May 31, 2025
President Robert W. Iuliano
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Thank you, everyone!
Thank you, Al, for that kind introduction.
We’ve celebrated several loyal and impactful alumni today, but before I offer my comments, there are three more I’d like to recognize and extend our deepest thanks to.
Our Meritorious Service Awards are given for a lifetime of service to Gettysburg College—and we have truly inspiring honorees this year.
Our first Meritorious Service Award goes to Claudia Bard Veitch, Class of 1980. Claudia was selected to receive the award in 2020, and we are delighted to finally have the opportunity to recognize her on campus today.
Claudia, will you please come forward and join me on stage?
Claudia, you have spent most of your life after graduation in my home state of Massachusetts, but your physical distance from campus never kept you from being actively engaged with your alma mater.
You are here this weekend as co-chair of your 45th Reunion Committee, having served on the committee several times in the past. You spent eight years on the Alumni Board of Directors and led our Boston Alumni Club—including, I’m told, having an alumni gathering at that sacred event, Head of the Charles. You’ve also hosted externships, ensuring that our students gain valuable career skills and experiences.
Claudia, you have been a model volunteer at Gettysburg, and your impact can be seen and felt across every corner of this campus. We are so pleased to present you with our Meritorious Service Award. Congratulations!
Our next Meritorious Service award goes to my friend and colleague—a person who played an instrumental role in my joining this community from Massachusetts: David Brennan from the great Class of 1975.
Come on up, David.
What a weekend for the Brennan family! David is celebrating his 50th reunion on the same year that his daughter, Kelly, is celebrating her 25th.
David, you recently completed 12 years of service on our Board of Trustees, including your last five years as Board Chair. For those unfamiliar with higher ed lingo, that’s code for “my former boss!” Your vision has helped to guide our College through moments of change and transition, while always remaining true to our mission and our values.
You’ve hosted numerous events and been an active member of your fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. In addition to your service, you have been an inspiring donor, including through your generous matching contribution in support of our Business, Organizations, and Management major—a major that, with your help, has quickly become one of our most popular offerings.
David, Gettysburg College and thousands of alumni and students have been the beneficiary of your leadership and your kindness—myself included. We are delighted—and I’m truly honored—to present you today with our Meritorious Service Award. Congratulations!
Our final Meritorious Service Award recipient is Jim Heston, Class of 1970.
Please join me at the podium, Jim.
Jim, you have done so much for Gettysburg College. And, like David, so much for me—helping me see through the way you have lived your life the true magic of the Gettysburg community.
During your 12 years of service on the Board of Trustees, you were an active member of nearly every committee, stepping forward as chair and vice chair for several. This is in addition to your loyal service on your 35th through 55th reunion committees and on the Alumni Board for two years.
Your love for this place has transformed the lives of countless Gettysburg students, including those who have contributed positively to communities around the world as Heston Summer Fellows with the Center for Public Service.
Your philanthropic support has also impacted our faculty through your establishment of the Bruce S. Gordon ’68 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Teaching Excellence Prize.
Jim, in recognition of the immeasurable impact you have had on our College, it is our—and my—great honor to present you with the Meritorious Service Award. Congratulations!
Our people make the place. As Gettysburgians, we choose one another. We support one another. We cheer for one another. We uplift one another.
Claudia, David, and Jim are shining examples of this in every way. Will you please join me in giving one more round of applause for our Meritorious Service Award-winners?
All of our incredible award-winners today are leading truly consequential lives out in the world. This is precisely what we want for our students as well.
This message was a common refrain at this year’s Commencement ceremony.
Two weeks ago, we gathered in front of Pennsylvania Hall and were joined by one of our very own: retired Hall of Fame Coach of our women’s lacrosse team and four-time national champion, Carol Daly Cantele, Class of ’83. She delivered a rousing address to our graduates.
Let’s take a look at a few of the highlights from this unforgettable ceremony.
