(Music Playing) The Dean of the College of Social Science.

Doctor Brent Donnellan Good morning everyone.

So we have a long, powerful ceremony, but we're going to need to do, like, any workout, some warm ups.

So let's practice with this.

Go green.

Go White.

That was pretty good.

People are warmed up.

And let's also practice this.

Let's give applies to all the Breslin Center staff the advising staff that checked you in.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for coming.

It is wonderful to see Breslin filled with so many people here to celebrate the academic achievements of our Spartans.

Thank you for coming.

So good morning, everybody.

On behalf of the outstanding faculty and academic staff from the College of Social Science, I welcome you to the 2025 commencement ceremony.

That's right.

So today we ar celebrating an important event.

And each of the graduates lies a key milestone for some students.

This is their first generation attending college and graduating with a college degree.

For others, it's a culmination of years of hard work.

Each Spartan has a story and we want to honor that story.

In front of the faculty and staff of the college.

This is a moment of renewal.

Each spring, flowers come up and we again recommit to our purpose, which is educating the next generation.

So to my faculty colleagues, thank you for being here.

And thank you for doing what you do each and every day for our students.

And now we would like to tak a moment to honor all veterans and active military personnel at this morning ceremony.

I saw a sailor walking in today.

Thank you for the sacrifices you made and for your dedicated service to the United States with all veteran and active military personnel.

Please stand if you are able, and accept our appreciation for your service.

I was fortunate enough to attend not one, not two, but three graduation ceremonies yesterday, and I got to hear the vocals from our vocalist this mornin and it was truly breathtaking.

So we now ask our guests to join students and faculty in singing one stanza of America the Beautiful under the direction of conductor Benjamin Horn and Miss Amira Coleman will lead in the singing.

I ask you all to rise if you are able.

O beautiful for spacious skies For amber waves of grain For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain America America God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea.

Alright everybody can be seated.

So today we bring together our community to celebrate our graduates and their accomplishments.

But we also know it's importan to honor the memories of those who are important to us, who have passed students, loved ones, friends, colleagues.

We now take a moment of silenc to reflect upon their memories, and to consider how we can live our live in ways that honor their impact on our own lives.

We will now have the privilege of hearing special music from the MSU when Symphon under the direction of conductor Benjamin Horn.

The selection is fantasy on MSU songs composed by James Kernow.

(Music Playing) Thank you, Conductor Horn.

And to the entire Wind Symphony.

That was fantastic.

So at this time, I would like to introduce the Honorable Rebecca Bahar-Cook of the MSU Board of Trustees.

Rebecca Bahar-Cook was electe to the Michigan State University Board of Trustees for an eight year term beginning on January 1st, 2025.

She served 11 years as an Ingham County Commissioner, representing parts of the City of Lansing from 2006 to 2016.

She also served on the Ingham County Jury Board and as a chairperson for the Am County Board of Canvassers.

As CEO of Capital Fundraising Associates, she consults with a wide range of nonprofit organizations and initiatives to help them strategize, develop, and execute comprehensive strategies.

While most clients are human service organizations, Bahar-Cook is also helped raise funds to promote good government, such as MSU's Michigan Political Leadership Program, a bipartisan fellowship that identifies individuals from across the state of Michigan who are committed to communit service and brings them together to engage in a public policy and leadership curriculum.

Bahar-Cook graduate with a multidisciplinary degree from our very own College of Social Science in 1992.

As an active member of the community, she serves on the Capitol Area and Michigan Works Workforce Development Board, the Capital Region Community Foundation Board, the U of M health Spero Specialty Board, and she is a president of the Rotary Club from 2024 to 2025.

Bahar-Cook resides in Eas Lansing with her spouse, Todd, and is a parent, a proud parent of two Spartan graduates.

Thank you.

Dean Donnellan.

On behalf of the Michigan State Board of Trustees, I welcome all the graduates, family, friends who are here today.

Under the Michigan Constitution.

The Board of Trustees is th governing body of the university by whose authority degrees are awarded.

Today's ceremony represents the accumulation of hard work and dedication.

Graduation is no small accomplishment.

The degree you have earned acknowledges your success and honors those who have supported and encouraged you.

Our wish is that you continue to serve as leaders who use your time, skills, and talent to advance the common good and to make a positive difference in the world.

Our faculty, the administrators, and the MSU and and the MSU trustees are all very proud of you.

Please accept our warmest congratulations and best wishes.

We pay tribute today to the graduates who have the distinction of maintaining the highest grade point averages in the class, thereby meriting a 4.0 grade point average.

The names of the 4.0 students present today are on the screens behind me.

To be eligible for a 4.0, at least three fourths of the credits for the degree must be earned in residence at Michigan State University.

This honor is designated by the green, white, and gold braided cord worn with the academic robe.

This spring semester, 275 total students earned a 4.0 grade point average.

Of those, 275 students, 39 are in the College of Social Science.

Students please rise and remain standing to accept our congratulations.

Award recipients.

You should be proud of your outstanding economic academic records that you that honor you and the University.

