Please be seated.

Welcome to the one hundred and sixtieth commencement of Bates College. 

Welcome parents, families, and friends.

Welcome to our esteemed special guests: today’s recipients of Bates honorary degrees, seated here on the platform.

Welcome to several members of the Bates Board of Trustees with us today, including two of our Board leadership team—themselves both Bates alumni AND parents: Chair Greg Ehret, Class of 1991, and parent of a member of the Class of 2023; and Vice Chair Jean Wilson, Class of 1981, and parent of members of the Classes of 2005 and 2013.

Welcome, Bates faculty and staff. And WELCOME, graduates of the Bates Class of 2026! 

Whether you are joining us in person on the Historic Quad or by livestream from across the country and around the world, we are delighted to have you with us on this joyous occasion. 

Before beginning our program, I’d like to invite you to join me in thanking the events and the facilities staff and everyone else who worked so hard to prepare this event so beautifully. Let’s thank them.

Seniors, let us also take a moment to express the gratitude I know you all feel, for all the family, friends, and loved ones (here or spread across the globe)—and for the faculty and staff—who have been behind you, supporting you, and encouraging you, at every point along your path to this momentous milestone. I invite you to stand, as you are able, turn around, and show them your thanks and appreciation. 

Thank you.

Members of the Class of 2026, you are a remarkably accomplished group. 484 of you will march across this stage this morning, representing 41 states and the District of Columbia and 30 countries. Fifty-nine of you are the first in your family to graduate from college. 

You have knit this campus and community together over the past four years through your engagement and leadership in residence life, as club presidents, as members of student government, as debaters, and as team captains in athletics. You have inspired us with your gifts of music, performance, art making, research, thesis writing, and your endless intellectual curiosity. You have served as Multifaith and Admission Fellows, as Purposeful Work Peer Advisors and EcoReps and Bonner Leaders, and so much more. 

148 of you are double majors. Two of you are triple majors. 39 of you received departmental honors for a year-long thesis. 60% of you have studied abroad. 39% of you have participated in a varsity sport while at Bates, many winning All-NESCAC honors and even some being named All-Americans and a small handful of you were even crowned NCAA national champions.

An astounding number of you have been recognized with prestigious national honors. Two of you are Goldwater Scholars. One of you is a Truman Scholar. One of you won a Watson Fellowship. And a whopping FIFTEEN of you are Fulbright Scholars!

(And while we’re talking about national honors: How about the fact that two of your Bates professors won Guggenheim Fellowships, among the most respected and prestigious honors in the American academy.)

All this you have achieved while also giving back, especially here in Lewiston, supporting the work of over 100 off-campus schools and organizations through research, volunteering, community work-study, and course-based projects.

You are now off to continue your education in fields like law, medicine, national and international security, education, architecture, and engineering. You will study at the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Yale, Tufts and Johns Hopkins, Brown and Georgetown, King’s College London, and more. 

You are launching exciting careers:

• In business and finance in Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, and Salt Lake City.

• As teachers, in Japan, New York, Virginia, and right here in Lewiston.

• In AI—on congressional campaigns—in medical and scientific research— in legal services—and in higher education administration.

And some of you are still deciding what’s next or taking more time to open up the doors you wish to walk through. We are excited for all of you, and we know that your liberal arts education will leave you well poised to flourish and make meaningful contributions in whatever you pursue. 

Let me just share a few brief thoughts about where you’ve been and where you’re going.

You are not here by accident. You identified something in Bates that made you want to become part of this special community, and Bates identified something in you that told us we would be better for bringing you here. There are a million different qualities and experiences that you and only you have had that made you an essential part of the Bates community and that have prepared you for a bright future ahead.

But there are also the qualities you share. Yes, the experiences, too—those you have shared over the past four years on this campus—but for me the headline qualities are HEART and HUMANITY.

You possess within you uncommon, unlimited, unparalleled heart and humanity. When people talk about the community here, the kindness of the students here; there’s something deeper beneath that, something that will last a lifetime—and contribute to your success and to the talent you will bring to your organizations, to your communities…to the world.

It is in all that you do: in the way you listen to one another, in how you show up for each other, in how you collaborate and work effectively with others, in how you explore and celebrate and grieve and triumph together. I have seen this heart and humanity in action in moments big and small across the three years I’ve been fortunate to share with you at Bates, and I tell you something: It is deep and it is real, and it is not to be taken for granted. We can think of it as a “Bates thing” but it’s more than that…it’s a “you thing.” It’s who you are, who you have become, what you will take with you… It may even be your secret weapon that will contribute to your successes.

Some of this you already had when you got here, of course. But I’m going to give Bates SOME credit—maybe even, a LOT of credit!—for developing and sharpening your powers of heart and humanity during your time on our campus, because I think these are things that we (a) care about more intensely and value more highly, and (b) pay more attention to cultivating as a central part of a Bates education.

One way I think about it: yes, Bates people are kind. But not surface-y, or performatively, kind. They are kind in a thoughtful way—considering their words and actions—thinking about how they affect others—moving through the world with an active intention to be good to those around them—to make things better.

At Bates, you have learned to speak with heart. To speak FROM the heart. To match sentiment with reason; to support conviction with evidence. You have learned how to disagree without rancor—and to listen when faced with an argument that may be informed by experiences or perspectives other than your own. You take other people, and their ideas, seriously. 

This matters. This is heart and humanity at work. And to do it well is a superpower.

I already mentioned some of the spheres in which you will begin applying your Bates-honed powers of heart and humanity. But whatever your next chapter might look like, you can be confident in the knowledge that your time here has prepared you uniquely well for what lies ahead. In fact, these powers and sensibilities will enrich not just the next chapter but actually all the chapters ahead, and, ultimately, make the book of your life a truly remarkable one.

We see the proof all around us, in the Bates alumni who bring heart and humanity to their work in expanding knowledge, shaping organizations and enterprises with wisdom and resolve, improving the human experience, fighting for justice, protecting the natural world we all share. 

And as our society continues reaching and then surpassing new technological frontiers, we see the best emerging from those who—like many of you—engage with new technologies with reason, with exploration, with seriousness, and with heart.

After all, it’s not a matter of either/or—the tech or the heart and humanity. It’s both. And those who have both the ability AND that humanity—powerful minds AND powerful hearts—are what the world needs—and, not incidentally, what employers need. 

Don’t believe me? Apple founder Steve Jobs said it in 2011, at the launch of the iPad 2: “Technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”  Heart and humanity.

Bates Class of 2026, you all make my heart sing, because whatever you do, I know you will do it with heart and with humanity. And in so doing, you will elevate both the realities and the aspirations of those around you, making this world a better place. You have all you need to succeed in whatever you choose… And whatever you choose, wherever life takes you, your college will always be here for you, cheering you on.

We are so very proud of you.

Thank you!