The following is the prepared text of remarks for delivery by Stanford President Jonathan Levin at the 134th Commencement Ceremony on June 15, 2025.
I am delighted to have my first opportunity as president to address a graduating class.
Graduation ceremonies have important elements of tradition.
Even at Stanford, where we take pride in fresh thinking, we have our academic regalia, the Wacky Walk, and the MBA students making noise disproportionate to their numbers.
Many of you who are graduating arrived at Stanford when we were reopening campus after the pandemic. Traditions had been forgotten.
So the Class of 2025 had to reinvent Stanford customs: Sunday night movies at Flicks, the On-Call Cafe in Old Union, and the spirit of irreverence, which combined with academic excellence, is essential to Stanford.
The Class of 2025 even arrived at a moment when some doubted if Stanford was fun.
Congratulations, Class of 2025 – I can confidently say that you will be remembered as the class that brought back fun.
Looking out at you, I am reminded of my own graduation from Stanford in June of 1994. I was out very late the night before. In a rush to make it to the ceremony, I put on my graduation robe while wearing a pair of shorts and Teva sandals.
During the ceremony, I was quite pleased with that decision because it was incredibly hot. But later, I somewhat regretted it – because after thirty-one years, it is the only thing my mother remembers about my graduation.
In her honor, I decided to wear my Tevas once again.
Now, you are graduating.
You are graduating at a time when people are questioning the value of universities and what happens here on campus.
It is essential for those of us who will remain at Stanford, and for you who are leaving, to answer those questions.
Universities exist for the purpose of discovery and learning. The knowledge that is created here, and on other campuses, illuminates our understanding of humanity, the physical world, and what it is possible to create.
During your time at Stanford, you’ve been part of a campus that has been the birthplace of novel insights about American history and comparative literature, pioneering studies of social networks and financial markets, and visionary scientific advances such as the recombinant DNA techniques that are the foundation of biotechnology, the TCP/IP protocol on which the internet operates, and the tools of optogenetics that have revolutionized neuroscience.
The pursuit of new ideas at a university is different than in a company or government agency. University research is driven by curiosity, and we publish it openly, so there can be many paths to application.
Sometimes that happens quickly: when Larry Page and Sergey Brin discovered the PageRank algorithm as graduate students, they started Google. Sometimes it happens slowly: when Stanford faculty helped develop neural networks, the ideas waited 30 years for data and computation to become generative AI.
Profound ideas in the humanities and social sciences are different still. Occasionally, they jump immediately into public discourse. More often, they filter out gradually – only in the fullness of time do we appreciate how fundamentally they have shaped our thinking.
Each of you has contributed to this enterprise of discovery, whether you wrote an honors thesis or a doctoral dissertation, or worked as a research assistant, or came to classes and seminars asking challenging questions.
The conditions that enable the search for knowledge are the freedom to explore, the willingness to debate, and the generosity to share ideas.
Today, university campuses are criticized for being narrow and doctrinaire. The critics are not all wrong. However, when a university is at its best – when Stanford is at its best – the campus is an unparalleled place for freedom, truth, and enlightenment. A great university is a place to encounter different people and ideas, and to ask hard questions without assuming to know the answers.
Each of you has contributed to creating this at Stanford. You debated what it means to be a citizen in a democracy; you re-energized the Stanford Political Union, and you brought perspectives from more than 110 countries.
So, what is the value of universities?
I have pointed to the knowledge we create, the innovation that follows, and the inquiry and learning on our campuses.
I have left the most important part for last – because in fact, you are the answer to the question. Our greatest contribution is what we are here to celebrate: the qualities and potential of the people who leave here.
Today, you will join more than 240,000 Stanford alumni whose contribution to this country and the world is extraordinary.
You will join them in being scholars, innovators, and public servants, in leading organizations and contributing to local communities, in creating families, in solving problems, and in seeking to elevate and uplift others.
We send you out with high expectations, and with high hopes for the qualities you will carry forth from Stanford. Let me name three.
To be open-minded. Stanford is a place to be curious and ask questions. Keep that spirit of openness and curiosity.
To explore fearlessly. Stanford is a place to pursue knowledge and innovation, and to be ambitious in your aspirations. Keep that sense of possibility.
To be optimistic, not in a naive way but a realistic one, in the way that fuels persistence, and will allow you to tackle the hardest challenges.
I’m very fond of Wallace Stegner, who founded Stanford’s creative writing program. Stegner was the great chronicler of the American West, and Stanford embodies its best characteristics.
Stegner wrote, in words that I think apply to Stanford, “One cannot be pessimistic about the West. It is the native home of hope.”
I encourage you to take the open-minded, exploratory, optimistic spirit of Stanford with you into the world, and share it with the people around you.
Class of 2025, we send you off with confidence in what you have learned at Stanford and what you will contribute to the world.
Know that whatever you encounter, you have Stanford’s tailwind of freedom behind you.
Congratulations.
Author
President Jonathan Levin
