Commencement Speech - Cheryl Johnson

As prepared for delivery.

Thank you, Acting President Jean Bordewich and Board of Trustees for this invitation. I am overjoyed to share this important day with Guilford’s Class of 2025. And I am humbled to walk amongst the trees of this beautiful campus that bear witness to the courage of the brave men and women who looked like me, who found refuge in these woods on their journey to freedom, and the community of Friends who supported them. Guilford’s legacy of putting faith in action is a testimony for our nation and the world at large.

Congratulations Graduates! This is the culmination of years of challenging work, marked by both advances and setbacks, always by sacrifice, and today, by celebration and success. Commencement is one of the moments in our lives when we are able to both celebrate a long-envisioned goal and at the same time embark on the next phase of your lives with hope and optimism.

I remember my graduation day clearly. I ran down the halls of my dormitory blasting “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross, as if to put the world on notice for my debut. I remember the pride I felt seeing my family from New Orleans, some of whom traveled by plane for the first time in their lives, having come to Iowa to celebrate with me.

The degrees you have earned mark your individual achievements, but make sure your family and friends are aware of your deep gratitude for everything they have done to prepare you to be here today. Graduates, please give your family and friends a round of applause.  

You should be excited today. And yet, amidst all this excitement, you probably also are feeling uncertain. So did I.  College taught me to be inquisitive about the world, to engage with the issues of the day, and to question everything – especially authority. At Guilford, you have your Seven Core Values.  But values are not crib notes.  You can’t write them in your phone and pull them up during a job interview.  

What then, pardon the pun, is their value?  For me, the answer became clear just over two years ago. As the saying goes, “history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it definitely has a way of rhyming.”    Having spent more than 30 years in a variety of roles in Washington, DC, I can vouch for that.

On January 3, 2023, I found myself — with great reluctance — on a very public stage as the House of Representatives convened at the start of the 118th Congress.

The Members-elect of the House convened that day to elect a Speaker. Article 1 of the Constitution provides the House shall elect a Speaker before the new members can be sworn in. The Constitution stipulates that the Clerk presides over the House until a Speaker is elected. Normally, this is an administrative task that is completed in short order.

As that day’s events kicked off, however, it was hard to imagine that it would take 15 rounds of votes over four days before a Speaker was finally elected.  You may remember the events being covered by the national —and even international — media. Long-time observers of Congress wondered where the unprecedented political events might take a deeply divided country, just emerging from an unprecedented pandemic.

Presiding at the rostrum, wielding the gavel to maintain order as the two parties (and various factions within those parties) locked horns over the repeated votes
was…yours truly.

Finally, on the fourth day the House was able to marshal just enough votes to elect a Speaker and the members-elect were sworn in.

Years later, I remain surprised at the appreciative verbal and handwritten communications I continue to receive from so many members from both parties.

I had presided over the House during a highly partisan, extremely tense sequence of votes for Speaker where many on both sides of the aisle assumed that someone with my political background would exploit the power of the Chair to favor one party over the other during a Constitutionally fragile moment. For context, I am a life-long Democrat. I was a Democrat Congressional staffer for nearly 20 years and had been appointed as Clerk by a Democratic Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

The thought of abandoning my integrity never crossed my mind. For four very unsettling days, my colleagues and I worked to ensure that the proceedings of the House followed the exact framework set by the Constitution and several centuries of parliamentary precedent.  But why, and why am I telling you this story?

One of the great issues we face today as Americans is what makes a democracy a democracy. First, a democracy is a democracy because enough people value the rule of law over any short-term political gains, particularly when the temptation to forego it is strongest.
Secondly, because enough people believe that the greatest value in a democracy is stewardship of its institutions and rules. That’s why my colleagues and I chose the course we took and that’s why I have no doubt that all of you, having learned stewardship as one of Guildford’s core values, will do the same if faced with such a situation.