On behalf of the faculty administration and the trustees of th University, I congratulate you and I wish you the very best.

Students who participated i and fulfilled the requirements of the Honors College by completing enriched programs of study are identified by graduating with the Honors College distinction.

These graduates wear a white colla stole with the HC designation.

All students who are graduating as members of the Honors College University High Honor i awarded to students who attain grade point average between 3.98 and 4.0 and University Honor is awarded to students who have earned grade point averages between 3.89 and 3.97, rounded perfectly.

These honors are designated by the gold cord added to the academic regalia, while all students who are graduating with honor and high honor please stand if you are able and remai standing for our appreciation.

Please be seated now.

At this time we also commend and congratulate the Student Representative on the Senior Class Council for outstanding contributions to the senior Class and the University Committee.

Community.. Will, the members of the Senior Class Council, please stand and remain standing.

If you are able.

Conner Lee from history.

Is Connor here?

Connor ASMSU president.

Conner Lee.

President Conner Lee..

Please be seated.

At this time, we would also like to thank the student representativ on the Dean's Student Advisory Council for their outstanding contributions to the college.

Will member of the Dean's Student Advisory Council, please stand if you're able.

Thank you for service on this committee.

And thank you to the staff that helped administer the committee.

Please join me in recognizin the graduating representatives of the Dean's Student Advisory Council.

We would also like to congratulate Andre Edmond and the Department of Psychology, who was selected as the banner carrier for the College of Social Science.

Thank you.

And now to my favorite part of commencement.

Commencement affords us an opportunity to receive some wisdo from award winning individuals.

It is my pleasure now to introduce Jon Lynch, who will present the award for Outstanding Achievement and introduce some of our speakers.

Jon is the president of Three Rivers Corporation, which for over 45 years has served healthcare, commercial and industrial construction customers with the hallmarks of safety, quality and value.

Previously, Jo spent 26 years in public service to the Michigan communities of Midland, Big Rapids, and Cold Water.

In positions ranging from planning director to city manager.

John holds a master's of public administratio from Central Michigan University and a Bachelor of Science degree in urban planning from Michigan State, as well as a certification from the Senior Executive for Senior Executives in State and Local Governmen from the Harvard Kennedy School.

In 2005 Jon was named leader of the year by the Leadership Midland Alumni Association.

He received the Midland Are Chamber of Commerce Chairpersons Award in 2014, and in 2016, he was named Michigan's Outstanding Community Administrator by the Michigan Association of Planning.

The Midland My Pros Group recognized him with its Stewardship Award in 2018 for his role in mentoring and developing young professionals.

In 2023, Jon was inducted as a laureate of the Junior Achievement of North Centra Michigan Business Hall of Fame.

Jon has served as an adjunct faculty member at Ferris State University and at Central Michigan University.

In his past, chair of the Board of Fellows at Saginaw Valley State University, he is a member of the Michigan State University College of Social Science Burkey Hall Society, and is the 2022 recipient of the Alumni Service Award presented to the MSU social science graduates who have demonstrated meritorious public service.

He is also an honorary membe of the MSU Letterman's Varsity S club.

Jon is a fantastic human being and a proud Spartan and a wonderful example for what alumni can do.

Jon.

It's a real pleasure for me to be here today.

And on behalf of the alumni of the College, I want to congratulate eac and every one of you and welcome you to the ranks of the College of Social Science alumni.

Each year, the College of Social Science Leadership Council select an awardee who is distinguished through a high leve of professional accomplishment.

Individuals who are honored with our Distinguished Alumni Commencement Speaker Award reflect and enhanc the prestige of Michigan State University and the College of Social Science.

This year's Colleg of Social Science Distinguished Alumni commencement speaker is Doctor David W Blight.

With Doctor Blight please come and join the podium.

David Blight is Sterling Professor of history and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University.

In 2020, Yale President Peter Salivate appointed him as chair of the Yale and Slavery Working Group.

With his working group colleagues.

Blight authored the book Yale and Slavery A history A Narrative of Yale's Historic Involvement and Association with slavery and Its aftermath, which was published by Yale University Press in February of 2024.

Blight previousl taught at North Central College in Illinois, Harvar University, and Amherst College.

He's the author editor of a dozen books, including Frederick Douglass Prophet of Freedom, American Oracle, The Civil War, and the Civil Rights ERA Race and Reunion The Civil War in American Memory, and annotated editions of Douglass's first two autobiographies.

He's worked on Douglass for much of his professional life and has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize, among others.

He writes frequently for the popular press, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other journals.

In 2020, David was elected to the American Philosophical Society and awarded the Gold Medal for history by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

David's the current president of the Organizations of American Historians.

His lecture course on the Civil War Reconstructio ERA at Yale is on the internet.

But of course Dale has.

David has always been a teacher.

First.

At the beginning of his career, he spent seven year as a high school history teacher in his hometown of Flint, Michigan.

David has a bachelor's degre and a master's degree in history from Michigan State, and a PhD in American history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

I am pleased and proud to present Doctor David Blight with the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Commencement Speaker Award.

