Congratulations to the Class of 2025!

PHOTOGRAPHS BY EILEEN BARROSO

On May 20, under a blue sky several shades deeper than their caps and gowns, the Class of 2025 joined the ranks of College alumni.

The annual ceremony returned to its traditional location on the lawns between Butler and Low Libraries. Among the program’s featured speakers were Dean Josef Sorett; the keynote speaker, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jodi Kantor ’96; student speaker Thomas Edwards ’25; and senior class president Rohan Mehta ’25.

Edwards was among the first to take the stage, opening with a “Surprise!” to his parents, from whom he’d kept his selection as essayist a secret. He talked about the importance of storytelling and legacy, noting that the latter “isn’t handed to you at the finish line. It isn’t a trophy. It’s something you construct, moment by moment, without realizing it. Our legacy is booming, impactful, resilient. No one can deny the impact that the Class of 2025 had on this university and the world outside those Gates.”

Mehta referenced the tumult of the past few years and spoke to the class’ “inspiring” resilience, highlighting the excellent work of Spectator and WKCR journalists, the Columbia College Student Council members who distributed food to students when dining halls were closed and the student senators who advocated for their peers.

“Most critically, we all checked in on our friends more and opened our apartments and suites to build all forms of community,” Mehta said. “It gives me so much hope that we are ready to take on the world. Our time here wasn’t simple. ... So thank God we learned here, and had our ideas challenged here. Thank God we grew here.”

Dean of Academic Affairs Lisa Hollibaugh presented a number of awards, including to valedictorian Eilidh MacLeod ’25 and salutatorian Suwei Ma ’25. Afterward, Raymond Yu ’89, SEAS’90, president of the Columbia College Alumni Association, awarded alumni prizes. Acting president Claire Shipman ’86, SIPA’94 also gave remarks.

Kantor, best known for the investigative work that exposed sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, gave a clear- eyed speech informed by her own conversations with members of the graduating class. She sought to answer a question that she said she heard often: “In this environment, how are we supposed to find or start our life’s work?”

Sharing her own story of being kicked off Spectator, and later dropping out of Harvard Law School, Kantor warned students against assuming that their College experience would dictate their futures, and told them not to be afraid to change their minds. “If any of the trains you get on turn out to be heading in the wrong direction, get off the train,” she said. “Don’t be overly afraid of risk and, especially right now, be wary of predicting which fields are the most promising. These predictions can eliminate all sorts of magic and meaning.”

She also encouraged students to focus on craft — that “combination of expertise and skill” that can lead to success and fulfillment — and need. “What is your own independent assessment of what society will need most during your working years?” she asked. “What kind of care, what kind of productions, what kind of information? Do not be the people who fail to understand the opportunities this moment presents. And they are massive opportunities, precisely because everything is in question.”

Kantor continued: “Class of 2025, your lives are your move. The best people in life and history are the ones who take negative, even devastating, stimuli and formulate powerful, productive responses. If you find your craft and your need, you will experience growth — professional and personal — that feels at once like transcending your boundaries and returning to your truest self.”

Sorett then spoke to the complexities of graduating at this moment and urged students to consider the question, “Who are we becoming?”

“Our society, at any level as you choose to define it, cannot function without some shared frame of reference,” Sorett said. “What results when we lose our ability to recognize common principles, something shared across our differences?”

He acknowledged there are no easy answers: “It takes work. It takes an inquisitive mind. It takes individuals willing to listen to one another, a willingness to accept that our own assumptions may be incorrect. It takes patience and an openness to the possibility that strangers who embody every imaginable kind of difference — even purported ‘adversaries’ — can find and pursue a common purpose. This is the power that the idea of this academic community holds, a vision that is as socially inclusive as it is intellectually expansive.”

Sorett concluded: “It is my firm belief that before me sit the leaders, thinkers and principled actors who will help forge a brighter future — even in the face of all that confronts us. ... And so, Class of 2025, I leave you with my most sincere salutations, with confidence in your capacity to face forward with grace and my deepest respect.”

The celebrations continued on May 21, when graduates from all University schools came together for Commencement, the ceremony in which degrees are officially conferred by the University president. The event also featured the recipients of the 10 Alumni Medals, three of which went to College alumni: Courtney Nicole Cesari ’04; Eric H. Holder Jr. ’73, LAW ’76; and Mary A. Kuo ’92.