2024 Undergraduate Commencement Remarks, May 18, 2024

Remarks by SUNY Geneseo President Denise A. Battles

Before we formally grant your degrees, I would like to address a few personal remarks to the Class of 2024. 

And so, you have reached this day at last. 

Many of you arrived here in Fall 2020, eager first-year and transfer students ready to change the world and grab hold of all college had to offer. But you did so in the throes of a pandemic that brought with it the frustrating limitations of masking and social distancing, now largely distant nightmares that have receded into uncomfortable memory. The world around you contracted and groaned under the strain, but you persevered through uncertainty and stress to make the best of your situations, emerging stronger and more resilient than before.

In the years since, you have lived the Geneseo experience, hurrying across Sturges Quad on the way to class, exploring the shops in the Village, and finding your place here in the Genesee Valley. 

You are Geneseo’s newest alumni, tested and ready to pursue ambitious futures in the coming months and years. You have overcome much to earn these diplomas behind me, thrown yourselves wholeheartedly into the business of higher education, and triumphed.

So, what have the last four years really been about? What will it mean when you grasp that diploma and take those first tentative steps as a Geneseo graduate? 

While it’s not the complete story, many of you are understandably interested in the financial return on your college investment, and so let’s start there. As college graduates, national studies indicate your annual salaries will be approximately $36,000, or 84 percent, higher than those with just a high school diploma. You’re also more likely to be employed, with unemployment rates about half that of those high school graduates.  The differences add up—to the tune of about $1.2 million more over your lifetimes.   

But as I said, that’s not the complete story, as there are many other benefits college graduates enjoy. They are perhaps less quantifiable but, I would posit, more compelling. Studies indicate that participation in higher education is associated with enhanced critical thinking skills, greater civic engagement, more positive health outcomes, and increased happiness levels. College graduates are also more likely to be resistant to authoritarianism, have a greater sense of agency and empowerment, and demonstrate the skills and dispositions needed to thrive in a diverse society. Add in the substantially lower total net cost of attendance at public universities like Geneseo, and it’s apparent that your hard-earned degree is an incredible value, one that will reap dividends throughout your lifetimes.

Where you will go with that diploma, what you will do, and the outcomes you will achieve lay before you. I envy you that anticipation, daunting though it may be. 

Before me I see the worthy next generation of alumni, Honors College graduates, poised to make a difference in their communities, nation, and across the world. Geneseo has equipped you with the skills and knowledge to compete ferociously and join the long line of distinguished alumni who are making their marks. You will become what this world needs in these unsettling times, those few who move to the front of the crowd, unwilling to accept mediocrity and daring to lead.

And so, head out and find your place. Spread out—across the state, the nation, the globe. Open yourself to the endless possibilities and drink deep of the marvels that await you out there.

But no matter how far you travel or how many years may pass, know that Geneseo will still be here, waiting patiently for you to return. Every August, the campus will bustle with the promise and the excitement of welcoming a new class and seniors beginning that last journey toward graduation. On Main Street, Emmeline the bronze bear will still cling stubbornly to her pole over the fountain, no matter how many vehicles try to knock her off. The sunsets over the Valley will still blaze like fire at the end of day, bathing the gazebo and its spectators in golden hues. 

But in truth, you will never have really left, as some part of you will remain. Through the years to come, the echoes of laughter across the quad will reverberate in your reminiscences. The lifelong relationships you formed here will endure and keep alive fond remembrances of Geneseo past. 

Time and again, I have spoken to alumni who regale me with wonderful stories of some of their lives’ best days, spent right here. And they come home to Geneseo, whether for Reunion or to otherwise touch their pasts, thousands drawn by those treasured moments to experience the campus and community once again. They return seeking to catch hold of a memory or two, to find that magic once again.

As I have said many times before, Geneseo sticks. It doesn’t fade away. It has become part of who you are. 

I see before me tomorrow’s change makers and leaders, highly capable individuals who feel an obligation to give back and make the world a better place. You have the talent, drive, and perseverance to succeed. I have no doubt you will do great things.  

So, Class of 2024—I say well done.