Graduates Urged to Use ‘Superpowers’ Wisely
‘Our hearts are full knowing that your talents, your leadership, and your hard work will steer the course toward an extraordinary future'
An unusually cold spring day couldn’t chill the warmth and joy in the air as members of the Class of 2026 marked their time at Colby with pomp, circumstance, and a lot of laughter during the College’s 205th Commencement on Sunday, May 24.
President David A. Greene welcomed the students, their families, and friends to Mayflower Hill. The class of 643 is the largest in Colby’s history, and their loved ones crowded around Miller Lawn, some holding cheerful bouquets of flowers for their graduates even as they bundled up in coats and blankets.
Greene opened his remarks by noting that it’s an unusual moment to head into the world, in part because artificial intelligence has become increasingly important, he said.
“We can see this world as uncertain, disruptive, frightening even. You might also see it as a world full of possibilities and opportunities. In fact, both can be true,” he said. “But what does it say about your education and how it will serve you as you navigate a new and uncharted world? Here’s my view on all of this, and that’s that the more prevalent the artificial form of intelligence is in our lives, the more the true intelligence, the human intelligence, will be valued.”
True intelligence is something the members of the Class of 2026 have in abundance, and they are also equipped with habits of mind and the necessary tools to question and investigate creatively, analytically, and rigorously, Greene said. In a time when it’s fashionable to question the value of a college education because of the rise of automation, generative AI, and other new technologies, Colby graduates can set themselves apart from the crowd.
“Your education has been the most powerful form of education for centuries. And that will be truer than ever in this revolutionary moment when the pace of change is fastest, the challenges are greatest, and higher-order thinking and creativity will be the scarce resource most in demand,” Greene said. “That’s your superpower. Use it wisely, not simply to enrich yourself, but to make this world a safer, more just place. We are desperate for your talents and the goodness inherent in each of you.”
In fact, he said, the rows of graduating students arrayed before him, wearing their caps and gowns and with hope shining in their eyes, filled him with optimism.
“We will miss you greatly here. You have really been an extraordinary class. You’ve just brought such a sense of community and connectedness to this entire campus,” Greene told them. “Our hearts are full knowing that your talents, your leadership, and your hard work will steer the course toward an extraordinary future.”
‘I hope you will press PLAY’
Commencement speaker Mo Willems, an award-winning author, illustrator, and animator of beloved, witty children’s books, offered advice to the graduates now headed towards those hoped-for extraordinary futures. He also had an abundance of humor, causing laughter to ripple through the crowd as he joked about the day’s attire for graduates and honorands—“silly hats and bathrobes”—and gave heartfelt thanks to the families in attendance.
“To those of you out there who aren’t wearing silly hats and bathrobes, your support, enthusiasm, sacrifice, dreams, efforts, and delivery of snacks have been immeasurably important. So, we’re not going to try to measure it,” said Willems, who received an honorary degree from the College in 2024. “Because today is not your day. I’m not saying you’re not great. You helped build the doorway to the future, but the ones wearing the silly hats and bathrobes, they are the ones walking through it.”
This moment is when graduates can press pause on their lives, Willems said. But soon they will have to unpause, and when they do, he hopes they don’t press rewind and drown in regrets and self-recriminations. Or press fast-forward, trying to solve the adventure of living and get to the end in the hopes of winning before the credits roll. Or press 1.5 speed, having life zip by “high-pitched and digitized.”
“I hope you will press PLAY. In your work. In your relationships. In your life,” he said. “Because play experiments. Play invites. Play includes. Play adapts when things take an unexpected turn, which I expect will happen to you. Play is an open-ended, contagious joy. It remembers the good and repeats it, revises it, renews it.”
Not everyone likes playful people; some denigrate the open-ended fun of play and prefer games with rules, winners, and losers. This, Willems said, is a product of fear. And as the graduates move through life, they are certain to encounter fearful people, groups, and institutions. They will also face the rigors and responsibilities of the post-college world, which can also take a toll on the desire to play.
“How can you maintain within you that irresistible urge to explore and discover and play when you leave this ceremony and must find an apartment and a job and a career and buy comfortable underpants and groceries and make what they call a life?” Willems asked. “I don’t know. But it’s a great question, right? And it’s your question. You get to answer it in infinite ways no one here can even imagine yet.”
Still, he knows a few things for sure, including that simple and easy are opposite words, and playfulness, truthfulness, and thoughtfulness are synonyms.
“And also, this: You are wonderful, competent, unique, and essential. Just like everybody else,” Willems said. “Your work is needed. You will benefit from seeing and hearing others. If you can make the world any better, even a little better in a tiny way, do it.”
