Harvard’s 375th Commencement coincided with the nation’s 250th birthday—a semiquincentennial, as President Alan M. Garber noted on the previous evening—which is a natural occasion to celebrate beginnings, for students and the nation alike. And a beautiful day it turned out to be, despite weather forecasts to the contrary.
The event also marked 250 years since Harvard awarded an honorary degree to General George Washington for driving the British from Boston in the spring of 1776. Honoring that history, members of the Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes & Drums led the procession into Tercentenary Theatre this year, playing “Yankee Doodle.”
There were other references to Washington in the days leading up to Commencement. The speaker at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Rochelle Walensky, M.P.H. ’01—one of eight CDC directors the school can claim as its own—noted that in 1777, Washington ordered all Continental Army troops to be inoculated against smallpox. It was the country’s “first vaccine requirement,” Walensky said, and “a move that likely changed the course of history.”
But most of the talk during this week of convocations, class days, and addresses was focused not on the past but on the challenges of the present and the future. And the festivities ended with a dose of laughter, as Conan O’Brien ’85, newly bestowed with a doctor of arts degree, gave an address that poked gentle fun of the University’s fame and glory—and advised graduates to make a mark on the world that transcends the Harvard name on their degree.
“So, maybe my wish for you is…that Harvard becomes the least important thing people know about you,” he said, “because your real education starts now: with friends you’ve made and friends you’ve yet to meet; with stunning successes and miserable defeats; and with a humble acceptance that your greatness comes from the mess around you, not despite it.”
Many of the speeches during Commencement week advised students on how to approach the changing world. Garber’s Baccalaureate address to graduating seniors focused on artificial intelligence, which he said can accelerate innovation and enhance research while rendering some other tools and skills obsolete.
“There are the landscapes you just don’t need to explore anymore,” Garber said. “I may still be able to read a slide rule, and I can use a paper map, but those skills long ago lost most of their value thanks to calculators and GPS. That is what it is to live as progress is being made.”
But in the face of that progress, Garber reminded the crowd, humans have choices—about where to exert our efforts and struggle, and where to seek and embrace the unexpected. “There will always be value in ‘toiling laboriously’ to reach new levels of understanding,” he said. “When you do so, you do more than celebrate the exquisite potential of human beings; you elevate the meaning of your singular existence.”
Comedian Ronny Chieng elaborated on that theme as the College’s Class Day speaker, urging graduating seniors not to outsource their creativity to AI. “Untalented people love bragging about using AI to help them draft their speeches, and their scripts, and their podcasts, and their promo videos for UFC fights at the White House,” Chieng said. “What they’re missing is this: the creating is the fun part.”
Chieng went on to argue that the journey of making and learning something matters —“it’s the point of all of this.” “When you have clarity of purpose and you’re doing something you love,” he continued, “every day can be a joy.”
At Harvard Kennedy School, Zanny Minton Beddoes, M.P.A. ’92, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, called the current moment a period of dramatic upheaval, while at Harvard Business School, Mitt Romney, M.B.A.’74, J.D. ’75, called it “one of the most tumultuous times in history.” Both were speaking simultaneously of AI and a political climate that has led to a frontal attack on the values that built American institutions of higher education. But both also emphasized that such times present opportunities—to make great change for good.
The Commencement week chatter also included multiple nods to one of the biggest stories on Harvard’s campus this year: the debate over grade inflation that culminated in a faculty vote to limit the number of A’s in any class.
“When I entered Harvard, I believed that grade inflation was a myth,” Hamza Masoud ’26, a member of the Lampoon, said during his Class Day Ivy Oration. “Four years later, I have a GPA of 3.968 and am graduating at the bottom of my class.”
O’Brien also referenced grade inflation in his speech, as he thanked Garber for his stewardship of the graduating class: “Fantastic job, sir. Really nice, really nice. Normally, I would give you an A-plus, but in keeping with upcoming Harvard policy, I’m adjusting your grade to a C-minus; trust me, it’s for the good of the school.”
Graduates and their guests also heard multiple references this week to the financial strains imposed by cuts to federal research funding and looming layoffs among administrative staff. Members of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers held a rally on Wednesday outside the Smith Campus Center, protesting the prospect of future cuts.
And protests by the striking Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW)—whose demands for higher wages intersect with those financial strains—were impossible to miss. Harvard Law School’s scheduled keynote speaker, Boston mayor Michelle Wu ’07, J.D. ’12, cancelled plans to speak, citing an unwillingness to cross the picket line of an ongoing strike by Harvard’s graduate student union.
Meanwhile, chants of picketers occasionally drowned out Garber’s Baccalaureate address to graduating seniors. And at Commencement, union members with noisemakers created a cacophony outside the gates of the Yard, particularly when Garber spoke—making it difficult to hear him from some seats.
The week also brought reflection on broad threats to U.S. higher education and the nationwide retreat from formal diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. For the second year in a row, student groups from across the University organized affinity-based graduation celebrations without institutional support or access to Harvard-owned facilities.
At Lavender Graduation, the affinity celebration for LGBTQ+ graduates, Ricardo Martinez, the executive director of GLAD Law, acknowledged Harvard’s public resistance to federal pressure on higher education but criticized the University’s move to collapse diversity offices last year.
“Pride and anger can coexist,” he said. “Institutions are complicated, even the ones that are trying their hardest to live their values against a federal government that has targeted universities for what they teach, who they admit, and what they stand for.”
At Thursday’s Commencement ceremonies, the student speakers also brought up the real-world challenges, light and serious, that marked their Harvard experiences.
