President Ben Vinson III, Ph.D. poses for a photo. (Photo Courtesy of Howard’s Office
Of University Communications)
Howard University Class of 2025,
As you prepare to take your final steps across The Yard as students, I write to offer my warmest and most heartfelt congratulations on this extraordinary milestone. Commencement is always a powerful moment in the life and times of a university, but this year’s celebration holds a particularly special weight for our campus community.
The Class of 2025 is unquestionably historic. For starters, you are the largest graduating class in Howard University’s history. You have already helped reshape higher education and the future of our world. From the disruptions of a global pandemic to the rise of new technologies, you navigated it all with courage and conviction. Through it all, you have remained steadfast in your pursuit of excellence. For that, you hold a unique place in Howard’s story.
You entered Howard crossing The Yard as newly pinned freshmen, embarking on your walk of knowledge. That moment marked your entry into a proud lineage of excellence, leadership, and service. Now, you are returning to the Yard transformed – no longer students, but graduates. Leaders. Trailblazers. Bison.
The upcoming return to an on-campus commencement after several years is more than symbolic. It represents a homecoming to sacred ground: a place that carries the hopes and triumphs of generations. This place – The Mecca – is where your academic journey took shape through long nights, bold ideas, service projects, and breakthrough moments. Now, this is where your next chapter begins.
You are completing your long walk not only at a moment of personal achievement, but during what I see as a new renaissance. One hundred years ago in 1925, Howard scholars like Alain Locke and Zora Neale Hurston shaped a cultural movement that redefined the possibilities of Black life in America. Like them, you stand at the edge of transformation – not only as witnesses, but as social architects. You, indeed, are the renaissance.
This University has prepared you for more than success; it has prepared you for significance. In a world of rapid change and global complexity, your humanity, integrity, and clarity will set you apart. You carry a Howard education — a foundation not just of knowledge, but of discernment, compassion, and purpose. And as Bison, you run toward the storm, never away from it. You are more than equipped to build what’s next.
Class of 2025, you are the future. Go forward with pride, determination, and the knowledge that you are forever part of the Howard story – and that Howard University will always be a part of you. As you close this chapter, I hope you do so with gratitude, conviction, and the uniquely bold spirit that a Howard graduate possesses.
Congratulations again. I look forward to soon seeing you on The Yard.
Committed to Truth and Service,
Ben Vinson III, Ph.D.
President
