Jenkins’ charge to go out and do good, the words of the Rev. Raymond Clothier, interim multifaith chaplain, closed the Commencement ceremony:

“May what you have learned at �ֲ���ý take root and flower in minute and majestic ways to nourish others, nurse the wounded earth and nurture human community.

“May it be so.”

Angela Duckworth, a prominent professor of psychology specializing in the concepts of grit and perseverance and their relationship to education, leadership, and personal development, will deliver the �ֲ���ý College Commencement address on Sunday, May 25, 2025. 

Author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, a cultural phenomenon that stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for 164 weeks, Duckworth will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree and be joined by three other honorary degree recipients:

• Mary Bonauto, the pioneering civil rights attorney whose landmark advocacy helped establish marriage equality in the U.S., will receive a Doctor of Laws degree. 
• Stanley Nelson, an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work amplifies untold histories and who mentors emerging filmmakers of color, will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts degree.
• Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts and a champion of public leadership and civic engagement, will receive a Doctor of Laws degree.

“This year’s honorary degree recipients embody the �ֲ���ý values of leadership, creativity, resilience, and purpose,” said President Garry W. Jenkins. “From expanding civil rights and redefining character development to telling our stories and advancing the public good, these individuals have shaped the world in ways that should resonate deeply with our graduates and their families.”

The 159th Commencement ceremony begins on Sunday, May 25, at 10 a.m. on the Historic Quad, with a livestream available on the �ֲ���ý College website and social media platforms.

Mary Bonauto

The architect of legal strategies that advance equality, Mary Bonauto is a trailblazer in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. In 2015, she successfully argued Obergefell v. Hodges before the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down state bans on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, and in 2003 led the way to legal victory in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Bonauto is senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law). A 2014 MacArthur Fellow, Bonauto was recognized for her work to ensure “equal treatment and dignity for all people” and for “influencing debates about the relationship between the law and momentous social change.” In January 2025, President Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors, for her contributions to democracy and justice. 

A longtime resident of Maine, Bonauto began her legal career in the Pine Tree State in 1987 during the height of the AIDS epidemic, establishing a pro bono practice to include discrimination issues and gaps in the law as to LGBTQ people and families. Thirty years ago this spring, she took a leading role in fighting a statewide referendum in Maine that sought to bar legal protections for LGBTQ+ individuals. 

Bonauto graduated from Hamilton College, majoring in history and comparative literature with membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and earned a law degree from Northeastern University School of Law. Her profound influence in the fight for equality led former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank to describe her as “the LGBT community’s equivalent of Thurgood Marshall.” Bonauto deflects acclaim, saying, “This movement has involved so many people for so many decades that I feel a completely inadequate stand-in for all of those millions of people, for all they have done.”

Angela Duckworth

A leading voice in the study of human behavior, Angela Duckworth has revolutionized our understanding of resilience and success. Her research has also advanced insights into how people make choices in real-world contexts, from education to public health.

Using research data from West Point cadets, National Spelling Bee finalists, novice teachers, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, and other high-achieving individuals, Duckworth published Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance in 2016. A cultural phenomenon and No. 1 international bestseller, the book has shaped the way educators, business leaders, and individuals approach personal growth. With more than 35 million views, her TED Talk on grit is one of the most viewed of all time. 

Duckworth is the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also the faculty co-director of the Penn-Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative and Wharton People Analytics. She has advised the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs, served as a McKinsey management consultant, and co-founded Character Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing scientific insights that help children thrive.

A former math and science teacher at public schools in New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, Duckworth is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, selected for “clarifying the role that intellectual strengths and personality traits play in educational achievement” and for “providing an alternative to the focus on cognitive skills now dominant in American education practice.” Prior to her career in research, she founded a summer school for underserved children that was profiled as a Harvard Kennedy School case study. She earned a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology from Harvard College, a master of science in neuroscience at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Stanley Nelson

A multiple Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and recipient of the National Humanities Medal, Stanley Nelson is a director, writer, and producer of documentaries that capture the struggles and triumphs of the American experience, particularly through the lens of Black history and civil rights.