In her speech, “Harvardianus Esse” (“To Be an Harvardian”), Latin salutatorian Kiesse Nanor ’26 poked fun at the disconnect between the experience of being a Harvard student and the perceptions of people outside the institution.
Senior English orator Noah Eckstein ’26 recounted his multifaceted family background: he grew up Jewish in Lubbock, Texas, with a mother who had converted to Judaism from Christianity, a grandfather who was a Holocaust survivor, and another grandfather who was a Pakistani Muslim.
That swirl of identities and ideologies, he said, made it impossible to fall into rigid, polarized thinking and taught him that the goal of dialogue need not be agreement, but understanding.
Graduate orator Andrew O’Donohue ’18, Ph.D.’26, focused his speech on the threat to democracy as it plays out on university campuses, including Harvard’s—and how students and institutions can, and do, fight back. He noted the ways Harvard has stepped up to protect that freedom, temporarily funding research when federal grants (including his own National Science Foundation funding) were cut, and successfully fought in court to restore those grants.
But he also acknowledged the uncertainty that remains for many in academia. “So many of my friends have felt afraid to take a leadership position, afraid to attend a protest, afraid to sign a petition,” he said, because they worried it could jeopardize their research funding or immigration status.
“Our University must do more to protect academic freedom and free speech rather than restrict them. Our University must improve its efforts to support students from different backgrounds, rather than pull back,” he said. He also spoke about his membership in the student employee union, drawing cheers from the crowd.
Though the outside world intervened as always, Commencement Day also contained the usual pomp, traditions, and memorable moments, from the traditional call to order by Peter J. Koutoujian, M.P.A. ’03, the sheriff of Middlesex County, to a dulcet rendition of “America the Beautiful” by vocalist Sanjna Rajagopalan ’26 and opening remarks from chaplain of the day Rabbi Getzel Davis.
The conferral of degrees, too, carried on with the customary formalities, as the deans of each school rose to address “Mr. President, Fellows of Harvard College, Madame President, and Members of the Board of Overseers,” and Garber formally awarded degrees “by virtue of the authority delegated to me.” Among the musical selections was the anthem based on Psalm 78 (St. Martin’s), a tradition dating back to the inception of Harvard Commencements.
Toward the close of the ceremony, the University celebrated the accomplishments of five honorary degree recipients. British historian, journalist, and public intellectual Noel Robert Malcolm, known for his scholarship on Thomas Hobbes, the Balkans, and the Ottoman world, was awarded a doctor of laws degree.
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush who authored several landmark political addresses, was awarded a doctor of laws degree.
University of Toronto professor emeritus Geoffrey Everest Hinton, a pioneering computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI”—whose work earned him the 2018 Turing Award and a share of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics—was awarded a doctor of science degree.
Tony Award-winning actress and singer Audra McDonald, a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the co-founder of Black Theatre United, was awarded a doctor of arts degree. McDonald portrayed the character of Sarah in the original Broadway production of the musical Ragtime, and Harvard’s ceremony contained a tribute to her performance: Gabrielle Greene ’27 and Samuel Hines ’29 performed a moving duet from the show, “Wheels of a Dream,” accompanied by Kiesse Nanor ’26 on piano. Visibly moved, McDonald embraced the students after their performance.
Finally, O’Brien was awarded his honorary degree. Alluding to O’Brien’s decades-long career in late night television—and his role succeeding David Letterman on NBC’s Late Night—Provost John Manning conferred on him the title “Harvard’s own honorary late-night Letterman” and presented him with a white varsity letter sweater.
Then O’Brien launched into his speech, designed to draw what Garber called a “dose of laughs” in a world fractured along political and cultural lines. O’Brien made fun of everything: the format of graduation speeches, academic robes, the architecture of his own undergraduate house, Mather, and, characteristically, himself: “As I look upon this gathering of tomorrow’s greatest minds, I’m confident saying there is no less flattering outfit than the cap and gown. We all look like the potions professor at Hogwarts up here on stage. It feels like an AA meeting for druids.”
He also poked fun at his alma mater’s reputation: “As we gather here today at this beautiful Tercentenary Theatre, I am struck by one thought: only someone from Harvard would call this patch of grass a Tercentenary Theatre…Why use a $5 word when a $50 word will do?”
Wrapped inside his comedy, though, was stealth, sharp commentary on the political climate and the ongoing federal actions that have challenged the Harvard community. “Many people think I’ve come today to defend Harvard. Well, sorry, those people are wrong,” O’Brien said. He continued:
“Not only am I not against these lawsuits, I’m here to announce that I am joining them. I, too, am suing Harvard. I’m suing Harvard for the cast-iron bunk bed that greeted me upon my arrival at Holworthy 16 my freshman year…I’m suing Harvard for allowing me to sign up for a 9 a.m. class at the Science Center and a 10 a.m. class down at Soldiers Field. For God’s sake, I was a child.
I’m suing Harvard for my less than spectacular undergraduate sex life…I’m suing Harvard, because—and this is absolutely true—in the spring of my sophomore year, while trying to grab a quick lunch at Adams house, I was served a meal called Captain Ben’s Fish Spaghetti…
Yes, I’m confident that my claims will have more merit than those filed by the president of the United States. Yes, as you are aware, the current administration feels Harvard admits too many foreign students, and who knows, they may have a point. After all, what has any foreigner ever added to our American culture—with the possible exception of music, literature, art, cuisine, fashion, architecture, dance, scientific breakthroughs, and the core of our moral codes and ethical beliefs.