We’ve been here before—history rhymes—and each time we have managed to emerge stronger. Values don’t give us the answers, they equip us to find the answers.  What gets us through division is a commitment to steward the institutions, processes and procedures we’ve established in the (almost) 250 years since our founding. When we cherish and protect our democratic institutions, then the foundations of our experiment in self-government can withstand the winds of political turbulence that blow in a free society.

When you chose Guilford, you committed to more than joining Nathan the Quaker in cheering on your peers competing for the football or basketball teams. You committed to embodying the college’s seven core values – including stewardship throughout your life.

I urge you to engage in the political debates of the day, run for office, volunteer at a polling place, register new voters, maybe even work in Congress. There has already been one Guilford graduate to serve in Congress (Howard Coble of North Carolina), maybe the next one is sitting here today.

When your way forward appears uncertain, lean into the dreams that inspired you to attend Guilford, the values you have developed here — which will continue to evolve as you do. And always, be ready for any eventuality.  

Trust that your contributions to the people and communities around you will yield a career and life of meaningful impact. Good roots, good fruits. Guilford graduates your roots are strong, from the very soil that has undergirded you to the core values woven through your entire curriculum. You are richly prepared for the next leg of your journey, carry your real ID in your wallets, and carry your values in every fiber in your being.  Go Forward! Go Quakers! Thank you.

Greeting  - Jean Bordewich

As prepared for delivery.

Graduates! Guilfordians! This is your day. We are proud of you and even more excited about what the future holds for you. Welcome to the celebration of your Commencement Day!

Today we will award you, our 200 graduating students, with your hard-earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees and welcome you to the global family of more than 25,000 Guilford alumni.

Here we are all community, connected with each other in one way or another through Guilford. Here, every one of us belongs. Please take a moment to greet someone sitting near you……Welcome to this very special day.

I especially want to recognize eight beloved community members who are retiring after a total of 190 years of service. They are: Suzanne Bartels, Sherry Giles, Hiroko (here-OH-ko) Hirakawa (here-ah-KAH-wah), Rhonda Johnson, David Millican, Sandy Pearman – after 44 years – , David Petree and Darryl Samsell. You will be remembered by the thousands of students whose lives you have influenced and helped to shape. Please stand and let us thank you.

To our seniors, you entered Guilford in 2021, and despite obstacles presented by the COVID pandemic, you persevered and made the most of your time here, with your accomplishments in the classroom, your discipline and teamwork in sports, your service to the wider community, in your pursuit of the arts and in your advocacy for social justice.

The essence of the liberal arts education envisioned by the Quakers who founded Guilford was of an education, as they described it, “both civil and useful” – that is, ethical and practical. In other words, Guilford’s liberal arts education is not intended to equip you only with specific skills to get a job today. Its mission is to prepare you to thrive throughout your life in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world.

Here’s an example: When I was in high school, worrying about my future, one of my father’s engineering colleagues advised me, in all seriousness, that I should become a keypunch operator because, he insisted, “You will never be out of a job.” Who here even remembers giant mainframe computers powered by punch cards? They – and keypunch jobs – were obsolete by the time I finished my master’s degree.

Each of you will write your own life story and at your Golden Circle reunion in 2075 – imagine that! – you will look back on this day and what has happened since and the role Guilford played in your life. I would like to share reflections from two graduates, one entering middle age, the other in his 80s.

The first is Kyle Kiser, a 2006 graduate and tech entrepreneur whose company uses technology to lower prescription drug costs. “I came to Guilford almost by accident,” he wrote to me. “My curiosities for higher education didn’t extend much beyond playing football and going into the family business.  What met me was not at all what I expected. I discovered that an unmistakably Guilford quality is learning the value of purpose.  To pursue a life on behalf of something bigger than your own ambition and success. Purpose is the fuel that drives a LIFE.”  

“Guilford,” Kyle says, “can facilitate a shift in a  person’s foundation in a way that prepares them for anything that comes.  Not just informed by knowledge and experience, but by the presence of the Light in the always advancing now.”

