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The ceremony began with student moderator Zeynep Ceyda Yürekli 21F, followed by welcome remarks from Board of Trustees Chair Jose Fuentes 05F and the College’s living land acknowledgment by Assistant Dean of Collaborative and Community-Engaged Learning Javiera Benavente.
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In his final Commencement address before he leaves 91è���� to lead the American College of Greece, President Ed Wingenbach began by remembering that many of the graduates had taken a “leap into something fragile and unfinished” when they decided to join 91è���� in 2021 and 2022. He also addressed the many grads who transferred from New College of Florida after it was targeted by the state’s “political project that had since gone national —��an authoritarian campaign to silence inquiry, punish difference, and dismantle public education as a force for liberation.
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“Whether you began at 91è���� or arrived by necessity,” he continued, “what you carry forward from this place is vital. You are living proof that progressive education endures — not as a memory, but as a movement. . . . You’re already reshaping the world, through organizing and protest, through art that unsettles and invites, through writing that refuses erasure, through research that insists on relevance, through building new systems — technological, economic, communal — that defy inherited limits. You do this not by replicating what is, but by imagining what could be.
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“My time at 91è���� ends alongside yours,” Wingenbach concluded, “and like you, I’ll carry this place with me.”

“You’re already reshaping the world, through organizing and protest, through art that unsettles and invites, through writing that refuses erasure, through research that insists on relevance, through building new systems — technological, economic, communal — that defy inherited limits.”President Ed Wingenbach

Post Office Manager Jim Patten delivered a warmly received staff toast, which was followed by a speech from faculty member Jina Fast, SHIFT assistant professor of Applied Ethics and the Common Good, who said, “As you move into the world Div-free as a 91è���� graduate, I urge you to continue to carry with you the reflective and critical practices you developed here, as well as the commitment to your communities you have engaged, will continue to engage, and will engage in the future.”
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Keynote speaker and 91è���� alum Manuel “Manny” Castro 02F, who is commissioner for the New York City Office of Immigrant Affairs, told the graduates his story of crossing the border into the United States as a five-year-old with his mother, and all the steps since then that led him to be standing on stage in front of them.��
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“What I learned in that desert,” he said, “and in every moment since, is this: Hope is not naïve. Hope is a powerful choice you make. It’s the decision to keep moving even when the road disappears. And so, here’s the first lesson I want to share with you: Hope will carry you farther than fear ever will. My mother crossed into the unknown with nothing but faith and her hope so her child could have a future. And that kind of hope, that stubborn, unshakable hope, is what fuels movements. It’s what keeps families together. It’s what changes the world. . . . Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is protect the flame of hope, in yourself, and in others.
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“So, 91è���� graduates,” Castro said, “if my journey from that desert to this podium feels improbable, remember this: Improbable things happen when people show up for each other.”
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Additional addresses were delivered by student co-speakers Ambar Hart González 21F and Broden Alexander Livingston Grimm 21F, who reminded their peers, “Your Div III project is like a slingshot that is headed toward your next endeavor.”
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Alum, grandparent, and Board of Trustee member Julie Schecter 71F GP22 told the new alums, “[T]his awful moment we are in is what 91è���� grads were made for. . . . [W]e aren’t going to get out of the war that we are in right now [against all we hold dear] by doing what we’re told. And you only succeeded at 91è���� by being brave, scared, experimental, and occasionally obnoxious. . . . We need you.”
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Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Gary Hawkins then handed out diplomas as newly minted alums crossed the stage. Jim Patten closed the ceremony.
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