Good morning.

Oh.

Come on.

Good morning.

first of all, this is a mind numbing honor to come back to your alma mater and ask to be a commencement speaker.

May had happened to you.

Except for the final week before.

You have to give it, which is torture.

Dean Donnellan members of the board, distinguished faculty.

You may get a shout out faculty before this is over, but how about a shout out for the faculty?

Come on.

I sat through a lot of these.

And, they really do care about you.

They wouldn't be here.

I made a deal with the alumni association when I was asked to do this.

I hope they don't mind me saying it.

I said yes, I'll give the commencement speech, but I want to free tickets to a basketball game.

I had never been in the Breslin Center.

I've seen 300 games o television, but I've never been in the place.

So I said, the first time I walk into the Breslin Center, I want to see hoops.

And I was here for the Michigan game on March 9t when we beat Michigan 79 to 62.

Yeah.

I sat right up there.

Or was it up there?

Some of may have the best seat you've ever had in the Breslin Center right now, right?

Unless you were in the air zone.

We are all where we are from.

East Lansing has always been a second home for me.

Well, before I came here as a freshman in 1967.

Yes, that's how old I am.

MSU's the only college I ever wanted to to attend, and the only one I ever applied to.

You won't believe this.

Tuition per quarter in 1967 was $250.

Sorry about that.

That was a serious check from my working class family in Flint.

All right, now, you know I'm from Flint.

How many of you are from Flint?

It's still there.

I think.

I grew up on the east side of Flint.

East side?

Yes.

We are in a trailer park hired by the CNO railroad tracks.

But you even know about to CNO about a half mile from from the AC sparkplug complex where my father worked.

The trailer park is now an abandoned ruin.

Don't cheer for that.

Flint was a booming industrial colossus in the 1950s and 60s and I was very lucky to grow up.

Then there.

General Motors ruled the world, and everyone in my extended family worked for GM.

Except me.

And I'm not necessarily proud of that.

I had some great teachers and by various means, and that still remain a partly a mystery.

All I ever wanted to do was teach American history.

I've always felt lucky in my narrowness.

There' only one thing I wanted to do.

I didn't have all that trauma about, oh, what?

I do this or what do I do that?

I had favorite spots in the library here, and especially went to read frequently.

And those large windo wells in the University Museum.

Anybody hang out there?

I lived in case and Wilson Halls.

My senior year, I worked as a dishwasher and a waiter at a sorority.

Met my first wife there.

Got $10 a week and two meals a day and washed all the pots and pans.

I used to cherish walks in the botanical garden.

I've been privileged to teach at some fancy places, as the introduction said.

Thank you, Mr. Lynch.

But the most important teaching I ever did was seven years as a high school teacher in Flint in the turbulent 1970s.

With public schools and universities.

I'm sorry, without public schools and universities, which are the most democratic institutions America has ever created.

I would not have an education at all.

Public schools and universities represent, more than anything else, the gospel of mobility in this country.

They are the path to remaking one's life.

Access to professions, class and racial advancement.

The dream of a life of the mind, at least for some stage of our lives when we can learn the arts, the sciences, and in my case, history.

It's a growing major.

I hear.

But history, in all of its triumphant and tragic complexity not as a set of patriotic maxims binding us in straitjackets as people in powerful high places would have it.

Now.

Learning chastens as it inspires it should trouble us in our souls, even as it makes us dream or act.

Every kind of new knowledge leads to more knowledge.

If you let it, those who wish these day to destroy or control or erode universities are afraid of the open, curious, liberally educated mind.

I wasn't at all sure that would be an applause line.

They are afraid you will trouble their souls.

What else are they afraid of?

They're afraid of what you've learned.

The great America philosopher William James wrote his words.

The only enemy of any one of my truths is the rest of my truths.

When you think you have a truth, try, try, said William James with humility.

To keep the doo open of your mind to new truths.

That's not easy.

None of us like doing that, but it should be why we aspire to learn.

And yes, sometimes fail.

I learned to fail here.

I failed at baseball.

I had a good sinker, but not a good slider.

I was cut after two and a half years and one afternoon in late February in 1970 by coach Danny Little Walter who called in about five of US pitchers and said, it's over.

Clean out your locker by five.

It's been nice to know you.

Yes, sir.

That turned out to be, one of the most important things that ever happened to me.

I sort of ended my baseball caree and joined the antiwar movement.

At least that's the way I try to remember it.

But I can still remember the smell of that indoor dirt arena where we practiced all winter over in the iron building.

It never leaves your senses.

What I learned most at Michigan State, I think, was simply curiosity.

Lazy closing, fearful minds is where tyranny can grow.

Tyranny thrives on unexamined certainty and righteousness from all ends of the political spectrum.

We're all capable.

Real liberty and freedom thrive on open, expansive, fearless minds.

But we need institutions to protect us from fear that, by definition and purpose, make us not just say that we want to save or believe in democracy, but allow us to breathe and live democracy.

As Walt Whitman sang about it in Song of Myself.

I speak the password primeval.

I give the sign of democracy, wrote Whitman.

