Graduates cheer and laugh as they flip the tassels on their mortarboard.

Congratulations, Class of 2025!

Image credit: Joel Haskell

Families, friends, faculty and staff celebrated graduates during Wellesley’s 147th commencement exercises.

Author  Stacey Schmeidel; video by Amber Celletti; photos by Joel Haskell
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Nearly 5000 people gathered on campus to celebrate 566 members of the class of 2025. Journalist and bestselling author Isabel Wilkerson, whose boundary-breaking nonfiction writing earned her both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, urged Wellesley College’s graduating seniors to believe in their ability to influence the world. “History is not the long-ago actions of bold-faced names from centuries past,” Wilkerson said. “History is whatever each of us did before the moment that we are in. History is what each of you is destined to make.”

Wellesley College President Paula A. Johnson also praised the graduates for their strength, applauding their “explorations” and “leaps of faith.” Johnson noted the courage required for students to choose Wellesley sight unseen when the pandemic prevented pre-enrollment visits to campus. And she applauded the graduates for choosing a type of education that is broadly values-based, rather than transactional.

“You are prepared for careers that do not yet exist,” Johnson said. “You have received an education in curiosity, critical thinking, connecting despite differences, and communicating persuasively that represents a kind of meta-power applicable to almost any endeavor.”

Johnson noted that the real measure of a liberal arts education is “the values it encompasses, and therefore imparts.”

“At Wellesley College, we seek truth, and understand that there is such a thing as truth, even though the search for it may never end,” she said.

Transcripts, photos and other materials from the commencement ceremony are available online.

Three graduates gather for a selfie
  • Class president Sooahn Lee stands behind the lectern.
    Sooahn Lee, president of the class of 2025, introduced the student speaker.
  • Student speaker Nehal Farghaly stands behind the lectern.
    “We entered as students and left as something far greater—siblings,” said senior speaker Nehal Farghaly.
President Paula Johnson and Isabel Wilkerson pose for a photo in President Johnson’s office
President Paula Johnson (left) and Isabel Wilkerson prior to commencement. Photo by Ping Ji
Students walk in the procession and wave at the crowd.
Class deans hold the 2025 banner before the procession begins.
  • A student wearing her graduation gown and mortarboard smiles and looks at the camera.
  • Two students dressed in graduation garb smile at the camera
  • Two students pose in front of Green Hall for a photo.
  • Four students gather on academic quad for a photo in their gowns and caps
  • Wellesley honored retiring faculty, including Ellen Widmer, Paul Wink, and Margaret Keane.
    Wellesley honored retiring faculty, including Ellen Widmer, Paul Wink, and Margaret Keane. (Not pictured: Kristin Butcher, Angela C. Carpenter, and William A. Joseph.) Photo by Ping Ji
  • Rachel Deyette-Werkema, lecturer in economics, John Goss, associate professor of biological sciences, and Flavia Laviosa, senior lecturer in Italian studies, were awarded the Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
    Rachel Deyette-Werkema, lecturer in economics, John Goss, associate professor of biological sciences, and Flavia Laviosa, senior lecturer in Italian studies, were awarded the Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
Four graduates stand in a crowd of students and applaud.
President Johnson hands a diploma to a student on stage.
  • A graduate pauses while walking back to her seat for a photo taken by a seated graduate.
  • The back of a mortarboard reads Wellesley 2025!
Students hold up their mortarboards and cheer at the end of the ceremony.