Celebrating our newest graduates

Photo of Commencement at the Palestra by Krista Patton Photography.

Penn GSE celebrates “Commencement” and not simply “graduation” because the annual ceremony in the Palestra isn’t just the culmination of a student’s academic journey but the beginning of their next chapter. At this year’s event, which marked the graduation of roughly 600 master’s and doctoral students, that next chapter, and the challenges and opportunities that it holds, was the theme of many of the remarks.

Commencement speaker Angela Duckworth, the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania who holds a secondary appointment at Penn GSE, told the crowd that the new graduates face a challenge no one before has ever had to confront: “How to help students use tools like ChatGPT to catalyze, not cannibalize, deeper thinking.” Her hope is that this new generation of educators will neither evangelize for the new technology nor be afraid of it. “I don't want you to be techno-skeptics or even techno-idealists,” she said. “I want you to be techno-curious. And AI-literate. And to bring your students along with you.”

 Before embarking on her distinguished research career, Duckworth was a high school math and science teacher—Dean Katharine Strunk called her “one of us” in her introduction—and so she understands the challenges that are facing educators as new innovations change the dimensions and expectations of classrooms.

 “In the age of AI, there is a paradox,” she said. “With the knowledge of the world at their fingertips, students need their teachers more—not less. Why? Because students need teachers to get them to do hard things now that are good for them later.”

 Duckworth told the crowd that she told her own students at Penn that, because of technology, all the knowledge she had shared with them in class and via assignments over the past semester was freely available on the internet—just a click away.

 “You needed me anyway,” she told them. “You needed me to assign you this reading by Tuesday and that essay by Thursday. You needed me to gather you in this classroom and to establish a sanctuary—without phones, without laptops—no distractions from truly seeing each other. You needed me to hold you to the highest standards—and to look you in the eyes and say, with absolute conviction, ‘I know you can achieve them.’”

Dean Strunk also talked about the significance of educators in her remarks to the graduates.

“We are facing a moment of profound upheaval,” she said. “Federal protections are being eroded. The independence of educational institutions is under sustained pressure. Curricula are being politicized. Data systems that guide and improve practice are being dismantled. We face a deepening erosion of trust: in science, in institutions, and in one another. The ripple effects will be felt throughout the global educational ecosystem. And so, this work, your work, our work has never been more important.”

She said that the next generation—those in the caps in and gowns seated before her—were the ones who must lead us all forward, shaping policy, leading institutions, empowering students, and advancing democratic values. Therefore, she offered them two pieces of advice as they left Penn GSE and headed out to, as she put it, “quite literally, change the world.”

First, she urged them to recognize that lasting change is only achieved by reaching out across lines of difference. “We are stronger for our differences,” she said, noting that this has been proven by decades of empirical research.

“Education, at its best, is not about merely seeking consensus or avoiding conflict,” she said. “It teaches us how to navigate the world with courage, resilience, and clarity. It calls on us not only to challenge others, but to challenge ourselves. To sit with discomfort. To admit what we don’t yet know. And to listen, not to refute, but to understand.”

Then, in her second piece of advice to the graduates, she called on them to “stand firm in defending the role of education as the foundation of a just and thriving society.”

“Make the case, again and again,” she said, “that education is not expendable. It is essential.”

Watch the full ceremony: penng.se/commencement25

Enjoy a gallery of photos from the big day: penng.se/commencementpics25

For a gallery from the May 16 doctoral hooding celebration:  penng.se/docpics25