‘Your Education Will Ground You’
The largest graduating class in Colby history departs Mayflower Hill full of hope and pride
After a spring memorable for cold and rainy weather, the skies cleared and the sun peeked out briefly as members of the Class of 2025 stepped forward with hope and pride into the next part of their lives during Colby’s 204th Commencement on Sunday, May 25.
President David A. Greene welcomed the students, their families, and friends to Mayflower Hill, offering his warm congratulations. He also shared his staunch belief that no matter what may transpire in the world, the education the students have received at Colby will be a stabilizing and clarifying force.
“We do live in a time when hard-earned freedoms and sustaining values seem to be at risk of vanishing at any moment. It’s a turbulent time, and your education will ground you during these times,” the president said. “Your education will offer you the gift of discernment, sound judgment, and perspective. And importantly, it’s going to give you the power of adaptability, which is increasingly a requirement of leading in a rapidly changing society.”
The 612 graduating students, including four sets of twins, have their share of superlatives. They come from 48 states and 60 countries and make up the largest graduating class in the College’s history. Their talents, passions, and unshakeable belief that people of goodwill can change the course of history for the better will serve them, and the world, well, Greene said, as the colorful flags from the students’ home countries danced in the wind behind him on Miller Lawn.
“At a time when many are fretting about the rapidity of change, I’m filled with hope,” he said. “That’s because I see in you the unlimited potential to address the greatest challenges with your increasing wisdom and compassion.”
Condon Medal winner announced
When Greene announced Bibatshu Thapa Chhetri ’25 as the winner of the Condon Medal, the only award announced at commencement, the graduating class erupted in cheers. 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.
Chhetri, from Nepal, double majored in computer science and science, technology, and society. He served on the Student Government Association at Colby, including as co-president his senior year, and has won multiple awards, including a Davis Project for Peace grant, Dean of the College Community Excellence Award, and the Leila M. Forster Prize.
“There’s no one who took advantage of everything, and I mean everything that Colby has to offer more than [Bibatshu]. He’s been phenomenal,” Greene said.
Simple, memorable life lessons
Charlie Baker, former Massachusetts governor and current president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, delivered the commencement address. Though he is perhaps best known as a popular Republican governor in a predominantly Democratic state who worked across party lines to pass bipartisan legislation in a time of increased polarization, his speech was the opposite of lofty and impossibly idealistic.
Rather, Baker shared with students heartfelt lessons he learned from family history and his own life experiences, and he joked that he remembers nothing about the speakers from his own high school, college, and graduate school commencement ceremonies.
“I’m assuming I have a very tall order here to say anything that you might actually take away from today,” he said. “So I’m going to stick with some very tried-and-true sayings and clichés, so that maybe someday when you use them you might think of me.”
They are:
Sometimes things happen for a reason.
You will be the company you keep.
Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
People define themselves—no one can do it for you.
Life is a journey, not a destination.
Although the lessons sound simple, Baker used humor and anecdotes to bring them to life. He reminisced about dreaming of being a newspaper sports reporter when he was a college student, but in 1979, when he graduated from Harvard University, he couldn’t get a job in journalism. Instead, he worked on the presidential campaign of a candidate who set the record for the most money spent to earn just one national delegate.
“Working on a presidential campaign, even a bad one, was a lot of fun,” Baker recalled.
From there, he went into communications, and when he took a job with the Massachusetts High Technology Council, he fell in love with working for the state government. It was a career trajectory that endured for the next 40 years.
“Point is, sometimes things happen for a reason,” he said. “If I’d succeeded in my earlier career choices, it’s quite likely that I would never have fallen in love with state government, or run for and been elected governor.”
A different lesson hit home when he ran for governor in 2010 and “got smoked.” After that, he didn’t give up. Instead, he met with the reporters who covered the race, the “talking heads, the so-called experts,” and others about what he had done wrong while running for office. “The whole thing was a pretty humiliating experience,” he said, but he learned a lot about how to do it better. When he ran again in 2014, he campaigned in every community and neighborhood, not just the ones that felt comfortable to him. He won that race and another, becoming one of Massachusetts’ most popular governors.
“It was great. I learned a ton I didn’t know about other people’s life experiences, their impressions of me when I ran the first time, and what they cared about,” he said. “I asked a lot of questions, and their responses made me a much better candidate, a much better governor, and honestly, a much better person. That’s not easy to say, but it’s true. If I’d won in 2010, as an incomplete person and an underdeveloped candidate, I would have underperformed as governor. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
Reminding students about life’s unexpected journeys, Baker noted that his current position as president of the NCAA has brought him back into the world of sports, which was his original professional goal when he graduated from Harvard.
A message from the senior speaker
During the ceremony, Colby bestowed honorary degrees to five people who have worked to improve lives and advance our collective understanding of society, history, culture, and humanity. Those are Baker; David Brancaccio, a Waterville native who is an award-winning host and senior editor of American Public Media’s Marketplace Morning Report; Judith Glickman Lauder, an internationally recognized artist, photographer, and philanthropist; Lois Lowry, a celebrated and Newberry Medal-winning writer of books for children and young adults; and Eric Motley, the deputy director of the National Gallery of Art, who delivered the baccalaureate address on Saturday.
Student speaker Michelle Bechtel ’25 is a studio art major and double minor in Japanese and chemistry from Upper Saddle River, N.J.. She is a licensed emergency medical technician who served as a member of Colby Emergency Response, a sexual assault prevention leader, a Colby Outdoor Orientation Leader, co-president of the Chemistry Club, and a beloved barista at Mary Low Coffeehouse.
“I’m equal parts honored and terrified to be up on this stage talking to you today. Honored because, apparently, pretending to be a lawyer on the weekends makes people think you’re qualified to speak at graduation,” said Bechtel, co-captain of Colby’s Mock Trial Team. “And terrified because my childhood literary icon, Lois Lowry, is listening to everything I say.”
Among the tips she shared with her classmates from the list of lessons and rules she lightheartedly called “Michelle’s Manifesto” is Number One: “fall hard and fail often.”
“One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn at Colby is that sometimes you can try your hardest, give something absolutely everything you’ve got, and still fail. And that’s OK,” she said. “Because having the opportunity to learn is great. During the toughest times, I remind myself that I don’t have to study, but rather, I get an opportunity. And at the very least, everyone needs some humbling from time to time.”
She also encouraged her peers to say yes to any opportunities, like the time she joined an “old lady dance group” while studying abroad in Japan, something that led her, a few weeks later, to dance in front of 200 people at a local festival.
“I love saying yes,” she said, before segueing smoothly to her next tip: learn how to say no. “Saying yes to things is great, but so is setting boundaries and protecting your peace.”
Bechtel also found room in her manifesto to shout out her classmates, including underclassmen and alumni friends.
“Every day, I met amazing people who do amazing things. You’ve given me faith that, yes, there are still people who are fundamentally awesome and want to change the world,” she said, before wrapping up with a quote from author and “favorite Colby visitor” John Green. “‘We must fight like there is something to fight for, like we are something worth fighting for, because we are.”
Lydia Moland, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Philosophy, offered the sending message. It was a meditation on light, and she quoted the writer and social critic James Baldwin: “‘Everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light.’”
