‘Do Not Let Others Write Your Story’
Photography by Dan Holmes and Gaelen Morse
Brandeis awarded more than 1,700 degrees to undergraduate and graduate students during its 74th Commencement exercises in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center on Sunday, May 18.
University Professor Jonathan Sarna ’75, GSAS MA’75, H’25, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, delivered the keynote address to undergraduates during the morning ceremony.
Physicist and former Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president Shirley Ann Jackson, H’25, addressed graduate students in a separate afternoon ceremony.
The newly minted graduates were urged to pursue their passions with moral clarity and purpose, to not only achieve but contribute, and to strive for a happy medium in the current politically charged environment.
Sarna called on his audience “to promote moderation and sobriety amid the extremism of our time,” which he described as “an era driven by a president intoxicated with power and fueled by rage.”
“Tomorrow requires scholars, educators and researchers committed to discovering the truth, in a time in which it is being trampled upon, and telling the world about the truths you discover, whatever the obstacles,” said Arthur Levine ’70, the university’s interim president. “You can make a difference.”
Jackson began her address by talking about growing up during the upheaval of the civil rights movement, the space race and desegregation. As a college student — then one of only two Black women undergraduates at MIT — she encountered prejudice that helped fuel her ambition.
“Colored girls should get a trade,” a professor admonished her when she announced her intention to major in physics.
“I chose physics as my trade — and in doing so, I chose not to be defined by limitation, but by possibility and accomplishment,” said Jackson. “In fact, I often have told those whom I have advised or mentored that heritage is by chance, success by choice.
“Do not let others write your story,” she said. “Claim your intellect. Own your purpose. And if doors do not open, then open or create new doors.”
Sarna, a preeminent historian of American Judaism and a Jewish communal leader, received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. Jackson, whom Time magazine called “perhaps the ultimate role model for women in science,” received an honorary Doctor of Science. Businessman and activist Jim Obergefell, H’25, the lead plaintiff in the landmark 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, received an honorary Doctor of Laws.
A total of 919 students earned bachelor’s degrees.
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences awarded 228 master’s degrees; the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, 195 master’s degrees; Brandeis International Business School, 165 master’s degrees; and the Rabb School of Continuing Studies, 126 master’s degrees. The university also awarded nine master’s certificates.
PhDs were conferred upon 66 candidates in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 12 in the Heller School and three in Brandeis International Business School.