Through his more than 30 films, including Freedom Riders, Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, The Murder of Emmett Till, and Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, Nelson has shaped public memory and historical discourse while elevating and amplifying voices never before heard. “What I’m trying to do is part detective,” he once said. “There’s a feeling that we all know about the civil rights movement. So part of it is finding new and exciting voices that we haven’t heard.”

A 2002 MacArthur Fellow, Nelson is an American Film Institute Guggenheim Symposium honoree and is mentoring a new generation of filmmakers of color through Firelight Media, an incubator for underrepresented voices in documentary film that he co-founded with his wife, the writer and producer Marcia Smith. In 2013, President Barack Obama presented the filmmaker with the National Medal in the Humanities. In 2022, Nelson received his first Oscar nomination for Attica, a documentary about the 1971 prison uprising, which won Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary from the Directors Guild of America.

In a 2020 New York Times story on documentary film’s role in advancing racial justice, published in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Nelson said that moving images are “responsible for people getting out on the streets all over the country. You don’t have to start a movement, there’s already something happening and you can just join in.” Nelson earned a bachelor’s degree from the Leonard Davis Film School at the City College of New York.

Deval Patrick

Born on Chicago’s South Side, Deval Patrick has spent a lifetime championing justice, opportunity, and servant leadership. As governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015, he led the Commonwealth to a 25-year employment high and top national rankings in student achievement, healthcare coverage, entrepreneurial activity, and veterans services. He defended marriage equality and led the state’s response to the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

Before serving as governor, Patrick was a partner at two Boston law firms, an executive at two Fortune 50 companies, and a civil rights attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he litigated cases involving voting rights and the death penalty. Under President Bill Clinton, he was the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, where his cases included the response to a wave of arsons targeting Black churches — the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history prior to 9/11. 

After leaving office, Patrick founded and led Bain Capital Double Impact, a fund to deliver both market returns and positive social and environmental impact. He was the founding chair of Our Generation Speaks, which brings together young Israeli and Palestinian leaders through entrepreneurship. Patrick is also the author of two books, A Reason to Believe and Faith in the Dream, which reflect on his commitment to servant leadership. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he is currently the David R. Gergen Professor of Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and a senior partner at The Vistria Group, a mission-driven investment firm.

In 2020, speaking to �ֲ���ý alumni as the inaugural speaker for the Benjamin Mays Black Alumni Society, he noted that “government has had a role to play in helping people help themselves” — an apt reminder for anyone who has lived the American Dream.

Mohammed Shwani’s parents grew up in Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein. As ethnic Kurds, they were persecuted, forced to live amid war and the threat of chemical attacks, with no hope for their own schooling. 

Mahdi and Hozan Shwani wanted more for their son. A week ago they were on campus for the realization of one of their dreams for him: the completion of a college degree.

Believed to be the first �ֲ���ý graduate from Iraq, Mohammed Shwani earned his politics degree summa cum laude with the Class of 2024 on May 26. He called his graduation “a celebration of resilience, family, and dreams realized against all odds.”

“Our journey has been one of resilience and survival,” Mahdi and Hozan Shwani said. “Living within the confines of a war, we couldn’t dream of a world beyond our immediate struggles. Witnessing our child’s graduation from �ֲ���ý College fills us with indescribable pride and a touch of awe.”

Mohammed Shawani had a chance to show his abundant gratitude to his parents, and to �ֲ���ý, in a public way, as the featured speaker at the reception and dinner hosted by the Office of Intercultural Education Commencement two days before Commencement.

Here are his remarks:

It’s a surprise, honestly, that �ֲ���ý saw fit to have me stand before you today, given that my English journey kicked off at 14 years old with nothing but an old Oxford dictionary and lengthy chats with my reflection in the mirror. Somehow, I managed to persuade �ֲ���ý to allow me to bring that very dictionary to the podium. So, if you catch me glancing down today, you’ll know I’m just visiting an old friend for a bit of inspiration.

As an aspiring lawyer, my mission today is to convince you to boldly go where not everyone goes— away from the mainstream. By the time I conclude my argument, if I’ve swayed you, then it’s clear I’m lawyer material. However, if I fail, then it’s likely Professor [Stephen] Engel made a grave mistake passing me in constitutional law, and I probably have no business graduating this weekend. Let’s hope for my sake, I make a compelling case!

