Dame Louise Richardson, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, urged the Class of 2025 to confront the world’s ongoing crises using the skills they gained at Boston College, comparing them to superheroes in her commencement address Monday morning.
“In every graduating class, young people—only carrying a diploma and a strong moral compass—need to fly out of these gates and save the world—I mean it,” Richardson said. “Only with your skills, your intelligence, your diligent and patient work will people of the future gain life-saving medical treatments, brilliantly designed buildings, new tools for getting better and more fruitful lives, the chance of a just hearing in the law courts, and stories that tell the truth about our times.”
University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., opened the ceremony by thanking the friends, family members, and professors who supported the Class of 2025 and reflecting on the gifts graduates have received during their time on the Heights.
“In addition to expressing gratitude, this commencement ceremony is an opportunity to consider our hopes, not only for those graduating but for all of us present,” Leahy said.
Leahy expressed the University’s hope that graduates will serve as beacons of good in a world fraught with global conflict.
“We also hope that the curriculums, friendships, volunteer experiences, and personal reflection have helped them to better understand not only who they are, what they believe, but also the issues and ideologies shaping our world,” Leahy said. “Our intent as a University community is that those receiving degrees today leave campus with at least the beginnings of how to respond to current opportunities and challenges and also the necessary curiosity, tenacity, and abiding hope to do so.”
Leahy presented honorary degrees to Richardson and four others, including Pulitzer Prize–winning author and renowned historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Leahy concluded his speech by acknowledging the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, reiterating the need for the Class of 2025 to help build a better society.
“You graduates of Boston College are more needed today than ever,” Leahy said. “I pray that you strive to be forces for good and powerful examples for those around you and that you bear fruit that will last.”
“Superheroes are not born in quiet times,” Richardson said, pointing to challenges the world currently faces, including climate change and democratic upheaval, and urging the Class of 2025 to confront them with the knowledge they have gained.
“In the face of major challenges, you young graduates of today need, above all, to be prepared to stand tall, to see clearly through swirling clouds of misinformation, to swerve the attacks of Doomsday and other villains who make Superman’s life so difficult,” Richardson said.
As universities across the country have faced funding threats from the Trump administration, Richardson stated that society must not turn its back on universities—a remark that drew loud applause from attendees.
“Universities are an unqualified good,” Richardson said. “We must not allow them to be cowed or diminished, or their vital work of research and education to be derailed for political ends. We need to defend our seats of learning, as also the seedbeds of tolerance, powerhouses of inventions, generators of wealth, and beacons of free expression. As newly minted graduates, you are the new guardians of this galaxy.”
Richardson emphasized that the story of Superman, created by two men from immigrant families, embodies the core values of America.
“What is best in America, what is most American is and always has been its ability to turn seeming difference into seamless belonging, to embrace the persecuted and feed the oppressed, to form a strong union under disparate elements—ex pluribus unum,” Richardson said.
Richardson ended her address by noting the importance of serving the greater community and reiterating to the Class of 2025 that this is their moment now.
“I celebrate your great achievement in arriving at this moment of becoming, where you embark on a new life, a different phase of existence,” Richardson said. “I hope that whatever your dreams, this is your time to fly.”
Correction (5/21/2025, 12:40 p.m.): This article was corrected to reflect that Richardson described universities as “seedbeds of tolerance” in her speech, not “seatbelts,” as a previous version stated.
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