As Kyle discovered, Guilford is not just about what you study here, but about who you become, the values you choose to live by, the risks you take, the service you give, the care and nurture you offer and take from the communities you are part of.

During your time at Guilford, I hope that the Quaker values in which we root our unusual culture have become embedded in your character: community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice, and stewardship. They will guide you well in life.

Another Guilford graduate, Gary York, class of 1965, is a Quaker who was an athlete, Guilford College trustee, and businessman who owned dozens of stores and a radio station. When I visited him a few weeks ago, after he had suffered a severe stroke, he could barely speak. But before I left, I asked for his advice for me as the new acting president here… He said simply… “Just do right.”

Decades from now, when you look back on your own life, I hope that you will be able to say that you listened to your leadings and found callings that gave direction and purpose to your life. Don’t wait for a blazing revelation urging you to go somewhere else at some future time. You’ve already started… right here. Keep going, wherever you are, and “Just do right.”

Speaker of the Class - Julia Spoor '25

As prepared for delivery.

It is an honor to be here, speaking before this wonderful group of faculty, staff, alumni, students, family, and cherished friends, who have come together today to form this mosaic of community celebrating Guilford’s 188th graduating class of 2025.

For many of us, it was not a straightforward path to get here — many of us entered as first-year Guilfordians in the fall of 2021, eating takeout-only meals from the caf and getting mandatory COVID tests every few weeks. Finding each other was hard. Connecting was hard. Some of us have been here since before the fall of ‘21 and others arrived later, yet here we are on the quad in our caps and gowns on this sunny Saturday in May, exactly as planned! Our convergent paths have brought us all here, to celebrate this great accomplishment – everything is waiting for us.

Community has really defined my last four years here at Guilford – beginning in the fall of 2021 with assignments like, “prepare and eat vegetable soup in the Milner kitchen with your peers” in Kami and Brenda’s 3-week first year seminar, and as recently as a few weeks ago, when my capstone advisor Bronwyn invited me over for tea at her farm simply because she heard I was in the neighborhood.

I didn’t make a lot of friends that first fall semester, but eventually I did discover a secret to meeting people on campus: I picked up a work study in the mail room. People came in and out to pick up packages, and during the lulls, my boss Nelson and I would exchange stories. My peers and I began recognizing each other outside of the mailroom, trading smiles and waves as we passed each other on the quad, and I familiarized and ingratiated myself within the Guilford College facilities department.

As I fostered more of these community connections on campus, Guilford began feeling like less of an institution and more of a home. Just like any home, being here didn’t always feel perfect or easy, and it didn’t always mak sense; but it was always a place where I felt safe,
welcome, and appreciated.

Guilford became a place where I could call on m Quakerism professor to help me jump start my car. It became a place where I’d be welcome to crash a class I’d already taken, all because I came to really like a lot of my professors; because they became more than professors; they became friends.

Thanks to our amazing Off-Campus Initiatives program, Guilford was a place where I could easily spend a semester living in an intentional community on the opposite end of the country, in my senior year, and still have everything I needed to graduate right on time.

Maybe your Guilford experience has been different. Where I found home among the trees in the quiet woods, maybe you found home in the locker room before a sports game or in conversation on the couches in the OSLE. Where I found community in the ultimate frisbee team, maybe you found it walking shelter dogs in ROAR or playing beach volleyball behind the gym.

I know I am not alone in saying that my feelings toward closing this dynamic and exciting chapter of my life are bittersweet. I will miss smelling the crisp autumn air on the quad and stepping on those giant, crunchy sycamore leaves on my walk to class and I will miss watching the turtles come out to sun themselves by the lake every spring. Maybe you’ll miss the roar of the crowd at a soccer game, or the warmth of the wood kiln during a firing. Maybe you’ll miss staying up to listen to your friend’s set on WQFS or LARPing on the quad with the yachting club. Whatever it was for you, I hope you’re proud of yourself for being here today, and I want us all to hold dear the words of David Whyte’s poem, “Everything is waiting for you.”