Here are the facts: You are born into a world torn apart by war. You are learning in schools that seem to be falling apart just as fast as Iraqi cities around you. School turns into just memorizing facts among the ruins. But everyone tells you it’s your only hope for a better tomorrow. So faced with that reality, what would you do?

I did something not many people would — I left school.

If you are a parent, your heart probably just skipped a beat. That’s exactly how my parents felt when I went from a straight-A student to barely passing classes and not going to school all together. And I don’t blame them.

You see, my parents were born poor and had endured the Saddam Hussein regime. At 9, my dad was stashed into a bus’s engine as they were fleeing Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks and persecution of the Kurds. My grandfather many years before had escaped getting hanged at least a few times. My parents’ brushes with conflict had left them fearful, never having finished school, and clinging to the belief that traditional education and good grades were the surest way to secure my future. 

But a part of me — call it naiveté or intuition — could not accept this mindset. For much of my life, my mom would construct scenarios of my death she imagined whenever I left the house. I often ignored her warnings. But when ISIS bombed my school, her stories neared reality. My mother’s words consumed me as I carried the bodies of the injured.

These adversities made me doubt the safety of following the crowd. I understood that to make it through, I needed to carve out my own journey, to seek personal growth on my terms. Like obsessing over this dictionary instead of going to school. Without it, I wouldn’t be here. Frankly, I don’t even know if I would be alive.

“Every person has faced their own battles. Some of us have faced wars in our countries, others have fought personal battles that no one else can see. The message I want to impart is not about the adversities themselves, but about how we respond to them.”

Mohammed Shwani

Look, you don’t need to have experienced war to take away the essence of what I’m sharing with you today. Every person in this room, every student, faculty member, and guest, has faced their own battles. Some of us have faced wars in our countries, others have fought personal battles that no one else can see. The message I want to impart is not about the adversities themselves, but about how we respond to them.

You don’t need to have survived a war to understand that life’s true education often happens outside the traditional classroom. It happens when we’re pushed to our limits, when we’re forced to reconsider what we thought was the only path forward. My journey taught me that the mainstream path isn’t the only one to success. In fact, sometimes, it’s the detours, the roads less traveled, that lead us to our true destinies.

But ironically, somehow, I forgot about all this when I came to �ֲ���ý. It was here that I found safety. For the first time in my life, I had the opportunity to ask what do I want to do? instead of just surviving. �ֲ���ý gave me the answer.

Coming from a place where the norm was chaos and lawlessness, I found myself here at �ֲ���ý, drawn to the law, believing it was my calling. �ֲ���ý opened my eyes to the power of law, to the beauty of arguing a case, to the thrill of engaging with complex issues. But somewhere down the line, I got a bit lost. I started chasing grades, eyeing that prestigious law firm job, thinking, “This is it. This is success. Safety. This will finally prove that I am…smart, worthy, enough.” 

But you know what? It felt a bit off. Like wearing a shirt that’s too tight — looks good, but man, does it feel constraining. I realized I was marching down a path that was more about ticking boxes than truly living. �ֲ���ý taught me to think, to argue, to write — some say even better than ChatGPT. But it also taught me something more crucial through the close relationship I enjoyed with you all, professors, staff, and friends: to stay true to myself.

Where else do you get this opportunity?

There I was, thinking I had to follow this straight path to be successful, to make my mark. But the real lesson professors kept reminding me of? It’s not just about law, or any one path. It’s about finding what makes you leap out of bed in the morning. For me, it started with ditching school for a dictionary and ended up here, at �ֲ���ý, where I could debate Supreme Court cases, hike Katahdin with the outing club, and discover a love for running I never knew I had.

To the parents out there, I get it. I know how terrifying it must be to watch your kid choose a path you wouldn’t have chosen for them. But here’s the thing—�ֲ���ý reminded me that sometimes, that’s exactly where you need to go. It’s not just about safety or risk; it’s about finding your own rhythm, your own path to happiness and fulfillment.