He finished with a rollicking call-and-response reading of his book Me and Other Bunnies, asking the audience to repeat his words. One little boy in the audience, Jedidiah Mamah, 5, a cousin of computer science major Joshua Iyonsi ’26, went the extra mile. To Willems’s delight, Jedidiah echoed every response with his own solo call, after the audience responded with its own. His clear, piping voice added another kind of punctuation to the simple children’s book that asked people to consider both how they are connected to each other and how they are unique individuals.
At the end, Willems asked an official to give Jedidiah the book he was reading from. “I love this kid,” he said, enchanting the audience.
‘Colby was there, guiding me through’
Kathryn “Lainie” Stone ’26, a Posse Scholar and Pulver Science Scholar from Houston, was chosen by her peers as the senior speaker. She is an earth sciences major who completed independent research projects on meteorites, served as a senator in the Student Government Association, curated and organized TEDx at Colby, served as a teaching assistant for introductory science courses, and developed a science curriculum for Alaska Native students.
Stone chose another of Willems’s books, Will the Pigeon Graduate?, for inspiration as she prepared her speech.
In Willems’s book, the avian protagonist asked a question that felt extremely familiar to Stone: “How will I face the unknown?” It’s a question that she has had to answer repeatedly in her time here, in ways both small and unimaginably large.
“I lost myself in an unknown in the fall of my sophomore year, when my father was diagnosed with cancer and passed away. In the wake of his diagnosis and death, I faced the greatest unknowns of my life,” Stone said. “I didn’t know what came next after something like that, how to be there for my family, how to be there for myself, and if I should stay at Colby. Suddenly, Colby was unknown yet again. Two thousand miles away from home, it seemed like a question too great to answer.”
But with the support of the professors who made it possible for her to learn remotely and for the friends who rallied around her as her life blew up, Stone answered the question affirmatively, returning to the College that had become her community and a home away from home.
“Despite what I had originally thought, my return to Colby was never actually a question because of the communities that make Colby, Colby,” she said. “The communities that I had worried wouldn’t exist when I came freshman year were all around me, and they are all around everyone here today. Even when I thought I had lost myself in my unknown, Colby was there, guiding me through.”
Today, the whole Class of 2026 is facing the new unknowns of their post-graduate lives. Some of her classmates have jobs or graduate school opportunities lined up, and some do not. But all are at the forefront of uncertainty, Stone said, while encouraging the graduates to remember they’ve been in that place before and figured it out together. They can do so again.
“In Will the Pigeon Graduate?, the pigeon faces the unknown with a great leap,” she said. “As we prepare to leave here and take our own leaps into the unknown, know that the platforms we are jumping from are steady, and they wouldn’t exist if we weren’t ready to get off the ground.”
‘Keep learning, stay open, be curious’
During the ceremony, Colby conferred honorary degrees on three individuals who have worked to improve lives and advance our collective understanding of society, history, culture, and humanity. Those are the Hon. Esther Salas, a trailblazing federal judge who has turned personal tragedy into a purpose-driven mission and who delivered the baccalaureate address on Saturday; Dr. Melissa Gilliam, president of Boston University and an acclaimed scientist; and Nathanial Fick, inaugural U.S. ambassador at large for the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy.
Greene also named Elle Cavanaugh ’26 as the winner of the Condon Medal, the only award announced at commencement. The award is voted on by members of the class and faculty and is given to a senior who has exhibited the finest qualities of citizenship and made the most significant contribution to the development of life at Colby.
Cavanaugh, from Hingham, Mass., double majored in anthropology and education. She graduated with distinction, receiving summa cum laude honors, and served on the Student Programming Board, was a leader and committee member for Colby Outdoor Orientation Trips, was a sexual assault prevention leader, and an outdoor outreach volunteer at the Alfond Youth & Community Center.
After degrees were conferred on the new graduates and voices of graduating singers lifted in a sweet rendition of the Alma Mater, Associate Professor and Co-Chair of Music Natalie Zelensky offered the sending message.
She shared three thoughts with the students as they entered their next chapter.
“The first is simply to find and tap into that which feeds your soul. Keep learning, be open, stay curious,” she said. “Secondly, find fulfillment in the grand and in the small.”
By way of illustration, Zelensky mentioned a brief passage from Tolstoy’s masterpiece, Anna Karenina, that described moments of joy as “so small they passed unnoticed like gold in sand.”
“Find those flecks of gold every day,” she told the graduates. “Connect to others. Pause. Take life in.”
And finally, don’t forget to play, Zelensky said, acknowledging that she’s on the same metaphysical wavelength as Willems.
“So, Class of 2026, this is your time,” she said. “Be honest, feed your soul, find fulfillment great and small, and get out there and play.”
