President’s letter to graduates
Congratulations, Class of 2025.
I want to honor you today on this tremendous achievement. As you cross the stage today, we understand that you embody not only your own dreams, but the dreams and aspirations of your progenitors—your parents, your grandparents and those who had a dream for those who followed them. This is a day when we celebrate your accomplishments and the sacrifices of others who supported you along the way. Along with the pride in your accomplishment, I want to encourage you to recognize with gratitude their hopes and prayers.
From this day forward, those of you who have studied to become doctors of dentistry or medicine will take on new pursuits to render aid to those who need what you offer—you will care for many in need and offer comfort and healing. For those who have become doctors of philosophy, you will perhaps carry your special knowledge to the laboratory to look into the deepest corners of creation or use your skills to direct others in weighty pursuits or exercise your finely honed skills in whatever task providence has placed on you.
For those of you receiving your Master of Health Science degrees, we hope to see you again in the future pursuing terminal professional degrees, and for those wrangling data or serving in public health roles, we have high confidence in you—that your time here at Meharry has focused a sense of service along with superlative knowledge in your field.
Those of you that completed a four-year course of study saw the College go through transitions. You entered our doors as the country was beginning to emerge from the COVID 19 pandemic, an event that would affect the way we see public health for the rest of our lives. While you were here, Meharry added two new schools – the School of Applied Computational Sciences in 2021 and the School of Global Health last year. New deans took the helm of the schools of graduate studies and medicine and began to forge new directions. You also saw the tremendous growth of the College’s research enterprise and our emergence through partnerships as a leader in genomics and health data. These were indeed exciting times for our College as it approaches 150 years of service.
You saw Meharry’s place in health sciences rise across the country and around the world, doing the work we were founded to do 15 decades ago, remembering our commitment to our own community whether through the student-run Salt Wagon Clinic or as part of Oral Health Day. You are a proud part of our legacy of “Worship of God through service to mankind,” and I hope you take that with you wherever you go.
You saw what an institution looks like as it leans toward the future.
This day is a day of symbolism representative of passage, reflecting both academics coming to fruition as well as new beginnings toward things to come. It is a wish for your future, whatever fortune holds. Wherever life takes you, carry your experience here at Meharry—your hard work, your memories, your sense of service—as Meharrians before you have done, with humility and service.
Class of 2025, I am proud of you all. Good luck and godspeed on your path forward.