Cornell College held commencement exercises for the class of 2025 Sunday, May 11.
Bishop Kenetha Bingham-Tsai was at the graduation on Sunday and spoke of the importance of the United Methodist Church values that many Cornell graduates have exhibited in their time at Cornell.
“You live in a time when the values of the church and those you hold from Cornell need to be lived out,” Bingham-Tsai said.
Savannah Sheffler was the commencement speaker for the class of 2025.
“You can’t move mountains without moving pebbles f irst,” Sheffler said.
Sheffler said that the journey for many students wasn’t always easy. There were missteps along the way.
“But we are all resilient, resolved and ready,” Shetler said. “You are enough and deserve to be celebrated.”
Megan Goldberg was the faculty speaker for the class. Goldberg drew inspiration from a number of Taylor Swift lyrics in her speech.
“You formed a real community, and real connections in your time here at Cornell,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg recounted the freshman students who helped register 200 students to vote for the 2022 election.
“In that election, there were several races that were won by less than 10 votes,” Goldberg said. “That was power in the community.”
Three professors at Cornell were also given emeriti status.
Kara Beauchamp from the engineering department was the first. Beauchamp’s 23 years at Cornell were recognized, as was her passion for engineering and pushing standards higher in her classes.
Alice Ganzel from the psychology and social sciences department was honored for her 26 years of teaching. One of the partnerships she was praised with maintaining was work with the Lisbon Early Childcare Center classrooms.
Lynne Ikach, professor of Russian language for the past 33 years, impact was seen by her passion on campus and with her students, including helping numerous students obtain Fulbright Scholarships.
President Jonathan Brand gave a charge to the college students, recounting the motto of Paris, France – “She is stressed by the waves, but she does not sink.”
That importance of resilience was what Brand charged the students to remember.
“You’ve done things that you thought were impossible,” Brand said. “You’ve won and lost championship games. You’ve learned from success and failures how to be more resilient citizens.”