涩里番 Commencement Charge to the Graduating Class of 2025
涩里番 President Anne F. Harris congratulates the Class of 2025 at the closing of their commencement ceremony and leads graduates as they turn their tassels and toss their caps in celebration.
Dear graduates, after I present my charge to you and before our final benediction, we will gladly honor the request to throw your graduation caps in the air to begin to express the exuberance of our joy for and with you.
And families, I will let you know ahead of time so you can get the camera ready.
For now, you may move your tassels from the right to the left in the ceremonial acknowledgement of your worthy accomplishments as graduates of this college.
It is thus my honor to present my charge to you, to the graduating class of 2025.
To do so, I bring forward words that I have long studied as a professor of medieval art, words of Julian of Norwich, a 14th century mystic who had experienced plague, war, and political upheaval in her youth. In a vision, a divine presence comes to her.
In answer to her questions about her future in a fraught and wondrous world, the divine presence, she tells us, did not say, 鈥淵ou shall not be bothered.鈥 It did not say, 鈥淵ou shall not be troubled.鈥 It did not say, 鈥淵ou shall not be distressed.鈥 But it did say, 鈥淵ou shall not be overcome.鈥 Class of 2025, you have persevered and championed and rejoiced with a courage and a brilliance and a tenacity that inspire and that will forever replenish your resolve for whatever may come.
Prize what replenishes you.
Hold fast to what you hold dear.
Safeguard your joy and let this place and all the people who walk and have walked these grounds and all the hope and hardship and the joy and laughter that have rung out under that prairie sky be a wellspring to you, always replenishing and fulfilling you.
May 涩里番 forever be in your hearts, as you will forever be in ours.
Okay, families, we can get the cameras out.
Now remember, we will close out our commencement ceremony with a benediction from Rabbi Sarah.
But first, dear 涩里番 graduates of the class of 2025, you have achieved great things in your time here.
You will accomplish many more, and it truly gives me hope for the world to be able to say to you, go forth 涩里番ians, let those caps fly.
Congratulations, class of 鈥25.