By God, I will have nothing which cannot, which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

Democracy.

You hear the word all the time.

Now you may be using it a lot.

It is much, much mor than whether checks and balances are working in institutions, although it is that or whether an authoritarian executive can be checked.

It means I will have nothing that others cannot have in some equal share.

That's very hard to do.

It's a tall order, but try to always remember the haunting line in the Theodore Rocky poem.

In a dark time, the eyes sometimes begins to see.

The darkness can help us see.

That may seem counterintuitive, but close your eyes.

Close your eyes.

Sometimes.

Find quiet and just think.

You may see things you don't.

With your eyes open.

And now look around you.

You made likely the best friends in your lives.

Right here on this gorgeous campus.

All around you.

You learn the power and responsibility of friendship.

Despite all the text messages, you cannot possibly answer.

You learn how to be solitary and alone in order to study.

I hope.

And you may have learned that the tyranny of technology may at times have made you alienated and a little bit lost.

But hopefully you then found some real people.

Live people through which to find yourself.

James Baldwin was once being the great African American writer, was once to being interviewed by Studs Terkel, the great oral historian, and Baldwin kept just firing away, saying, Americans have no sense of history, Americans have no sense of history.

And Terkel stopped him, and he said, But Mr. Baldwin, what do you mean by a sense of history?

Baldwin paused, which he didn't very often, but he paused, and he said, well, for young people, it is learning that whatever happens to you has happened before.

It means you are not alone.

If you commune enough with the past.

You will never be alone.

There's a lot more past than there is present.

No single person turned me on to history.

But the times did.

By the spring of my freshman year in 1968.

Ancient history.

The United States had nearly 550,000 troops deployed in Vietnam in a war.

Even some of our own leader knew the country could not win the Tet Offensive.

It just occurred in February.

And we had this thing called the Selective Service, which is the military draft, which affected everybody in my generation.

It divided us all between those who had to go and those who did not.

It was complex and harrowing, and the student deferment, which I had won, meant you were enrolled in good standing in a college.

I have a long story about that, and I'm sparing you.

But every Vietnam generation male has their Vietnam draft story.

The draft was brutally unjust and discriminatory.

We just had the 50th anniversary of the end of that disastrous war.

This week, did you notice did the country notice?

Also in the spring of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy was assassinated?

My father picked me up her to take me home for the summer, the day after Kennedy was shot.

That summer, horrible riots and uprisings continued in cities for the fourth consecutive summer.

The civil rights movement challenged the nation to reimagine itself in new, codified forms of racial equality and by mass movements in the streets.

As the rights phase of the movement lurched into the black Power phase of a new American Revolution.

Those events had a great deal to do with what I came to study for the rest of my life.

The country was coming apart for my generation, even as we tried to simply be normal students, doing what students do and tryin to ignore the world around us.

But history never takes a day off, and when you least are expecting it, it comes for you.

History right now is coming for you.

No, I'm not Uncle Sam on a poster.

You don't know about that poster.

Okay?

But past and present are often joined as our arms are to our bodies.

Get ready for it right now.

Class of 2025.

Your future is threatened but chastened as you are by recent events, including the mass shooting in the classroom over in Burkey Hall in February of 23.

I took courses in Burkey Hall and I was so angry when I heard the news.

Like, how could somebody g shoot people on my former campus just like you did?

There's been a good deal of turmoil on this campus for a whole lot of other reasons, that you don't need me to tell you about.

And by the new wars in Ukraine, in the Middle East, but you don't have a draft.

But I'm going to believe that you are prepare for your fights in this moment.

Probably better than we were.

I suspect you are not as naive as we wer at the height of the Cold War, and those of us old enough to remember the Cold Wa can remember Cold War innocence.

America was supposed to live beyond and above problems.

You may have noticed that the baby boomers of my generatio didn't have it all figured out, and we still don't.

Each new generation of college students possesses its own particular kinds of innocence and insights.

I'm going to trust that you will try on some of these truth as you stay open to new truths.

You live in a United States that's not united.

You live in a United States the presidential administration of which is breaking apart a world order.

We helped so much to foster abandoning its historic allies, international principles and diplomatic decency in the service of our homegrown autocracy and the admiration of dictators.

You live in a United States where nearly 1500 violent felons convicted of participation in an insurrectio against the federal government's most, most basic functions were pardoned and released.

You live in a United States with some of our governing institutions mired in dysfunction.

This isn't news.

Congress, the Supreme Court, and an increasingly unbridled executive bent on dismantling the rule of law.

The government that protects our health, our economic security, the arts and sciences themselves, and these universities, which have so long been the envy of the world.

Let's wake up.

I looked up this number.

As of last week, 4503 international students.

Look at these flags.

International students attend Michigan State University.

It's 9% of the student body.

I'm not going to ask you to stand up.

That's a sensitive issue these days.

Unfortunately, I just read a number the other day in the New York Times.

All the hundreds of thousands of international students who come to America's universities each year put $44 billion into the American economy.

And for those of yo who had to pay the full freight.

Sorry about that.