“I remember begging my dad at 14 to take me to the U.S. Embassy to ask about getting a visa to study in the U.S. He dismissed it as a daydream, saying, ‘People like us will never be able to get a visa, let alone to the U.S.’ But here I am, having turned that so-called fantasy into my reality.”

Mohammed Shwani ’24

To the students, I say: Don’t be afraid to follow your intuition, even when it leads you away from the conventional path. I ask you not just to consider the path less traveled but to embrace it with open arms. Whether it’s through pursuing unconventional careers, seeking education beyond the walls of institutions, or simply living in a way that feels true to you. Don’t worry if your journey doesn’t look like everyone else’s.

Let’s take that leap, not into the unknown, but into what we truly love. Let’s make our mark, not by following the path laid out for us, but by blazing our own, fueled by the passions �ֲ���ý helped us discover and the resilience we’ve built along the way. And if my words today have inspired you to even consider that there might be more out there for you, then I believe I’ve made my case.

As I stand here, I remember begging my dad at 14 to take me to the U.S. Embassy to ask about getting a visa to study in the U.S. He dismissed it as a daydream, saying, “People like us will never be able to get a visa, let alone to the U.S.”

But here I am, having turned that so-called fantasy into my reality. And beyond just making it here myself, the fact that we’ve managed to bring my parents over for graduation feels nothing short of miraculous. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the friends and the support from �ֲ���ý that made this seemingly impossible feat possible. 

Welcome to �ֲ���ý, Mom and Dad. Dreams do come true you know. But my new dream is not just about becoming a lawyer, it is to discover, accept and connect with my true authentic self. Whatever path that might be. 

I rest my case. 

The �ֲ���ý Class of 2024, whose college experience reflected great tests and greater perseverance, heard three pieces of life advice from one of the nation’s foremost journalists at Commencement this morning: Be wary of when success becomes a non-stop treadmill, remember much of life depends on what we choose to see, and hold tight to those lifelong friendships forged at �ֲ���ý.

“The friendships you have made at �ֲ���ý — the real ones — will matter to you,” said Mary Louise Kelly, host of NPR’s evening news program All Things Considered, in her Commencement address. “They will enrich your life for all the years ahead. Cherish them. Fight for them.”

Complete 2024 �ֲ���ý Commencement Video

• Welcome by President Garry W. Jenkins: 52:30
• Senior Address by Yun Zhang: 1:09
• Presentation of Honorands: 1:19
• Commencement Address by Mary Louise Kelly: 1:31
• Conferral of Baccalaureate Degrees: 1:48:30

At today’s 158th �ֲ���ý Commencement on the Historic Quad, 437 members of the Class of 2024 took the iconic walk across the Coram Library stage to accept congratulations and diplomas from President Garry W. Jenkins in his first Commencement since taking the helm on July 1, 2023. 

Kelly received an honorary degree along with two other honorands. Poet Richard Blanco, who served as the presidential poet at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, received a Doctor of Letters degree along with Kelly, and President Emerita Clayton Spencer received a Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

The Class of 2024 represented 36 states and the District of Columbia and 19 countries, including 51 students who were the first in their family to graduate from college. As many as 48 percent of the graduating class studied abroad and 43 percent participated in varsity sports — big numbers that were proudly shared by Jenkins as he welcomed the class.

“The �ֲ���ý Class of 2024 has been tested, and they have persevered. And in so doing, they have found joy and strength in one another, in connections, in relationships.”

President Garry W. Jenkins

“All of this you have achieved while giving back, especially here in Lewiston, giving thousands of hours to community-engaged learning and research, volunteering, community work-study, and other forms of informed civic action,” Jenkins said.

The newly inaugurated president greeted the graduating class by noting how their time at �ֲ���ý was bookended by the COVID-19 pandemic during their first year and the horrific Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston — yet the challenges in these unsettling events made them stronger. 

“The �ֲ���ý Class of 2024 has been tested, and they have persevered,” Jenkins said. “They have taken on everything that has come their way and they also have thought deeply about their personal relationships to local, national, and global events. And in so doing, they have found joy and strength in one another, in connections, in relationships.”

