Class of 2025 graduates told to ‘make your voices heard’
Grammy- and Emmy-nominated multimedia writer and producer Maxim Langstaff ’81 told the 433 members of Connecticut College’s Class of 2025 that in trying times, his grandmother, political activist and former Conn trustee and College Medal recipient Percy Maxim Lee, would ask him a simple question: “What are you going to do about it?”
“[She was] a woman, who, at your age, was denied the right to vote because she was a woman. … Undeterred, she fought back, and would go on to become president of the League of Women Voters. In these times, her oft repeated question haunts me,” he said.
Lee’s story was one of several that punctuated Langstaff’s keynote speech at Conn’s 107th Commencement on Sunday, May 18. Langstaff, who has collaborated with many famous artists and musicians, described how so many of them persevered through incredible hardships to change the world for the better—and he called on the graduates to do the same.
“Yours will be a shambolic journey, steeper and more twisted than mine, across less stable ground. You will have no clear-cut path to follow. The changes you will face will test your resilience and your humanity, more so than any generation before you,” he said.
“The surety you will carry with you will be your Connecticut College experience,” he continued. “You have a voice. You now have an education. Use it. You do what you can do, what your heart and spirit compel you to do. … You have the power to change the world, and your standing in it. Do it. Take action. Make your voice heard.”
Prior to the keynote address and in honor of his commitment to excellence in arts and arts education, Langstaff was awarded a doctor of humane letters honoris causa by President Andrea E. Chapdelaine.
During her remarks, Chapdelaine praised the graduates for their resiliency. “You came of age during a global pandemic … arriving at Conn masked and distanced, carrying not just your books but the weight of a world in crisis,” she said. “You had no choice but to learn how to successfully navigate uncertainty, anxiety and isolation. You learned how to ‘undistance’ with strangers in a new environment, while also learning how to be a college student.”
Chapdelaine told the members of the class that their strength, ability to adapt and desire to explore—combined with all of the skills they learned at Conn—have positioned them well.
“You have already shown what it means to meet disruption with resilience, uncertainty with courage, and disconnection with compassion. You are ready to meet this moment of change, and all those that will come. “
The graduates were also addressed by senior speaker Natalia Barbara Josephine Hall ’25, an architectural studies and art history double major from San Francisco, California.
Hall told her fellow graduates that architecture is about more than building design—“it’s the curation of space, the study of people and place.” In that way, she said, “We are all architects.”
“Our identities are formed within the spaces we dwell,” she continued. “For the past four years, we have used this once farmland to cultivate our interests, ideas and voices. We have cultivated friendships and confidence, leadership and strength. To cultivate is to create, to create is to build. And for the past four years, using our own blocks of metamorphic gneiss, we have built our foundations of thought, morals and values.”
Hall implored her classmates to maintain their foundations as they “enter a world that increasingly seems to be designed” for them to fail.
“As architects, we will analyze, adapt and recognize existing conditions. Through site analysis, we will practice true stewardship, authentic engagement and intentional action. We will challenge conventions, innovate and think outside the canon. We can, and we will, design and build a better world,” she said.
During the ceremony, former Interim President Leslie E. Wong was also awarded a doctor of humane letters honoris causa. Wong, a former trustee who served as interim president from July 1, 2023 until July 1, 2024, was recognized for his significant contributions to the fields of higher education, psychology and international relations.
The Oakes and Louise Ames Prize for most outstanding honors thesis was awarded to Owyn Louise Ledina ’25, an English major and educational studies and sociology double minor from Newtown, Connecticut. Ledina’s thesis, “Child’s Play: Revolution and Liberation in 21st Century American Children’s Speculative Fiction,” explores the question of why so much of contemporary American children’s literature relies on stories in which children must save the world from evil against impossible odds. Using The Hunger Games trilogy and the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series as their main objects of study, Ledina also examines how the protagonists’ more “childish” qualities—play, humor, imagination, creativity and joy—influence their character development and the development of their societies.
The College awarded the Claire Gaudiani ’66 Prize for Excellence in the Senior Integrative Project to Skyler Kilan Kardell ’25, an environmental studies and architectural studies double major and scholar in the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment from Nantucket, Massachusetts. His honors thesis and senior integrative project, “Vagrancy and Exploration: A Summary of the Literature and Conceptualization of an Ongoing Paradigm Shift Within Ornithology, Citizen Science and Philosophy of Evolution as It Relates to the Marginal Distributions of Birds,” is a sustained critique of the concept of “vagrant” birds, or birds found far outside of their usual ranges. Challenging conventional views, Skyler makes a compelling case that so-called vagrant birds are actually normal birds at the leading edge of population dispersal.
The 2025 Anna Lord Strauss Medal for outstanding work in public or community service was awarded to leader and changemaker Ana Ya Ling Flood ’25, an English and government double major and scholar in the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy from Sherman, Connecticut. Flood has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to public service and social justice at Connecticut College; in New London; and in Boston, Massachusetts. A leader and a trailblazer, Flood was recognized for her ability to bring people and resources together to support the at-risk and marginalized.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, Katharine Anne Caviness ’25, Samantha Grace Lamontagne ’25, Jillian Rose Sheppard Pearson ’25 and Megan Elizabeth Spindler ’25 sang the “Alma Mater,” with musical accompaniment by the New London Little Band.
Commencement events began earlier in the weekend with the induction of 44 graduating seniors into Phi Beta Kappa, the national academic honor society; a multifaith Baccalaureate service; certificate ceremonies for senior scholars in the College’s centers for interdisciplinary scholarship; a CCAC stoling ceremony; and special gatherings for student-athletes, international graduates, Posse scholars and first-generation graduates.
Now graduates, members of the Class of 2025 are headed around the world to pursue a range of opportunities. Three received $40,000 Watson Fellowships to embark on a year of international exploration and discovery, while another received a Pickering Fellowship to pursue a master’s degree in preparation for a Foreign Service career. Members of the class have been accepted to graduate programs at the University of Pennsylvania; New York University; Boston College; the University of Chicago; Brandeis University; the University of California, Berkeley; William and Mary Law School; Northeastern University and the University of Connecticut. Others have accepted positions at companies and organizations including Disney, Wayfair, The Wall Street Journal, MUFG, Quest Diagnostics, Fidelity Investments, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Politico, the United Nations Complex Risk Analytics Fund, Triumvirate Environmental Inc., Whitney Museum of American Art and Phaidon International.
Class of 2025 By the Numbers
- 433 Bachelor of Arts degrees awarded
- 135 double majors
- 4 triple majors
- Graduates represent 32 states and 19 countries
- 73 are the first in their families to graduate from college
- 142 graduates earned Latin Honors (32 earned Summa Cum Laude; 36 earned Magna Cum Laude; 74 earned Cum Laude)
- 142 members of the class earned departmental honors
- 44 graduates were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the national academic honor society
433
Bachelor of Arts Degrees Awarded
135
Double Majors
4
Triple Majors
For full Commencement coverage, visit www.conncoll.edu/commencement.
May 18, 2025