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Congratulations to the Class - David Grimsley '00

As prepared for delivery.

Class of 2025... I have the honor of giving you a final address. Before I begin, let’s take a minute and close our eyes. When’s the last time you’ve thanked your ancestors for bringing you to this day? Chances are, we share a common ancestor, some 12,000 years ago, after the last ice age. That’s about 415 grandmothers who survived all the untold uprisings, catastrophes, conflict, and upheavals; raising their young, and passing on the wisdom of the last generation so that their children might see a better day. So on this special day, let us give thanks
to the grandmothers!

I’m here as a representative of the Guilford College Alumni to wish you well as you drive out of the Guilford campus later today. It’s also an opportunity for me to welcome you to the family of alumni. As diverse as the Guilford College alumni are, and always have been, I believe there is a common thread where everyone who has graduated from Guilford may relate: Authenticity. We all could have gone to so many different schools, had completely different stereotypical American college experiences, but you chose the special place called Guilford, probably because something different, perhaps a spark about this place, resonated with you.

This school attracts unique students, the ones that have the ability to think outside the box. Students that understand the strength in self-reflection. Students that have put down their books and sat in solidarity for civil rights at Woolworths; the ones who travelled to Standing Rock in the winter to defend native lands. The ones who stood up against police brutality after the George Floyd killing. This isn’t a college for the faint of heart. Yes, it’s a safe and a wonderful sanctuary to grow and study, but it’s also a unique place to explore YOUR place in the world. What is worth questioning? What will you witness and remain quiet? What will you learn, what will you discover, that inspires you to speak your mind and act on the behalf of others?

Through the heart of a Quaker, one might say: 

HOW WILL THE SPIRIT MOVE YOU?

You are about to go out into the greater world, beyond the sanctuary that the Guilford College campus is, to an increasingly tumultuous time in American politics and societal norms. There’s a lot of grifting, hoodwinking, shenanigans, and tomfoolery out there, and if that sounded like something a snake oil salesman would say, it’s because there’s a lot of those out there too!

This is the time to stay centered, connected, and authentic to who you really are. Robert Edward Grant once said, “Finding your highest authenticity is the process of aligning your inner being with the ultimate truth of who you really are, beyond the limitations of external influences, social constructs, or preconceived beliefs.”

Authenticity won’t make everybody like you, but it will make YOU like you.

Along with cultivating your authenticity, I also encourage you, if you have not explored it yet, to develop an inner council. Listen to the wisdom of those who came before you. They’re whispering in your ear right now, if you listen closely. Do not lose your integrity, your empathy, or your humanity. This is a time when we are approaching the question: what does it mean to be human? This is the age of disclosure, where paradigms are being uprooted and groundbreaking technologies are going to change how humans can interface with themselves, each other,
and the external world.

As technology interfaces with our biology on an increasingly alarming level of intimacy, I challenge you to maintain your humanity, maintain that authenticity. I do not believe our grandmothers kept a warm hearth through ice ages and strife to see us compromise our biology to the technological whims of men who never had initiation; ones that wince at the idea of self reflection; those who have not experienced community; those who never had a coming of age threshold to walk through. If you haven’t walked through that threshold, I beg you to create an initiatory experience for yourself. It will make you a better, more authentic human, I guarantee it.

So let us go forth, with our families at our side, with our ancestors close by, with fresh eyes and clear hearts. Let us love our neighbors and cherish our lives, cherish our humanity. May you look back on your time at Guilford as a formative experience for the work ahead. When you’re feeling lost in life, I recommend coming back to this campus. Walk the labyrinth of brick paths, stroll through the hallowed Guilford woods, and remember a time, perhaps less complex. Guilford will always be here for you, as it is now a part of you.

Here’s to the Class of 2025!