May 17, 2025
President Robert W. Iuliano
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
As Delivered.
Greetings and Opening Address
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 190th Commencement Ceremony at Gettysburg College.
A special welcome to our Gettysburg parents, families, and friends with us here today and, most importantly, to this incredible group of students—our soon-to-be graduates of the Class of 2025!
I’d like to begin my comments today with some reflections on the life of Ruth Simmons. I’m guessing that few of you will recognize the name, so let me introduce her to you.
Simmons was born in 1945 in Daly, Texas, the last of 12 children. As an African-American woman in East Texas in the 1940s and the child of sharecroppers, she entered a world of limited expectations and few opportunities.
And yet, she went on to lead a most remarkable life. Her accomplishments are too many to catalog today, but here’s a sampling: Defying the odds, Simmons went to college at Dillard University. She then earned her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literature from Harvard University, entered the academy, and found her way to administrative roles. She ultimately served as the president of several institutions of higher learning, including Brown University and Smith College.
In our language, Ruth Simmons has lived a consequential life.
A few years back, she wrote about that life in an engaging book entitled, “Up Home: One Girl’s Journey.” In it, she recounts returning to Harvard many years after receiving her Ph.D. to deliver the principal address at a special commencement for students who had their graduation disrupted by COVID.
At the ceremony—very much like the one we’re experiencing here today—she found herself asking: How did I end up here?
In the book, she elaborated, and I quote, “Throughout my seventy-plus years, I have been struggling to understand why the early circumstances of my life did not, in the end, define me. I have now come to realize that I have become the person I am today, rather than the person I expected to be, because of the people I knew when I was young—my family, my teachers, my community. They intercepted my modest expectations, boosted my confidence that the future could be different, and sent me on my way with all the support they could muster.”
Class of 2025, today, we are sending you on your way with all the support we can muster. As we do so, I invite you to ask yourself the very question Simmons posed to herself: How did I end up here, at this important milestone in my life?
I strongly suspect that your answer will find its echoes in what Simmons herself came to conclude. By that I mean that you have ended up here in part through the support and belief of so many others.
For most of you, it starts with your family and loved ones, whose encouragement and sacrifices have helped shape you into the person you are.
When we first met at your Convocation that hot summer August day nearly four years ago, I asked you to acknowledge the impact of your loved ones in leading you to that pivotal moment in your life.
Four years later, their influence on you is no less significant, even if it is perhaps less visible as you’ve made the transition to the more independent life college asks of you.
Simmons also recognized the impact of her teachers.
Class of ’25, look to your left and right. There sits the College’s faculty, your teachers over the past four years. People who have inspired you, challenged you, guided you, and, yes, even befriended you.
You graduate a different person than you arrived four years ago. So much of that transformation has come about because of your interactions, inside and outside of the classroom, with our extraordinary faculty.
And, finally, Simmons spoke to the importance of her community.
We do not travel alone in this life. Consider your Gettysburg College friends, coaches, dining staff, and so many others. I’m confident that your journey has benefited from the many ways, some small, perhaps a few quite profound, that you have been guided, lifted up, and cheered on by others on our campus.
Graduation is a day of celebration. As Simmons experienced, it’s also a day of reflection and gratitude—a day when we shouldn’t leave any expression of appreciation left unsaid. Find a moment to take this experience in, and then make a point of acknowledging and thanking those whose help and support have mattered to you.
And yet, I think we do Simmons’ observations a disservice if we see them only as a plea to acknowledge our debt to others, as important as that is. I understand her to be making a deeper point—one about reaching beyond the obstacles ahead, because there is no doubt that every life must address its share of opportunities and, yes, of challenges.
In Simmons’ case, the principal challenge was the tyranny of expectations others put on her and that she could have easily put on herself. “I did not become the person I expected to be,” Simmons writes. Her life became what it did because she pushed boundaries, rejected assumptions, and confronted challenges.
So, Class of 2025, when you hit those boundaries, face those expectations, and contend with those unexpected challenges, how will you respond?
You have before you today a role model in our Commencement speaker, Coach Carol Daly Cantele.
