A meeting between President Sian Leah Beilock and about 50 undergraduate members of the Class of 2025 Wednesday evening generated an array of nominations for the 2025 Commencement speaker and honorary degree recipients.
The names will be added to the list of those submitted online throughout the nomination period, which runs until Sept. 30.
Over a dinner of Mexican food in One Wheelock, President Beilock asked the students for words that described their class, qualities that would help guide the process of selecting the individuals who will receive honorary degrees at the ceremony on June 15, 2025.
“Curious,” “passionate,” “resilient,” “lighthearted,” “creative,” and “varied, not just in terms of our identities but also in our interests,” the students said, speaking into microphones that were passed around the room.
One senior, Faisal Azizi ’24, said he would like to speak for the students who, like himself, “came from nowhere.”
“I myself went to a school that didn’t have a roof,” said Azizi, a government and Middle Eastern studies major from Afghanistan who came to Dartmouth from a refugee camp in Pakistan. “So, I would like to see someone who came from nowhere to somewhere, someone who stood against all the odds.”
Honorands, recognized for their significant contributions to their respective fields or society as a whole, represent a broad range of backgrounds and professional fields in the arts and humanities, sciences, business and industry, engineering, and public service, among other fields. The 2024 Commencement speaker in June, tennis champion and philanthropist Roger Federer, was nominated by a senior last year.
Asking students for their nominations, Beilock, who met with members of the Class of 2024 in a similar session last fall, said they might include people who are special to them, people they have studied or who have “really had an impact on the world.”
“Dream across the spectrum,” she said during the event, which was organized by the President’s Office and the Senior Class Council. “Who would be the best person ever, and then also, who would be great to have maybe not as a Commencement speaker role but in an honorand role?”
Dream they did, with suggestions that included Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella; country singer Dolly Parton; New York University business professor and podcast host Scott Galloway; comedian Jon Stewart, gymnast Simone Biles; and several other Olympians and Paralympians, local luminaries, and writers and artists from around the world. A number of lawmakers were also mentioned.
Matt Jachim-Gallagher ’25, a theater major from Newport, N.H., and senior class vice president, nominated playwright and performer Taylor Mac, who has “done a lot for both the queer community and the theater arts community.”
Honorands can be suggested by anyone with a Dartmouth affiliation, including the graduating class—undergraduates and graduate and professional school students, all other students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents of current students. Following the nomination period, Beilock will work with the Council on Honorary Degrees and the Board of Trustees to finalize the selections, which will be announced in the spring.
In addition to Federer, honorands at the 2024 Commencement included Mira Murati, Thayer ’12, chief technology officer of OpenAI; former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney; author and artificial intelligence activist Joy Buolamwini; former National Security Agency director Paul Nakasone; Richard Ranger ’74; philanthropist and retired Merck CEO Roy Vagelos; Purdue University President Mung Chiang; and mathematician and former NFL player John Urschel.