Jenkins praised the seniors in how they “turned outward, not inward,” and demonstrated grit. And Jenkins added: “I love grit.” 

He called it a “secret, powerful weapon,” and, in fact, a critical piece to success.

“To discover the undiscovered or produce something of beauty, you have to have grit. It takes grit to remove stubborn institutional and structural barriers that undermine equality and belonging,” Jenkins said.

“I want professionals with a relentless push for improvement and excellence and the ability to find the means to transcend the inevitable roadblocks that one encounters in life and inside organizations. All of that takes grit.”

“Stay committed to a lifetime of learning, stay healthy, and tend to your well-being. Stay engaged in the issues that matter to you most.”

President Garry W. Jenkins

Jenkins suggested the Class of 2024 lean into their steely grit and think of it as a muscle, something that can be strengthened. Use it, he advised, to get back up after getting knocked down, to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation — to persevere.

Then he reminded them: “You are forever a part of the �ֲ���ý community, and �ֲ���ý is forever a part of you.”

“Each of you has the capacity to contribute to organizations, communities, disciplines, and industries. And to do that, stay on your path — the one that’s right for you, not someone else,” Jenkins advised. “Stay committed to a lifetime of learning, stay healthy, and tend to your well-being. Stay engaged in the issues that matter to you most.”

Kelly was described in her Doctor of Letters degree citation as having “provided the highest degree of service as an award-winning journalist: seeking authenticity over artifice, sharing well-researched facts, and informing the public about the forces at work in our society and their impact on our lives.”

As she took the lectern for her address, Kelly enthusiastically said she now considers herself “a �ֲ���ý alum from here on out.” She also spoke about responsibility, how in a democracy that protects free speech and a free press and offers rights and freedoms, citizens are obligated to educate themselves on history, geography, literature, and art, and to stay informed about world and national events. 

Only from shared facts can productive discussion flow, she said. “I believe we are capable of celebrating strong and honest differences of opinion even as we respect a common set of facts.  And I congratulate you here at �ֲ���ý for finding ways to do that.”

In doing so, she said, that knowledge equips us with the ability to celebrate “strong and honest differences of opinion even as we respect a common set of facts.” With that, Kelly pivoted to the advice she brought Sunday for the graduates, and shared it through three personal stories.

The first was about the college-visit trip she took with her oldest son, James, to the University of Chicago, where her son noted how the acceptance rate of the students applying to the nation’s top 15 law schools is a whopping 83 to 93 percent.

Kelly said that made her think about the rat wheel of success her son already saw himself on: good college, then good grad school, and so on. She said that she wanted to whisper to her son: “Just enjoy this moment. This one. Stop thinking about the next step and the one after that.’” 

Kelly advised the graduates to consider, instead, the perspective offered by author George Saunders, who wrote: “Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it. There is the very real danger that succeeding will take up your whole life while the big questions go untended.”

“Success can be like a treadmill,” Kelly said. “It can obscure the actual living of life. Try not to let it.”

Her second piece of advice also came from her experience as a parent, from the time she took an extended leave from NPR to help her other son, Alexander, when he had speech delay in early childhood. But when Kelly ran into a fellow journalist one day on the way to the park, the encounter made her question her choice. The successful colleague also had just had a child, but chose, instead, to return to work. 

However, years later, the woman told Kelly that on that day, she regretted her choice of returning to work, and saw Kelly as a radiant, happy mom who made the right choice to be at home with her son. It made Kelly realize: Too often we see only our shortcomings. We beat ourselves up. 

Instead, Kelly told her audience, we should choose to see something else about ourselves. “So much of life depends on what we choose to see,” Kelly said, and then shared with the Class of 2024 her last bit of wisdom: Guard the friendships that are dear to them. “Hold on to the friendships you have made these last four years.”

She shared how her own college friends are part of a tight group of loyal, supportive girlfriends dubbed “the Forces of Nature.”

“Today we live all over the country. But we gather, in person, all of us, at least once a year,” Kelly said. “These women’s faces, their voices are as familiar to me as my own. We were the maids of honor at each other’s weddings. We are godmothers to each other’s children. These women would drop everything and get on a plane to help me if I needed them to. And I know this — because they have done it.” 