My heart surgeon, who saved my life eight year ago, was a Pakistani immigrant.

The guy's brilliant.

Thank God.

When I read the medical reports, my first thought was.

Pay him whatever he wants.

Just pay him.

you live in a United States where greed and complacency and cultivated ignorance threaten our species ability t live safely on the only planet we can probably ever inhabit.

You live in a United States where a powerful portion of its ruling class intends to return us to some sort of imagined time when we were not the envied, pluralistic, multicultural dream of huddled masses yearning to escape war, persecution and hunger.

You live in a United States where hypocrisy is no longer a moral failure.

It is simply a strategy.

And truths are creations and weapons of convenience.

You live in a United States of guns, wielded by almost anyone with a pitiful grievance, or a hatred they cannot suppress, or a desperation for recognition.

And do you know about that at Michigan State?

You live in United States in dire need of yet another re founding remaking redemption from its own civil divisions.

With these challenges, I'm going to trus you will not sit on your hands.

You have a lot of work to do.

The country is broken and it has been broken before.

That's what it means to have a sense of history.

Your circumstances are not altogether new.

I've spent my life studying race in the American Civil War, and we do not want the 2020s to end like the 1850s did.

Please.

Class of 2025.

Don't let it become 1857 or 1861 again.

You don't want that.

If you are to forge a new remaking of America, which I hope you do.

You will need some old wisdom which is not mine but it comes from some prophets.

Whether you are currently on the side of the breakers, or consider yourself among those targeted to be broken or detained or deported, listen to Frederick Douglass in February 1864.

Note the date and a particularly bleak moment of the winter, of the most enormou bloodletting of the Civil War.

A dark moment, the former slave said.

I quote him.

The most hopeful fact of the hour is tha we are now in a salutary school, a school of affliction, if sharpened, signal retribution, long, protracted and overwhelming, can teach a great nation respect for justice.

Surely we will be taught now and for all time to come.

Hopeful affliction.

Where are you finding deep moral hope these days?

One of Douglass favorite sources were the Hebrew prophets, especially Jeremiah, whom God commanded in God's words to go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem.

Famously, Jeremia heard God call him, and he said, I have this day set the over the nation.

This is God to Jeremiah.

Sorry I have this day set the over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down, but to also build and replant, to pull down and rebuild.

It has ever been thus, such as the nature of history.

And you will have to do both.

Or you can watch somebody else do it for you.

You too are being called.

Class of 2025.

There's no draft.

Military draft threatening you, but you face something perhaps more threatening.

You may not be pulling down this country and its institutions, but someone is, and you have the profound opportunity to remake it.

Be not afraid.

At some point in the coming months or years, you may not have a choice.

So people get ready.

There's a train coming and you won't need a ticket.

You just need to get on board.

My God, some of you remember Curtis Mayfield.

What have you learned here at Michigan State?

And I'm closing with this.

Probably more than you know about rooting out and replanting.

You are better equipped than you know, just by being here in the Breslin Center today in front of your families and your teachers.

You embody not only their hopes, but like it or not, the hope of somethin called the American experiment.

It's a big charge.

It's a great time, I can say, to be a historian.

Our society seems to need us now.

The press needs us all the time.

professor, how do we get here?

It happens all the time now.

And they want an answer by 3 p.m.. Because that's their deadline.

And it's an even better time to be a citizen.

Your country needs you.

Keep reading, keep thinking, keep dreaming.

Keep fighting.

Believe in democrac at the level of Whitman's bone marrow and the neurons firing in your still emerging minds.

Tell the cynics to get out of the way.

If they can't lend a hand, go pick a sprig of lilacs.

They're blooming all over campus right now.

Don't let your friends be deaf to the sounds.

Or just look away at what's going down.

There is something happening here.

Take hope.

You too have been given a school of affliction with a wise and glorious purpose with Sam Cooke.

Never give up.

It's been a long time coming.

But change is going to come.

Yes, it will.

To all the parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, step parents relatives, friends, neighbors.

God bless you.

Bless you for al your sacrifices in your dreams.

Somehow I'm imaginin my mother got to come to this.

Long live public universities.

The load stars of our democracy.

All right.

And class of 2025.

Good luck.

Congratulations.

Always come back to the only colors.

Go green.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Doctor Blight.

Each year, the College of Social Science Leadership Council also sponsor an award to recognize and honor one of the great teachers within this college.

Professor Ashley Barnes-Lee has been selected for this year's Outstanding Teaching Award.

Would Professor Barnes please come to the podium?

Doctor Barnes-Le is an interdisciplinary action research scholar who is deeply committed to improving the lives of marginalized youth and their families.

She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses related to theories in human development, juvenile delinquency, and research methods.

Her research involves co-developing and evaluating strategies that promote equity in juvenile legal systems.

Includes strengths based approaches to assessment and rehabilitation.

Her research also includes school based delinquency prevention, in which she partner with K-12 school administrators to disrupt school to prison pipeline trends in Detroit.

Flint and Lansing area schools.

