Graduates! Guilfordians! This is your day. We’re proud of you. We’re excited about what the future holds for you. We’re here to celebrate all you have accomplished. And we are celebrating your family and friends, who played no small role in this day, too.

Today we will award you, our 237 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.

We are all one community, connected with each other through Guilford – now and for the rest of our lives. Here, every one of us belongs. Look around you at your friends, family, people you know, the people you don’t. They will be traveling with you into your future.

I want to give special recognition to Meredeth Summers, our chief of staff, who organized and managed this entire Commencement ceremony. She and her group of volunteers and staff members have done a fantastic job. This past December, Meredeth also earned a doctorate – her second one – from Regent University. She skipped her own graduation ceremony there to be here today. Congratulations, Meredeth.

Seniors, you persevered through COVID and through the College’s recent financial difficulties. You made the most of your time here. Your accomplishments bear that out. You were successful as students of the humanities, the sciences, the arts, in business and in sports. You volunteered – helping others in the wider community and advocating for social justice. You explored. You found interests you never knew you had. Guilford as an
institution has prevailed and so have you.

Quakers who founded New Garden Boarding School, the predecessor to Guilford College, described their vision of education as, “both civil and useful” – that is, ethical and practical, high-minded and hands-on. Continually adapted over time, that’s the essence of a Guilford education today. This is a place to practice virtue, to learn with others, and to acquire skills and talents to provide a livelihood that supports you, your family and your community.

As you take the next step in your journey, you will find that Guilford’s liberal arts education has equipped you to thrive in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world. Your ability to reason, reflect, communicate, empathize, and deepen your attention and awareness will be invaluable. Especially in a world filled with distractions and conflict.

Your graduation coincides with the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. That revolutionary document’s idealistic vision of a government based on “self-evident truths” of equality has not been fully realized. Yet it has inspired people – here and around the world – to demand freedom. Yours will be the next generation to honor and advance the struggle to make the dream of a thriving, diverse democracy real. 

Don’t shy away from politics and government – they form the anatomical structure of a healthy democracy. Voting is like breathing. Healthy debate over differences exercises the muscle. And hashing out compromises – over and over – is essential to growth.

Each of you will write your own life story. Every Spring, Guilford welcomes back graduates whose class is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It’s a wonderful celebration. At your Golden Circle in 2076 – imagine that! – you will look back on this day and what has happened since. You will see then more sharply the role
Guilford played in your life. One graduate, Jeff Thigpen, class of 1993, grew up in a small town in rural eastern North Carolina. He has been Guilford County’s elected register of deeds since 2004. “Guilford showed me the value of community and how power works,” Jeff says, adding, “The College taught me the importance of integrity, the idea of seeking truth, and what that means when you're dealing with situations where people disagree.”

Alba Argueta Garcia, who is graduating today, says, “At Guilford, we didn’t just learn in community. We learned how to create it. And maybe that’s what it means to be uniquely Guilford – not just being part of a community but learning how to build one wherever we go next.”

In a few moments, you’ll hear more about the experience of this year’s graduates and the impact of Guilford from Jahmarley Vivens, class of 2026, and speaker for the class. We are living through a time when society sometimes feels fractured, polarized, isolating, exhausting. But it is also full of promise, goodness and hope. Find the opportunities, take them up with excitement and energy and joy. You know you can – and will – change the world. Make it better.

You have experienced your own personal growth in this community. And you have learned something more – as Alba said – how to build community wherever you are, connecting people in a shared humanity, rejecting the forces that pull us apart.

Last year I visited with Gary York, who graduated in 1965, after he suffered a severe stroke and could barely speak. Gary was a Quaker, an athlete, a College trustee and businessman. Before I left, I asked for his advice for me as Guilford’s president. He said simply: “Just do right.”

Decades from now, when you look back on your own lives, I hope that you will be able to say that you listened to what Quakers call your leadings and found direction and purpose to your life – that you, too, “did right” in all your endeavors -- and that Guilford helped guide you on that path.

You have earned a Guilford College degree. When you leave here, take what you have learned, embrace it with all your being. Put our Guilford values into action. Seek justice, nurture the earth, cherish community, act with integrity and know the equalizing power of that unique inner Light in each of you.

Together you will create a more just, humane and hopeful world.