For senior speaker Yun Zhang of Anhui, China, it was a good Samaritan at the Walmart in Auburn who provided a great example of the reverberating power of kindness, community, and generosity.

“As Lewiston embraced me with its unexpected warmth, I realized that these moments of kindness are the true essence of community, transforming an unfamiliar place into a haven of belonging.” 

Senior Speaker Yun Zhang of Anhui, China

Zhang shared the story of how last Thanksgiving, which she spent alone as an international student 7,500 miles from her hometown, she decided to find strength in making a feast for one. But when her credit card momentarily wouldn’t work at Walmart and a woman stepped to the register and “offered to cover the gap,” Zhang realized from this simple act of kindness that she was not alone.

“As Lewiston embraced me with its unexpected warmth, I realized that these moments of kindness are the true essence of community, transforming an unfamiliar place into a haven of belonging,” Zhang said. 

As did Jenkins, Zhang referenced the dark nights following the Oct. 25 shootings — and echoed the president’s assertion that �ֲ���ý came through the fear and uncertainty of those subsequent dark days ever closer. The experience, Zhang said, proved they were “a community undeterred, united in the conviction that together, we could weather any storm and stay — Lewiston Strong.”

To which the audience stretched across the Historic Quad erupted in a rousing round of applause.

That horrific tragedy, Zhang continued, lent a larger, lasting lesson.

“�ֲ���ý taught us that caring for the community means engaging with the world at large, with communities rooted in differences yet bound by the shared human experience,” Zhang said. “Our journey from the gates of �ֲ���ý into the vast expanse of the world is a transition from one form of community to another, with the mission to spread the ethos of understanding, support, and unity that �ֲ���ý has so deeply ingrained in us.”

The honorary degree citations for Kelly, Richard Blanco, and Clayton Spencer were offered by Malcolm Hill, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. 

Blanco, whose poetry has won a number of prestigious awards, including the 2021 National Humanities Medal, emerged from his undergraduate experience initially as an engineer. He was introduced by Hill as an expansive example of possibility.

“For all those in the audience who graduate as dance majors planning to go to medical school, or religion and physics double majors — for anyone who has embraced the myriad ways of knowing the world that the liberal arts present — we offer you our first honorand: the poet engineer,” said Hill.

Blanco read the poem “One Today” at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, becoming the youngest and the first gay and Latino poet to read his work at a U.S. presidential inauguration. “His poem celebrated unity amid discord and commonality amid difference,” said Hill, who noted that Blanco’s “central theme is the idea of home. Sometimes, he says, the poem — the art itself — is the home.”

Spencer, who served as president of �ֲ���ý from 2012 to 2023, is perhaps “best remembered for her frequent exhortation, borrowed from the poet E.E. Cummings, to have the ‘courage to grow up and become who you really are,'” said Hill.

That advice became the nationally recognized initiative of Purposeful Work that reflected the obligation of �ֲ���ý to “prepare our students for [lives] of purposeful work,” to encourage students to “wrestle actively and joyously with the world as we encounter it,” and to “model this mindset for our students as they work to construct their own lives.” 

Over the years, this philosophy was nurtured and refined, becoming the driving force behind the Center for Purposeful Work, an initiative that engaged 98 percent of students and has been honored and imitated nationwide.

Following the conferral of degrees, Kevin Moore ‘93 of Hanover, Mass., president of the �ֲ���ý College Alumni Association, welcomed the graduating class into the association. “You are joining a community of 24,000 engaged, dynamic, and accomplished Bobcats who are embodying our motto of ‘ardor and devotion’ around the world,” Moore said. 

“You are strong navigators. You know how to appreciate challenges and wonder at wonder. You have everything you need when you lean on each other.  You hold onto hope with every step.  Blessings for the next trail that awaits you.” 

The Rev. Brittany Longsdorf

In a new element to the graduation, Jenkins returned to the lectern to offer his charge to the graduates.  “I leave you with this,” he said. “It’s a short phrase that is both my charge to you as your president and also my wish for you as someone who has grown very fond of this class: Please go out into the world and ‘do well and do good.’”

