Brown University

26/05/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 26/05/2024 22:45

Build communities to challenge, inspire and uplift each other, speakers urge at Commencement

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - For most members of Brown University's Class of 2024, the last days of high school and the first days of college came at an inauspicious time. With the COVID-19 public health emergency's arrival, graduations were canceled or held virtually, summer plans were nixed, and most students spent Fall 2020 in limbo - no longer high school students, but not yet truly college students.

And that was just the start.

From masks to mortarboards, and pandemics to protests, the last four years have offered an unconventional and at times challenging college experience for most of the class.

"It started with a global pandemic that killed too many people and ground the world economy to a near halt," Brown President Christina H. Paxson told class members on Sunday, May 26. "It ended with dreadful violence that has claimed the lives of too many Palestinians and Israelis, and generated tension, unrest and activism on college campuses. I am certain that this was not what you expected when you applied to Brown."

Both the difficulties of the pandemic and the impacts of the violence in the Middle East were prominent themes for speakers who addressed Brown's graduates during Commencement and Reunion Weekend 2024. So too was the importance of creating community in times of conflict and challenge.

Despite the fear and isolation brought about during the early days of COVID-19, students adapted, connected in unconventional ways, created communities and persevered upon their arrival to campus in 2020, according to senior orators Marielle Buxbaum and Caziah Mayers.

"We had to make extraordinary efforts to make friends and build community," Buxbaum said. "From our extraordinary efforts came extraordinary bonds."

Mayers marveled at the Class of 2024's distinct camaraderie and resilience.

"We built communities online through social media when we couldn't meet in person, we learned to run organizations with limited access to older students, ultimately we cultivated a unique Brown experience, and we made do with the hand we were dealt," Mayers said. "I'm proud of us for moving through a time of such incredible hardship and for how we did it together."

In their addresses during the University Ceremony on the College Green, in front of thousands of family members, guests, friends and mentors gathered in the hot sunshine, Buxbaum and Mayers celebrated their peers' adaptability, praised their spirit of activism and encouraged them to sustain each in the future.

"I encourage us to take the fears we have about life beyond Brown and challenge one another to be deeply ambitious about friendship," Buxbaum said.

The students' addresses marked a time-honored Brown tradition of lifting student voices at Commencement. They followed Paxson's remarks at the College Ceremony at the First Baptist Church in America, where she officially conferred 1,944 bachelor's degrees upon the undergraduate class. Paxson recalled that the students' first semesters on campus in Spring and Summer 2021 were ones marked by masks, COVID tests, starts and stops of group activities - and unique pandemic-era workarounds like turning the College Green into a library, with rings of laptops charged by power strips plugged into lampposts.

"Over the past few weeks, many of you have told me that your experience during that first year at Brown created durable bonds between you, and a strong sense of class identity," Paxson said. "Perhaps those bonds helped hold this community together during the past difficult eight months."

Amid a time of such extraordinary geopolitical conflict, Brown, like many colleges and universities, experienced community members engaged in various forms of expression during the weekend, including at the College Ceremony, where noise from a small group of protestors caused brief interruptions. All events proceeded as planned, with many graduates, alumni and guests waving flags, carrying signs or wearing stoles to share their viewpoints.