At Bates’ 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 Bates 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 Bates’ 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.
(Theophil Syslo/Bates College)
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 Bates.
“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 Bates to continue to do good.
“The world needs Bates 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 Bates 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 Bates and for higher education.”
Senior Speaker Aanika Patel ’25, an environmental studies major from Needham, Mass., began her speech by recounting a very-Bates 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 documentaries.”
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.”
Bates’ 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 Bates, 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.
“Situation modification means using physical distance to create psychological distance,” Duckworth said. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)
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 Bates Alumni Association, offered parting words about the importance of building connections with fellow alumni and being prepared to support future Batesies.
“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 Bates 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 Bates take root and flower in minute and majestic ways to nourish others, nurse the wounded earth and nurture human community.
“May it be so.”
