2025 Commencement Welcome

Commencement 2025 Address on May 19th, 2025. Remarks as prepared.

Good morning! Congratulations to the class of 2025! Let’s hear it! 

Today we mark an incredible milestone: as our students cross the stage today, Wake Forest will surpass its one-hundred-thousandth all time graduate! That’s a lot!

Aside from these numbers, I will admit: you are a particularly special class to me. 

You – the class of 2025 – you are the class that started with me when I joined Wake Forest in 2021. 

We have taken this journey together, and it has been such a privilege, and a joy, to watch you grow. 

I am proud of all you have accomplished, and truly grateful for the chance to celebrate with you here today on Hearn Plaza, so close to where I first welcomed  you in Wait Chapel at New Student Convocation in August 2021. 

Do you remember that day? Do you remember what I shared with you that day? 

I shared three hopes for your time at Wake Forest:  

• That you would make discoveries – of new ideas and new questions, and about yourselves;
• That you would build meaningful, supportive connections; and
• That you would grow as leaders – using your gifts to serve others here and in the world. 

Today, a little less than four years later, I now hope that you can see how you have brought each of those aspirations to life.  

During your time here at Wake Forest, you have done far more than attend classes, labs, study sessions, and office hours: 

• You held voter registration drives, promoting engagement in the democratic process. 

• You made art, performed on stage, and told vibrant stories. 

• You danced and ran for hours and hours, to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research, rain or shine. 

• You applied your learning beyond the classroom – supporting community health, affordable housing, literacy, and sustainability. 

And you won multiple ACC and national championships! The Debate Team, Women’s Golf; and – today – just after midnight our Men’s Tennis Team won the NCAA Championship! 

You have one more assignment – roll the quad! 

You achieved all that I hoped for you – even more than I could have imagined.  

{Big Moments are Learning Moments} 

Your success has come through effort, joy and yes, even a few tears.   

You have poured yourselves into these years at Wake Forest; and I am honored to share this moment with you. 

Commencement is a big moment; personally, and professionally, you are stepping forward to what’s next in your journey. 

In 2025, at this particular moment, you are graduating into a complex, divided world.

Over the course of my career I have learned that such big moments – times of tension, challenge, uncertainty and change  – are learning moments. 

These moments demand our attention; they prompt urgent questions; and they are also moments to lead. 

Here on this beautiful quad in your big moment, I want you to hear this:  

You know how to learn and discover. 

You know how to connect through listening, debating, compromising and reaching across difference. 

And you know how to lead. 

{This Moment Calls for Wake Forest Graduates}

At Wake Forest, we believe the world needs leaders of intellect and character– people who use their gifts to be catalysts for good. 

And, because you are about to become a Wake Forest graduate, 

I know this about you:  you are intellectually curious, creative, and entrepreneurial. 

You are relationship-builders, who recognize the humanity in everyone. 

You know that discovery and innovation without respect and care for one another will never solve the urgent problems facing society. 

And, due to your university education, you are prepared, global citizens – ready not only for careers, but to engage meaningfully across difference, to think critically, to participate with purpose in strengthening our democracy, and to contribute to the broader communities we share.

Hear the call of Wake Forest’s motto – and answer it in how you live your lives.  

You are, and will be, the kind of leaders this moment, and all the moments ahead, demands.  

{Living our values will take courage} 

But living these values in the world will take one more essential trait: courage. 

Poet and Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest, the late Maya Angelou said,  “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” 

She was right. 

The world will test your commitments to empathy, learning, and humanity.

You will face moments when it is not easy – when it will be hard – to think critically, listen generously, or lead with compassion, to love others. 

Especially in those moments, trust yourselves to be brave enough to live Pro Humanitate. 

And know this: you won’t do it alone. 

There will be those who share your commitment to Pro Humanitate. 

Seek them out. 

And know that we will always be here with you; There is a strong network of Demon Deacons who hear those words: Pro Humanitate, and they too feel the call to being catalysts for good. 

You are not alone. And when we are not alone, we can be brave. 

So today, as you celebrate this moment and turn the page to your next chapter, – I ask you – the class of 2025 – to live with courage. 

Be courageous in continuing to nurture your intellect and curiosity.  

Pursue knowledge and be open to wherever your discoveries take you.

Be courageous in your leadership. And ask not only “Can I do this,”  but “Should I?” – And ask “Who will it help?” 

And be brave enough to ask those around you the same questions. 

Be courageous enough to see the full humanity in everyone. 

Resist the pressure to see difference as an adversary. 

Pro Humanitate calls us to see every person – even those you will never meet –  as inherently valuable, and as a possible collaborator in your pursuit of good. 

I see you today and I know that I can ask this of you: to live courageously 

When you chose Wake Forest, you chose not just to be bright, talented and capable — but to be so for humanity. 

When you are in positions of leadership and influence –-perhaps much sooner than you may realize – use your voice to do good. Use your courage to lift others.  Use your Wake Forest education to serve the world. 

You – with your intellect, your creativity, your empathy, and your courage – will shape our future. 

Go forth, be brave, and leave good in your wake.