She has a decade of practical experience serving youth diversion programs, juvenile probation, and mental health placements.

Doctor Ashley Barne Lee is a three time MSU alumna and currently an assistant professor in the School of Social Work.

We're proud to recognize our 2025 Outstanding Teaching Award by this, bestowing it to Professor Ashley Barnes-Lee.

Good morning to faculty and staff, students, parents, loved ones and most importantly, graduates.

You made it.

But not just to graduation.

You made it on time to graduation.

I'm not sur whose idea was for us to be here this early, but I barely made it.

So thank you to the Lansing police, who saw me running franticall down Wilson and still allowed me to squeeze until their car and drop me off here.

Thank you to my famil who is watching the live stream.

And for those that are here today.

Some who trave as far as California to be here, to see me address you all today.

So thank you for that.

So yes, we're all here to celebrate today, but to the graduating class of 2025, you have truly made it as a 2025 Outstanding Teaching Award recipient.

I want to thank the College of Social Science student and colleagues for presenting me as a nominee and Ta and Hughes, Director of Social Work for supporting my nomination.

I'm also grateful to the Leadership Council for selecting me as a recipient.

I am humbled and truly honored as a proud Triple Spartan, having received my Bachelor's in Psychology.

Bachelor's in Criminal Justice.

Two graduate degrees i ecological community psychology.

Two years as a Dean's research associate and now as faculty.

I know what it feels like to sit in your seat.

No one could have told me a long time ago when I moved from Detroit into ACRs Hall.

That one day I would be standing here addressing you all at commencement.

I want to offer a special thank you to my very own students in social work.

310.

Being a part of your academic journey has given me hope.

Hope that what we d as educators is not just a job, but a responsibility that echoes beyond the classroom and to lives and communities.

It has been the highest honor to contribute to your academic journey.

And I thank you to each of you in a cap and gown today.

You have taken full advantage of the privilege it is to sit in that seat.

Some researchers estimate that less than 10% of people in the world achieve what you are achieving today.

And for women and minorities groups, these figures are even lower.

This reality is not just a test statistic.

It's a call to action, whatever your next step may be.

Graduate school clinical practice, advocacy.

Community organizing TikTok influencer.

I implore you not to stop here.

Let today be a milestone, not a finish line.

Your education has armed you with knowledge, awareness and access that gives you power.

And with power comes responsibility.

As future professionals, you must stand firm in what you know to be true.

Uphold your values.

Remember why you started.

We live in a world where opinions are presented as facts, where misinformation spreads fast, and where despair often sells better than hope.

But the resilience you shown just to get here today.

That resilience has the power to shift paradigms and reshape the social landscape.

Congratulations again, class of 2025.

You've put in the work, you've earned a degree and now you've got next.

Go out into the world and carry your knowledge with humility, your passion with pride and your purpose with power.

And wherever life takes you from here.

Whether it's across the country or across the world or right back to your home community.

Never forget the hard work, the tears, and the money.

Okay, it took to accomplish this incredible goal.

You are and always will be a Spartan.

So go green.

Go white.

Thank you so much, Ashley.

It is our traditio in the College of Social Science for the seniors of the Dean's Student Advisory Council to select one of our graduating seniors to give a brief address.

This year's College of Social Scienc senior speaker is Adena Norwood.

Adena is graduating.

She is graduating toda with a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology with a minor in International Development.

After graduation, Adena will be pursuing a graduate degree through the Master of Arts and International Migration and Refugees program at Georgetown University' Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Adena plans to use her graduate degree to consul with governmental organizations and governments in Arabic speaking African countries, developing researc informed solutions to refugees and migration crises.

Please join me in welcoming Adena Norwood.

Good morning friends, family, professionals and graduates.

It is so early.

Consider this your last 8 a.m..

I am Adena Marie Norwood.

I am a graduat of Michigan State University's Social science college.

Graduating with a degree in anthropology.

With a minor in International Development.

Now, if I may, could I ask you all to take a deep breath for more for my sake than you all?

Because I'm nervous.

Ready in your nose for a count of three.

Now out your mouth for a count of three.

One more time.

But really fill up with air and exhale as deeply as you can.

Very good.

So those deep breaths, or wha we yoga instructors call ujjayi.

It's a grounding breath that connects you to your practice and engage your mind and body connection.

So now that we're all here physically present and hopefully listening, I want to ask the graduates, how were they those best four years of your life or five?

Do you remember what you learned?

Or more importantly, remember who you met, parents and loved ones.

Where did your college freshman go?

I hope you didn't blink or forget to take photos.

Professors and educators, you've done an amazing job once again creatin brave and inquisitive students.

And thank you, administration and past alums for creating and maintaining an amazing Spartan community for us new graduates to join.

For everyone celebrating this new beginning today.

Did you hold your breath all the way through, or did you take time to breathe?

I had the privilege of studying abroad the Social Science Scholars program.

Our class visited the mountainous region of the English Lake District in the UK, where we hiked for days through picturesque summit the local shepherds called home.

And as it turns out, i takes a lot of aerobic fitness to climb a mountain, especially after enjoying all the fried food and kabobs the UK had to offer.