The ceremony ended with longstanding tradition, the benediction from the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf, multifaith chaplain, who used the metaphor of a determined mountain climber to describe the path the Class of 2024 took through �ֲ���ý to the summit of graduation, closing with these words:

You have found yourself, almost suddenly,
at the same summit reached by thousands of �ֲ���ýies before you.

Though your trail has been markedly different, you, dear graduates, with resilience have blazed something new and wondrous. 

May we breathe in the expansive beauty of this moment — looking ahead to the majestic horizon before us, where something new awaits, and looking back at the trail magic of good faculty, caring staff, loving families who sustained you along the way. 

You are strong navigators. You know how to appreciate challenges and wonder at wonder. You have everything you need when you lean on each other.  You hold onto hope with every step. 

Blessings for the next trail that awaits you. 

For the Class of 2024 and their families, May 26, 2024, is an ending point, or a pause, a moment to celebrate the great achievement of a �ֲ���ý education before heading out into the world.

At the same time, �ֲ���ý alumni through the years are set to return to �ֲ���ý in two weeks for Reunion, including alumni from the milestone 5th, 10th, 25th, and 50th classes.

With a fond farewell (for now) to our seniors, here’s a look back at past Commencements that our alumni will recall as their own — plus a look way back at graduations 75, 100, and 150 years ago, and a long walk from the Chapel to the Armory.

150 Years Ago: Eighth Commencement, June 18, 1874

Speaker: After graduation, the Rev. Andrew Preston Peabody delivered an address at the Commencement dinner on the topic of “Culture of the Christian Scholar.”

Peabody was Harvard’s Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and preacher, posts that the late Rev. Peter Gomes ’65 assumed more than a century later.

Notable guest: Camilla Urso, a French-born child prodigy violinist who became famous in the U.S. in the late 1800s, performed at the Commencement Concert two days before graduation.

Commencement CatFact: Henry W. Chandler, the first Black graduate of �ֲ���ý, delivered the satirical “class prophecy” at Commencement. It was full of pithy “hits,” reported the Bath (Maine) Daily Times.

100 Years Ago: 58th Commencement, June 18, 1924

Speaker: Rather than an invited guest as a Commencement speaker, members of the senior class gave addresses. Florence Hodgkins of Lisbon Falls spoke on “Political Parties and Democracy.”

Prescient insight: “Members of political parties sometimes live in the past. Others shape their beliefs in line with questions of the day.”

Notable honorary degree: Sally Lucas Jean, a nurse who pioneered health education in the U.S. and globally. She served on boards of leading American health associations, spearheaded public health projects worldwide, and transformed thinking on contemporary public health education. 

Commencement CatFact: It was the largest �ֲ���ý graduating class to that point, with 111 seniors.

75 Years Ago: 83rd Commencement, June 11, 1949

Speaker: Gen. Lucius D. Clay, administrator of Germany after World War II who gave the order for the Berlin Airlift after the Soviets imposed the Berlin Blockade. (Clay was unable to attend, so his speech was read by senior Frank Chapman ’49.)

Prescient insight: Like many leaders of his time, Clay wrestled the tension between individual freedom and the real or perceived threat from the Soviet Union’s emergence as a superpower. 

“To preserve freedom while preventing its use to destroy itself is difficult. We have only to remember that we have nothing to fear from those who speak frankly and openly, but that we must abhor those who meet to plot in secrecy the modification or destruction of our way of life. Let us hope that we shall never reach a point when in the so-called interest of security we suppress the freedom of the individual to speak as he thinks.”

Notable honorary degree recipient: Women’s fashion industry leader Dorothy Shaver, the first woman in the U.S. to head a multimillion-dollar firm, Lord & Taylor.

Commencement CatFact: This was the first Commencement held in the Armory, on Central Avenue, rather than the Chapel. The event would move to the lawn in front of Coram Library in 1971.

50 Years Ago: 108th Commencement, June 10, 1974

Speaker: Gerard Piel, president and publisher of Scientific American.

