Student Affairs

At Commencement on Sunday, award-winning actor Sandra Oh invoked one of her iconic Grey's Anatomy character's rituals to get the Class of 2025 out of their seats and out of their comfort zones.

Channeling Dr. Cristina Yang—the medical resident she played for more than a decade on the long-running television show—Oh told the class: "When the world gets hard, or when it's good—especially when it's good, like today—by yourself, with people you love, with strangers, always take the time to dance it out!"

For 15 seconds, to the strains of David Guetta's Titanium, the Green was a sea of joyful movement as the graduates and a crowd of more than 10,000 family and friends did just that. (Undoubtedly, they were joined by a few of the more than 4,000 viewers watching the day's celebration by livestream.)

During the ceremony, Dartmouth conferred 948 graduate or professional degrees and 1,230 degrees to undergraduates from 47 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and 48 other countries.

The Canadian-born Oh—who won a Golden Globe Award for her work on Grey's and another for her portrayal of the title character on Killing Eve—received an honorary doctorate of arts.

 

Oh's address, on the value and strength of learning to live with discomfort, amounted to a captivating mindfulness lesson for her rapt audience. 

"Nothing has taught me more than being with discomfort. It can be our greatest learning opportunity. And it is also inevitable," she said, describing her own experience with that feeling on the Grey's Anatomy set, and how she learned to "become my own whisperer." 

"If you can train yourself not to turn away, but instead learn to be with your discomfort and trust that it might be telling you something you don't yet know, it can help you develop an inner strength that will enable you to face the challenges life presents you with, without losing your values or your sense of self along the way." 

These moments of discomfort are "opportunities to practice how you want to show up, how you want to lead, who you want to be. Clues to where the gold is buried. And by gold, I mean the really deep work in life that will help you become a more grounded, more resilient version of yourself." 

But comfort with discomfort takes practice. "One way to start building some muscle around this discomfort is to actually be in it by choice," she said. "Tiny, bite-sized moments where you can practice being with it safely." 

These moments can be as simple as sitting silently with one's own thoughts—which she asked the crowd to do. And for 30 remarkable seconds, few sounds could be heard from the Green beyond birdsong and the occasional traffic on East Wheelock Street.

And the key to finding "ease within discomfort"? The practice of kindness, Oh said.

"In times like these, kindness might seem naive or pointless," she said. "But when I say kindness, I'm not talking about 'being nice.' I'm talking about being able to hold your own heartbreak, so we can go on living, go on resisting, go on building, go on healing. So we can meet cruelty again and again and not lose our humanity. The kindness I'm talking about encompasses courage and respect and compassion." 

To help the audience understand this kind of compassion, Oh asked them to imagine themselves holding the feeling of heartbreak in their hands with loving care and attention. 

"This, this is kindness," she said. 

She continued: "You have all been incredibly fortunate to spend these formative years here, in a place that celebrates knowledge, and has given you the opportunity to express yourselves. If you want to protect academic freedom; if you want to stop the brutality of oppression; if you want true, democratic change; if you want to just live a good and simple life—the strength you will need to do these things begins with knowing kindness."

And calling on the audience to stand up and "dance it out"—as Cristina Yang and Ellen Pompeo's character Meredith Grey do on Grey's—she said, "It is possible to move discomfort into joy. Remember this feeling. Carry it and care for it—and then give it to others."

In addition to presenting Oh with an honorary degree, President Sian Leah Beilock presented honorary degrees to six other honorands:

• David Benioff '92, award-winning television and film producer
• Judy Geer '75, Thayer '83, Olympic rower and entrepreneur
• William Greason, a Baptist minister and former professional baseball pitcher (awarded in absentia)
• Antonia Novello, former U.S. surgeon general
• Mikaela Shiffrin, two-time Olympic gold medalist ski racer
• Lynn Trujillo '94, former senior counselor at U.S. Department of the Interior

‘The courage to question and change your opinions’

In her address to the graduates, President Beilock described the value of a Dartmouth education as a means of helping students strengthen their core values while remaining open to new perspectives, a philosophy at the heart of her Dartmouth Dialogues initiative.

"To root yourself in the principles that will define you—the values that you can return to for the rest of your life—while having the courage to constantly question and change your opinions, to be open and brave enough to reshape them in the face of new information, good arguments, and hearing different points of view: I cannot think of a better articulation of what Dartmouth has prepared you to do," Beilock said.

At a time of extreme polarization in the nation and the world, Dartmouth remains a place "where people still come together to challenge each other, engage in civil debate, create knowledge, and move difficult issues forward," she said. 

She encouraged the graduates to bring this experience with them beyond campus.

"It can be challenging, even painful, to engage with someone who questions your deeply held opinion or your purpose. Do so anyway," Beilock said. 

"It can be frightening to lead, to stand alone as independent voices when everyone else has chosen the same answer. Do so anyway."

Student speakers: 'Carrying compassion'

Sydney Hoose '25 and Emma Tsosie '25, co-presidents of Native Americans at Dartmouth, invoked the institution's founding mission to educate Native Americans and welcomed attendees to the Commencement ceremony. 

"As we and this institution embark on our next chapters, we must remember to learn from and honor each other and our collective diversity with respect and kindness," Tsosie said. "Carrying ourselves with compassion for all beings is how we build strong communities at home at Dartmouth and across the globe."

Valedictorian Emily Fagell '25, who was editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth student newspaper, described The D's office on the second floor of Robinson Hall as "the best view on campus."

That view "gave me a window into the lives of my peers—the people and places they care about, their favorite spots to eat, their research, the causes they support, the classes they loved," Fagell said. "Through interviews and articles, I got to visit corners of Dartmouth I'd never otherwise see."

This view gave her perspective on "challenging moments, too," she said. "Geopolitical conflict. Unprecedented political polarization. Attacks on universities that threaten to destabilize higher education. And I watched our class respond to these moments with profound poise, resilience, and desire for positive change. And most of all, with a genuine care for the people sitting beside us today."

As she and her classmates go into the world, Fagell urged her peers to stay directly connected with each other. 

"While I can't wait to see the headlines and the positive change the Class of 2025 will make, we all should make an effort to hear each other's stories firsthand," she said. "To go, as journalists like to say, directly to the source. Because it's never been about just the words on the page. It's about listening to one another, checking in, offering support in good times and bad. At Dartmouth, we go beyond the headlines. We get to know each other. We connect."

The day's celebrations included all the pomp and circumstance of Dartmouth tradition, from the procession to the Green in academic regalia to the singing of the Alma Mater. 

After the ceremony, Gabriella Walsh, Thayer '25, who received a BE degree, said Oh's Commencement address added excitement to the day.

"Loved it. I thought she was amazing and really got a great spirit out of people, especially the dancing at the end," Walsh said. "She was a great presence."