Throughout our Commencement Weekend, our graduates often reflected on the people and the personal connections that made their Gettysburg experience so rewarding.
The same can be said for our graduates at Special Commencement, which is a separate ceremony we host each year for our senior student-athletes who are participating in the NCAA playoffs.
This year, we were honored to recognize 25 senior women’s lacrosse, men’s lacrosse, and softball players at their own exclusive graduation. You think these families cheer loudly at the games? They almost blew the roof off this place!
Yet another reason Gettysburg is unlike anywhere else! A graduation for 25 students. It was wonderful. In fact, the softball team played on graduation day and won in their bracket in the regions of the NCAA tournament. I cheered the team on as they played to victory and then walked out to the diamond and, with parents, fans, and teammates cheering on, handed each graduating senior their diploma. What a moment!
We had such a remarkable year in our Athletics program. Eleven teams were represented in NCAA Division III championship events.
Three teams won Centennial Conference titles—women’s golf, men’s golf, and women’s basketball. In fact, women’s basketball won its fourth consecutive conference title and advanced all the way to the national quarterfinals for the first time—just an incredible season!
Both lacrosse programs made their annual runs deep into the national playoffs too, while softball earned their highest ranking in program and conference history on the way to their first-ever appearance in the super regional.
Volleyball, men’s basketball, both swimming programs, and men’s track and field all turned in fabulous seasons as well. We have much to be proud of.
This year, Gettysburg also ranked in the Top 15 by the Princeton Review for Best Athletics Facilities. Thanks to the generous donations from a group of alumni and families, our facilities were enhanced even further by the addition of new game lights at Musselman Stadium.
Football hosted its first-ever night game this fall, earning a hard-earned victory. And men’s lacrosse hosted their first night game this spring. They won too. I’m proposing we play all of our games under the lights from now on! We may never lose again!
I know many of you joined us at the games and our campus-wide tailgates. The students absolutely loved it. Our next night game will be the football home opener on Friday, September 5. We hope to see you there!
As you know, coaches and teammates have a lasting impact on our students—so too does our devoted faculty. I’m sure even today, you have memories of a Gettysburg professor who profoundly shaped your life.
What is so transformative in my eyes is that our professors are intentional about partnering with our students to help them see the connections between their many passions, and in encouraging students to reach even higher in their pursuits.
Indeed, it is our faculty’s belief in our students to Do Great Work, that in turn inspires that great work.
We see this on vivid display every day across our campus, including within our Sunderman Conservatory of Music.
Just take Lianne Morell.
A senior, and now a graduate, she had a dream of creating her very own composition. Under the mentorship of Prof. Avner Dorman, not only did she create an original score, but the entire Sunderman Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and Gettysburg College Choir joined together to record her composition and perform it at the College’s Majestic Theater.
Imagine the impact that this will have on Lianne for the rest of her life—witnessing her dream come true. This is a hallmark of the Gettysburg community.
Let’s take a look at this inspiring story—and listen to the composition Lianne created.
This is what Gettysburg College is all about, and this is what we’re seeking to build on in the years ahead. At the heart of our Strategic Direction is a promise—a promise we have made to our students since the College’s founding in 1832, but one we now are being even more purposeful in naming and living: the promise of A Consequential Education.
We’re putting this promise to practice in so many remarkable ways.
We’ve continued to shape our academic offerings to resonate with the interests of today’s students. We introduced three new majors this year—in finance, public health policy, and communication studies—that are inspiring a new wave of high school students to say “yes” to Gettysburg.
We also established two exciting master’s program partnerships—one with Loyola University Maryland, and the other with the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, the top-ranked program in the nation for public affairs. These partnerships will give our students a clear and prestigious route to advanced study in the years ahead.
And then there’s the meaningful investments we are making to our student experience.
If you saw the fencing outside, you know that we’re updating our West Quad residence halls. When the 50th Reunion classes note that it looks exactly as they remember it…. well, maybe that’s a sign it is time to upgrade! We’re excited to have first-years begin to move next January.