So here I was, hiking, wheezing and staring at my feet as I ascended this mountain because I was so afraid of stepping in sheep droppings.

The third time I used my inhaler, my classmate turne to speak to me as I was bravely supervising everyone from the back of the line and said, not out of breath.

It's so funny to even enjoy the views.

I have to stop looking at my feet and stand still.

Maybe you all figured it out before me, but it took me a long time to realize.

If you don't stop, you'll miss it.

I started practicing yoga because I'm very high energy.

I tend to do everything quickly, efficiently, and possibly last minute.

However, running at breakneck speed through life caused me to miss the details.

Indeed, 12 deadlines.

I remember my first hot yoga class.

I was sweating and angry because the postures were so slow and so uncomfortable.

Our Yogi told the class, there's nothing outsid these walls that you should be worrying about.

You are here now.

I realized it wasn' about getting an A+ in hot yoga.

It was about appreciating the value in every moment, even if it's uncomfortable even when it's hard and painful.

Take time to appreciate that you're in it.

Because good and bad alike.

It will pass.

Graduates, doubt you're thinking about that one bad grade or that time you missed the cattle bus.

I hope you're thinking about those late dorm room nights with your first friend group.

Or the first tim you met your favorite professor.

But that's what it is.

It's the stuff you would have misse if you didn't stop and breathe.

So if you ran through undergrad, then I hope from now on you'll procrastinate, waste time, and savor all of it because we can all see how fast it passes.

You may walk away today with a big diploma, but I hope you have memories and photos.

Scars and bruises.

I hope you take the tiny things with you.

And always remember to breathe.

Thank you.

And go green.

Go White.

Go green.

Go white.

Thank you.

And thank you for giving a line that reminded me of a movie I saw with my kids.

Kung fu panda.

Give yourselve the gift of the present moment.

So congratulations Doctor Blight, Doctor Barns-Lee and Miss Norwood, you represent the College of Social Science with the highest distinction.

Now, I would like to invite Doctor Emily Durbin, associate dean for undergraduate studies, to introduce the chairpersons and directors of this college's fine academic units.

Doctor Durbin.

Thank you.

Dean Donnellan.

As I introduce the chairpersons and directors of the college, they will present the graduates and their units who have completed the program requirements for their respective degrees.

The candidates for degrees in each major will rise as they are able, as they ar introduced and remain standing.

Once all majors have been presented, the baccalaureate degrees will be conferred.

Professor Andrea Louie, chairperson of the Department of Anthropology.

Will the graduates in anthropology please rise and remain standing?

Dean Donnellan, on behalf of the faculty of the Department of Anthropology, I present these explorers of the human experience across time, cultures and continents whose minds are trained in science and whose hearts Donnellan attuned to humanity.

To receive their degrees.

Professor Mahesh Nalla, interim director of the School of Criminal Justice.

Will the brilliant graduates in criminal justice please rise and remain standing?

Dean Donnellan, on behalf of the faculty o the School of Criminal Justice, I present these candidates to receive the degrees.

Prepared.

Professor Stephen Haider, chairperson of the Department of Economics.

Will the graduates in economics please rise and remain standing in rock?

Dean Donnellan, on behalf of the Department of Economics, I present these candidates to receive their degrees.

Professor Ashto Shortridge, interim chairperson of the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences.

Will the worldwide graduate of the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences please rise?

You're mapping your future now.

Achieve your place in this world.

Dean Donnellan, platform, I am proud to present these wonderful candidates up to receive their degrees.

Professor Aminda Smith, Associate chairperson of the Department of History.

Will the graduates in history please rise and remain standing?

Dean Donnellan.

These historians will keep us connected to our past as they guide us into the future.

And on behalf of the faculty in the Department of History, I am truly honored to present them as candidates for their degree.

Professor Andrea Wittenborn, chairperson of the Department of Huma Development and Family Studies.

Will the Graduates and Human Development and Family Studies the oldest department in the college?

Please rise and remain standing.

Dean Donnellan.

These graduate have united science with empathy to improve lives from wom to tomb strengthening families, transforming communities and shaping a far better world.

On behalf of the faculty and the Department of Human Development Family Studies, I present this candidates to receive their degrees.

Professor Jason Huang, director for the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations.

Well, the graduates in huma resources and labor relations.

Please stand and please rise and remain standing.

If you are able.

Dean Donnellan, on behalf of the facult of the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, I present these candidates for the conferral of their degrees.

These outstanding graduates stand ready to lead with integrity, advance equity, empower people in the workplace, and shape the future of work.

Professor Brandy Ellison, director for the center for Integrative Studies.

Well the versatile and well-rounded graduates in interdisciplinary studies in global and international Studies.

Please rise and remain standing if you are able.

Thank you for your commitment to our community and for your curiosity.

We are better because of you.

We can't wait to hear about your next adventures.

Dean Donnellan, on behal of the faculty of the college, I present these candidate for conferral of their degrees.

Associate Professor Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz, interim chairperson of the Department of Political Science.

