Graduating Class of 2019!
It is our great pleasure to have welcomed all of you, distinguished guests, faculty colleagues, families, friends, and members of the graduating class of 2019!
We gather today to celebrate a moment of consequence in the lives of our candidates. When these individuals finish their academic requirements, when the final staple goes through the final paper, and when the last examination is at last graded, they will be, quite simply, the finest new graduates on the planet!
It is important to stress at the beginning that these accomplishments, however heroic, are not those of our graduates alone. Behind each and every one of our graduates is a story of family and friends: of parents who nourished and sacrificed, who hovered and let go; of grandparents, uncles and aunts who supported and sustained them; of brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends, who stood by them and with them; of partners, spouses, children, and other loved ones who strengthened and inspired them.
Let us honor also our honorable faculty members. It has been their responsibility to educate you, in the many intricate ways. On this stage is, by common acclamation, the finest and most influential faculty around. They worked hard to give you a sense of mastery, so that your discipline might feel, in your hands, intelligible, familiar and responsive.
They have offered you their passion for science, and in the process, they have forever altered the horizons in which you shall sail forward into your life. Let us now, as they are assembled here all together, thank them also.
Moments of transition, like this, hang suspended between past and future. They are comforting, because they are familiar; they conclude all that has gone before. But they are also bittersweet, because something must end in order for change to take hold. In every ending is the challenge of a new beginning. Moments like this are therefore charged, in part with the excitement of new creation!
Your future is without doubt bright. You are now equipped with one of the great degrees in education anywhere in the world. You have acquired magnificent friends and astonishing peers.
Congratulations. We are so very proud of you. Enjoy this momentous day and, as you go out into the world, please keep us in your hearts. You will be in ours.
May the Force be with You!
