Campus was alive with jubilant celebration as Brandeis held its 73rd Commencement Exercises for more than 1,400 undergraduate and graduate students on May 19.
Filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, H’24, delivered the keynote address during the morning’s undergraduate Commencement ceremony. Literary scholar and former Brown University president Ruth J. Simmons, H’24, addressed graduate students at a separate Commencement ceremony in the afternoon.
Burns noted that students' experience on campus and in the classroom at Brandeis reminded him of key ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
“We seem resolutely dedicated to parsing the meaning between individual and collective freedom; what I want versus what we need,” he told the graduates and their families. “We are also dedicated to understanding what Thomas Jefferson really meant when he wrote that mysterious phrase, ‘the pursuit of happiness.’ Hint: It happens right here in the lifelong learning and perpetual improvement this university is committed to.”
In her Commencement address, Simmons urged graduates to pursue their work with hope — even in the face of worldwide conflict and political division.
She recalled receiving her diploma at a time similarly rife with uncertainty and volatility. Drawing parallels to Vietnam War protests, the civil rights movement, and the significant societal upheaval she experienced as she came of age, Simmons called on graduates to pursue Brandeis’ values of justice, equality, and free expression throughout their lives.
“We continue to struggle with what it means to share a country with individuals and groups vastly different from who we are, from what we want, from how we believe, and from how we see the world,” Simmons said. “Yet, if we are to thrive as a nation, we must come to value the role of difference in exploiting the rich reservoir of knowledge and perspectives available to us. We can best achieve that with a conscious and robust process of opening our minds and hearts to others.”