Will the graduates in political science please rise and remain standing?

Dean Donnellan, with the permission of the prolific professors of please, I plead in petition that you present this panoply of prospective prognosticatin pollsters, precise paralegals, pioneering policymakers, persistent prosecutors, profound polemicists and pugnacious pundits.

But please positively no prevaricating politicians with their prestigious parchments.

Professo Kevin Ford, interim chairperson of the Department of Psychology.

Will the outstanding and energetic graduates in psychology, the largest major in the College of Social Science.

With our study of understanding human behavior.

Please rise and remain standing.

Dean Donnellan, on behalf of the terrific facult in the Department of Psychology, I present these candidates to receive their degrees.

Associate Professor Anne Hughes, director of the School of Social Work.

Will the outstanding graduates from the School of Social Work please rise?

If you are able and remain standing.

Congratulations, graduates.

You are kind, courageous, resilient and unique.

We are excited to see what you'll do next.

Dean Donnellan, on behalf of the faculty and staff of the School of Social Work, I am proud to present these graduates for the control of their degrees.

Professor Carla Pfeffer, chairperson of the Department of Sociology.

Will the fierce, diverse and tenacious graduates in sociology please remain?

Rise and remain standing if able.

Dean Donnellan, on behalf of the facult of the Department of Sociology, I present these candidates to receive their degrees.

Stand strong against tyranny and lead in service of social inclusion, freedom and justice.

Professor Jun-Hyun Kim, director of the School of Planning, Design and Construction.

Will the graduates in urba and regional planning program.

Please rise and remain standing if we are able.

Dean Donnellan and Trustee Baha Cook, on behalf of outstanding faculty and planning, design and construction.

I am proud to present these candidates who are prepared to lead the way in building a more sustainable, resilient and healthy world to receive their degrees.

Faculty.

Why don't you stand and b recognized for your excellence?

We have a fantastic college.

So this is the moment.

Graduates, social science graduates.

I now confer upon you all the degree to which you have been recommended.

With all the rights and distinctions to which they entitle you.

Now, according to custom, you may move your tassels from the right side of the cap to the left.

Congratulations, MSU alumni, class of 2025.

All right.

Everybody can sit down for the fun part.

This act of moving your tassel represents the conclusion of a great achievement.

It marks the beginning of the next chapter of your lives as Spartan alumni.

It is an achievement worthy of celebration.

And we are here this morning to celebrate tha fact that over 1200 individuals have completed degrees in this college.

In fact, we have the larges graduate in class of any college at MSU, and we are proud of each and every one of you.

And wherever you go in the world, when you're wearing Spartan green and that Spartan cap, someone will say, go green.

In fact, my nephew is Norwegian, was on, his exchange trip in New Zealand, and I prepared him poorly.

He was wearing a Spartan hat and someone said, go green.

Unfortunately, he said, go green.

Back.

Do not make that mistake.

So now before we gain the well-deserved recognition of each and every graduate, I want to recognize several people and I can introduce our name card readers.

The impair, the impeccable Mr. Jody Knol and Mr. Scott Pohl from NPR.

They are going to announce it from WKAR radio, our NPR affiliate.

They are going to announce the names of the graduates as they receive their token diplomas.

We're also grateful for the services of Mr.s Christine Burnett, who i providing real time captioning.

Thank you.

All right.

So I'm going to just just ask a few things.

I'm only going to do this once.

Not to belabor it.

We ask that the audience be considered and applauding your graduates as names are read so that everybody's name can be heard.

We also ask everybody to stick around following the presentation of your diploma.

Each graduating member here today, from the first to the last, i a member of our Spartan family.

So let's pre show the respect to the last graduate that we showed you.

The first.

So now we are going to give those degrees.

Let's do it.

(Conferral of Degrees, Reading Graduate Names) The good news is those that.

Those of you that decided to stick around will now get the secret keys to Spartan Stadium.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

an important part of today's ceremony is to acknowledge those who have played a significant role in helping our graduates reach this moment in their lives.

So will the faculty, academic staff, and advisors stand to be recognized for their contributions to the achievements of the graduates?

Thank you.

I also want to acknowledge another group of important individuals who have contributed greatly to the graduates success with their love, understanding and support.

Will the families and loved ones of the graduates rise and give us all an opportunity to express our thanks and appreciation and for your support of today's graduates?

So, have you received a lot of advice?

I'm just going to leave you with a few parting words.

Take care of yourselves.

Take care of each other.

Do the right thing.

When no one's looking.

So I now invite all of you to join us in singing the first stanz of the alma mater, MSU shadows, which you will find in th electronic commencement program.

After the singing, we request that students and guests be seated and remain in place until the recessional the platform party and faculty.

You've made it.

Class of 2024.

Have a great life.

Come back and see us often.

Do great things.

Please rise now and sing.

MSU we love thy shadows When twilight silence falls Flushing deep and softly paling Oer ivy covered halls Beneath the pines well gather To give our faith so true Sing our love for Alma Mater And thy praises MSU.

(Music Playing) (MSU Fight Song)