CAPS IN THE AIR: Princeton University graduates celebrated on Tuesday in Princeton Stadium, as thousands of family members and friends cheered them on and Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber urged them to “show up in person, fully and humanly” in their lives beyond Princeton. (Princeton University; Office of Communications; Charles Sykes; Associated Press Images, 2024)

By Donald Gilpin

Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber urged the 1,297 undergraduate degree recipients, 206 earning masters’ degrees, and 403 Ph.D, recipients to “lean into life after Princeton … with the same dazzling energy and imagination you showed while you were here,” as thousands of family members, friends, and guests seated in Princeton Stadium at Tuesday morning’s commencement ceremony cheered them on.

As the berobed procession of graduates, professors, and other academic officials entered the stadium and took their seats on the stage and across the length of the field, the crowd was in a festive mood, the weather was sunny and breezy, and discord that had troubled the Princeton University campus during the past month was mostly not in evidence.

Describing commencement addresses as ”a curious genre of public speaking,” as well as “a vexed genre” in the current polarized political climate, Eisgruber lamented the impossible demands of coming up with an original, profound, wise, and memorable speech.

He proceeded to offer the graduates thanks and admiration for what they have done at Princeton and a wish for their lives in the future.

Eisgruber praised the graduates, most of whom had arrived at Princeton in the first year of the pandemic, with helping to revive the University “to restore and improve Princeton’s culture.”

“We had to learn anew how to show up for one another and with one another,” he said. “We had to recall, or reinvent, the rituals that knit us together and the practices that enable us to cooperate effectively with one another.”

He continued, “You came to Princeton, and you breathed new life into our community. You leaned into academic projects and extracurricular ones. You reconstructed, refreshed, and revitalized a capella groups, athletic teams, dance troupes, musical ensembles, religious and spiritual groups, debating societies, scientific laboratories, co-ops, eating clubs, entrepreneurial networks, the undergraduate and graduate student governments, the Triangle Show, the Princeton University Band, and countless other organizations.”

And he went on to exhort the graduates in their future lives to get involved — not with remote work, but to “continue to show up in person, fully and humanly.” He noted, “By doing so you will contribute to the world. You will also, I hope, find joy in what you do.”

Eisgruber offered the thought that happiness “often comes from collective human endeavor to produce something of value to society. The goals need not be grand or newsworthy,” he added, citing the examples of an athletic team, a theater group, a community garden, a religious congregation, or a workplace.

In closing, Eisgruber wished the graduates well on their journeys ahead and urged them to keep in touch with Princeton, “to sustain the connections that you formed here and to form new ones with Princetonians across time zones and generations.”

The University also presented seven honorary degrees, as well as five secondary school teaching prizes to New Jersey teachers and four distinguished teaching awards to Princeton University professors.

The honorary degree recipients included Lamar Alexander, former Tennessee governor, U.S. senator, secretary of education, and University of Tennessee president; Ruben Blades, composer, vocalist, actor, and activist; Paula A. Johnson, physician-scientist, healthcare leader, and 14th president of Wellesley College; Randall Kennedy, Harvard professor, legal scholar, lawyer, Princeton alumnus, and emeritus trustee; Mark A. Milley, retired general, 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Princeton alumnus; Joyce Carol Oates, author of more than 150 titles and an emeritus Princeton professor of the humanities, and winner of the National Book Award and the National Humanities Medal; and Terrence J. Sejnowski, head of the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, a Princeton graduate school alumnus, and one of the “foremost pioneers” in the “use of physics, mathematics, and statistics to study the brain” and in the development of the tools of artificial intelligence.