Key prediction: “When you come back to Lewiston for your 25th Reunion in 1999,” he told the graduates, “the world population will stand somewhere between seven and eight billion people. At that time, the question will be whether or not the world’s population will have passed a point of no return, the point past which it will no longer be possible to bring the members of our species under control.”

Result: Piel and many other experts predicted that overpopulation and its effects were the great looming crisis of the last part of the 20th century.

But by the time the Class of 1974 returned to �ֲ���ý for Reunion in 1999, the population of the planet was “only” six billion, and the crisis did not unfold, due to many factors, including family Planning and contraception, economic development, and government policies like China’s one-child policy.

Notable honorary degree recipient: Sally Harkness of The Architects Collaborative, the lead architect for �ֲ���ý’ Ladd Library, which had opened in 1973. The building’s bold, modernist style represented a severe, effective, and appropriate break with �ֲ���ý architectural tradition.

“By the felicitous recognition of this gifted architect, the college notes its own pride in the new library which she designed,” noted her degree citation. “It must always be the college’s task to…have reflected in its buildings the changing shapes of human perception, the historicity of human design. Today we celebrate affirmation of that task.”

25 Years Ago: 133rd Commencement, May 31, 1999

Speaker: Richard Holbrook, at the time President Clinton’s nominee for United Nations ambassador who served in the position from September 1999 to January 2001.

Key prediction: “One way or another, NATO troops will be in Kosovo by the end of this year. I’m not here to predict how that will unfold. I would be misleading you if I predicted a timetable for success. Failure, however, is unthinkable. I can assure you that 19 NATO nations are in the end going to prevail.”

Result: NATO ground troops entered Kosovo on June 12, 1999, after a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia aimed at halting the humanitarian crisis and widespread violence during the Kosovo War. Peace was slowly established.

Notable honorary degree recipient: Biologist Leroy Hood, a 2011 National Medal of Science Laureate and recognized as one of the world’s leading scientists in molecular biotechnology and genomics.

His development of the DNA sequencer, DNA synthesizer, and other instruments resulted in the successful mapping of the human genome that revolutionized biomedicine and forensic science.

Commencement CatFact: With events in Kosovo changing rapidly, Holbrook was whisked away from campus to the Auburn-Lewiston Airport immediately after the ceremony so he could return to Washington.

10 Years Ago: 148th Commencement, May 25, 2014

Speaker: Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns.

Prescient insight: “We have gone from the triumph of the 1960s [with the passage of the Voting Rights Act and Civil Right Act], when the country became a true democracy — by opening doors for women, for Black people, for non-European immigrants and for the disabled — to the now coarser, harsher public discourse of today, with one racially charged case after another making headlines, with crude racial outbursts by public figures and with worsening disparities between Blacks and whites in every sphere of life.”

Notable honorary degree recipient: Glenn Close, an actress renowned for her ability to bring characters to vivid life and an activist in the fields of mental health and wildlife conservation.

Commencement CatFact: Wilkerson surprised her audience by quoting �ֲ���ý’ second Black graduate, Thomas James Bollin of the Class of 1879, who spent the first 18 years of his life as an enslaved person.

Wilkerson quoted from Bollin’s essay as a student in The �ֲ���ý Student, in which he said that “social equality is the brotherhood of man in every condition,” which Wilkerson said was “a beautiful definition of equality. “

Five Years Ago: 153rd Commencement, May 26, 2019

Speaker: Jennifer Doudna, a key participant in the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology, a radically accessible approach to editing the DNA of any organism.

Prescient insight: For too long, Doudna said, scientists have failed to broadly communicate the substance and implications of their work.

“We must rebuild public trust in our work, and we must explain to our fellow citizens why our work matters, not just to publish the next academic article or to make the next advance in our field, but truly to advance human knowledge and to improve the human condition.”

Notable honorary degree recipient: Travis Mills, a Maine resident and Army veteran who became a quadruple amputee in combat and is now an advocate for combat-injured veterans. 

Commencement CatFact: A rare triple major that year was Max Huang, who majored in economics, mathematics, and physics, and is now pursuing a doctorate in electrical engineering at Northwestern.