Forty-two years ago, she was sitting exactly where you are today, a new graduate from Gettysburg College, her life before her. She could only have dreamed of all she would accomplish, reaching the pinnacle of her career with several national championships, an induction into the lacrosse hall of fame, and, most importantly, generations of Gettysburgians whose lives she touched for the better.
I’m sure of this: Coach Cantele’s path was not without its bumps and detours. She had good days and bad days, triumphs and setbacks. Along the way, she had a choice—a choice she reinforced with her players from the sidelines during her many years at Clark Field: whether to yield to those forces or to double down on one’s resolve.
I have little doubt how you will respond to that choice, given all you have done here. And I have little doubt in part because you, like President Simmons and Coach Cantele, are armed with the invaluable gift of a vibrant and demanding education that will prepare you for most everything the world will throw at you.
In saying this, I recognize that the value and values of higher education are being questioned today in ways that are perhaps unprecedented in our country’s long history. Although I find this deeply concerning, the reasons and causes are beyond what we can or should explore in today’s setting.
Still, as I look out over this remarkable class, I see in very tangible ways the equally remarkable impact of the education you have received.
I see it in the ways in which you have grown in confidence and found your voice.
I see it in the grace, respect, and dignity with which you have treated each other, recognizing that we are stronger as a community precisely because we come from varied backgrounds, experiences, perspectives.
I see it in how each of you has helped foster a community dedicated to the understanding that the search for truth requires open inquiry, a robust commitment to free speech, and a recognition that respectful disagreement is an essential part of that search.
I see it in the richness and depth with which you now comprehend the world and yourselves, informed by an education that has asked you hard questions and equipped you with the tools and temperament to answer them—based on discernment, evidence, reason, and judgment.
And I see it in how you have embraced the sacred history of the land on which we congregate today. In how you are ready to advance Lincoln’s unfinished work, to make a difference in a world that needs your belief in a better and more just future.
And, so, graduates, when I am asked to comment on the value and values of higher education; on our commitment to a community that honors the worth and dignity of every person; on our belief that the search for truth requires a rejection of any orthodoxy—I point to you, our students.
What you have done in your four years here, and what you will do in the years ahead, that is the most powerful proof of how our country, our democracy, and our world are strengthened by higher education. It also underscores why we all have a stake in ensuring that Gettysburg College and our entire system of higher education remain properly supported, open to talented students from all corners of society, and able to freely explore the hard issues of our past, present, and future.
Let me conclude by returning to Ruth Simmons’ provocative question: How did I end up here?
When you all return for your 50th reunion in 2075—and it will happen, time waits for no one! When that day comes, I hope you take a moment to sit on these very steps and look out at a campus that helped make you who you are.
I hope that you too will find yourself asking: How did I end up here?
And, more importantly, I hope you’ll find yourself answering with the same sense of pride, amazement, and gratitude that Simmons has found.
Given what I have seen of this extraordinary class, I know that you will.
I wish you the very best in this next great chapter in your lives. Congratulations!
The Charge
It is now my honor to deliver the charge to the Class of 2025.
As is true for every generation, you are graduating into a world filled with challenges and opportunities.
You have spent the most formative years of your life not just at any college, but a college whose history and location compels us to honor the sacrifices of those who came before us.
As you prepare to step out into the world as Gettysburg College graduates, I invite you to ask yourself once more, “How did I end up here?”
551 intersecting lines forever bound together and poised to make an extraordinary impact.
Ratul’s and Coach Cantele’s comments today underscore that you are uniquely equipped to contribute to your families, your workplaces, and your communities.
So, my charge to you is simply this: Lead with purpose.
You are here for this moment.
You are here to make a difference.
You are here to be the change our world needs.
Class of 2025, we believe in you. May you live every day like it’s game day.
At this time, I would ask our graduates to please stand.
On behalf of all of us here at Gettysburg College, I want to thank our families, friends, and distinguished guests for joining us for our Comemncement ceremony today.
As President, it is now my privilege to present our Gettysburg College graduates of the Class of 2025!
Congratulations—and Do Great Work!