We’re also reimagining student social spaces, including in Plank’s lower level—and we added a new beer garden overlooking Memorial Field, which we’re confident will become a fixture for student and alumni gatherings into the future.
And I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but this year will be our last Reunion Weekend in this Ballroom as we know it. The Ballroom will undergo a comprehensive makeover and modernization. Together with our admissions building, the Ballroom is in many ways the front door to the campus. We’re excited about making it a more contemporary welcome.
All of this progress—inside the classroom and outside the classroom—is being recognized by our students. In a recent survey, 91% of our graduating seniors reported either being satisfied or very satisfied with their Gettysburg education. That’s impressive, and it reflects our highest marks since 2015. And we’re also being recognized nationally too.
In fact, just this year, Gettysburg was ranked No. 35 by U.S. News for Best Undergraduate Teaching, and No. 10 in the nation for Best Classroom Experience by The Princeton Review.
We’re also proud to be ranked No. 20 among national liberal arts colleges for first-year experiences.
These accolades all reflect an exceptional educational approach—what we call the Gettysburg Approach.
We can’t just prepare students for their first job. We need to prepare them for the entirety of their career—10, 20, 40 years into the future. For jobs that haven’t even been dreamt of yet. And likewise, we need to prepare them for a world that needs their leadership, their engagement in issues that matter.
Today, everything our students learn at Gettysburg connects back to what employers and graduate programs desire most: those transcendent qualities that are the hardest to teach—enduring skills like leadership, teamwork, and problem solving.
The knowledge and skills our students gain here are also being reinforced through more intentional and curated co-curricular experiences: our Guided Pathways program that partners every incoming student with their own Personal Advising Team, consisting of a Faculty Advisor, a Co-Curricular Advisor, and a Career Advisor, and after their sophomore year, an Alumni Mentor.
On the one hand, I know of few other schools focusing so purposefully on amplifying the learning impact of co-curricular activities and the curation of these enduring skills. And, yet, what we’re doing is so distinctively us, making full use of the type of supportive community we have here and the impulse of our alumni to get involved.
The Gettysburg Approach is Gettysburg at its finest.
Beginning this weekend, we are actively recruiting our first cohort of Alumni Mentors for our Personal Advising Teams. If you want to positively influence the life of a young person, I can think of no greater way than to serve as an Alumni Mentor.
I’d ask you to consider raising your hand and joining us in this important work. It’s work that matters to our students and to the College. Your engagement will make all the difference—to our students and, I am willing to wager, to you. There are few more satisfying moments than getting to know a Gettysburg student and helping them find their future.
Let me conclude.
Everywhere you turn, we see our Strategic Direction taking root—and it is inspiring.
From the Gettysburg Approach, to the faculty’s new core curriculum and exploration of generative AI, to the growth of our new online master’s programs in Education and American History for K-12 teachers, to the creation of our new Bloomberg Terminal Lab and our Donna Jean Brogan Center for Quantitative Learning, and so much more.
Gettysburg College is on the move.
Every day, we are taking yet another bold step forward—from a college endeared by 32,000-alumni strong to a college revered across the country and around the world.
Gettysburg is a special place, and your alma mater is poised to impact society in immeasurable ways.
This morning, my ask of you is simply this: Choose Gettysburg.
Choose Gettysburg by championing our education in your communities, in your workplaces, and online. Inspire a future student to enroll!
Choose Gettysburg by being engaged, getting involved, and encouraging others to join you.
Choose Gettysburg as a top philanthropic priority through your loyal support of the Gettysburg Fund and other priorities of interest to you. The College is what it is today because of generations of dedicated alumni, like you.
And lastly, choose Gettysburg by living our mission in all that you do.
If we continue to choose each other…
If we continue to choose this community…
I promise you there is nothing we cannot accomplish together—for our students, for our College, and for the greater good.
I look forward to building Gettysburg’s brightest future with you. Thank you.