UMass Amherst chancellor tells graduates to ‘keep defying gravity'

Boston Globe

17-05-2025

The 155th commencement was also decidedly lowkey
Smiling graduates in the Class of 2025 at UMass Amherst on Friday, May 16, 2025.
Brooke Hauser/Globe Staff)
Advertisement
'Things are starting to get a little bit calmer, but then again you never know,' said Paul Uhomoibhi, 26, a mechanic in the US Air Force who built a degree around psychology as part of UMass Amherst's
Altogether, over three days of events, UMass Amherst planned to confer degrees to graduates ranging in age from 17 to 77 and representing 45 US states and 54 countries, according to the university.
Advertisement
UMass Amherst hasn't been immune to the whims of the Trump administration, or political tumult. In April, 13 international students had their
Several students Friday said that pro-Palestinian protests have cooled on campus since 2024, but pointed to a different kind of unrest among their peers. 'It's definitely more about job security — a lot of people don't have jobs; a lot of people in environmental jobs, the research positions they were looking for got cut,' said Anderberg, who studied civil and environmental engineering and does have a job lined up doing water resource analytics. 'I'm lucky.'
Hannah Bruno, 21, majored in natural resources conservation. Last summer, she worked as a park ranger with the US Army Corps of Engineers, but says she won't be going back this summer because of funding cuts. 'It's definitely changed the way I'm looking at post-grad,' she said. 'I'm just most likely going to try to get something in the workforce at this point; I've been looking at tree-care companies, stuff like that.'
'I'm excited, I'm sweating, I forgot my mother's earrings in the bus,' said Divine Mikala, a psychology and biology double major from Boston who wore a mortarboard bedazzled with a message that she read out loud: 'Keep talking, I'm psychoanalyzing you.'
Advertisement
'I'm glad that I'm finishing,' she said, 'but for other students who still have four years to go with the new presidency, it's quite scary to see a lot of students, for example, getting deported or having their [status] terminated. It's very confusing.'
Divine Mikala holds her mortarboard.
Brooke Hauser/Globe Staff)
In his speech, Reyes obliquely referenced 'significant uncertainties' and 'geopolitical forces that challenge our institutions and our pursuit of knowledge,' but told students that their UMass education has prepared them to succeed. 'You are not subject to these forces. You
are
the force,' he said.
Commonwealth Honors College student speaker David Dagenais kept his speech lighthearted, reminiscing with his peers about coming to UMass as freshmen, and reminding them to stay in touch when they inevitably run into each other at Costco someday.
Creative director David Korins, a UMass Amherst alum (′99), gave the keynote speech. He spoke about facing fear, which he called 'an opportunity killer.'
'When I face fear, I try and get 1% more curious than afraid,' said Korins, who served as creative director and designer of 'The Hamilton Exhibition,' a 30,000-square-foot immersive experience centered on the life of Alexander Hamilton, and has worked on more than 25 Broadway shows, in addition to collaborating with musical artists like Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga.
'I never in a million years have imagined a world where a computer could do my job better than me,' he said, but he encouraged students to embrace new technologies. 'Don't opposite innovation,' he said. 'Recruit it.'
Brooke Hauser can be reached at