Mason graduates are well-prepared to lead and thrive

George Mason University honored 4,700 students earning degrees and another 300 earning certificates on Thursday at its Winter Commencement ceremony.

This year’s graduates come from 78 countries and 41 states. Living and learning in a Mason environment steeped in diversity of origin, identity, circumstance, and thought has prepared the graduates to lead a country growing more diverse, President Gregory Washington said.

He urged graduates to seek mutual understanding and respect so “disagreement does not collapse into incivility.”

“True leadership demands the brightest minds, not just the loudest voices, to carry the day,” Washington said. “And that burden of leadership demands that you be informed, not just impassioned.”

What Interim Provost and Executive Vice President Ken Walsh referred to as a “joyous sea of green” at EagleBank Arena became a rising tide when Washington asked first-generation graduates to stand, always a highlight of the ceremony. About 1 in 4 of the graduates were in the first generation of their family to earn a four-year degree.

Commencement speaker Paul Misener, JD ’93, a former global vice president at Amazon, encouraged the graduates to be primed and persistent to capitalize on life and career opportunities and to help mitigate inevitable setbacks. He cited examples from science and history to illustrate the role that randomness and luck can play in achieving success.

“I urge you, join me, and not stop preparing [after] this ceremony,” said Misener, who serves on the President’s Innovation Advisory Council at Mason. “Keep going for your entire life. Continue to prepare. I am far more prepared to deal with the good luck and the bad luck in my life 30 years after I graduated.” See his speech and the ceremony on Mason’s YouTube channel.

Another 30-year alum, Mason Rector Horace Blackman, BA American Studies and English ’93, conferred on Misener an honorary doctor of humane letters.

Washington noted that many of the graduates began their Mason journeys during the pandemic, and that they are now alumni of a university recognized as a consensus Top 50 public university in the country, and the top public university in the state for social mobility and innovation.

Honors College student and computer science major Shruti Sekar, the student speaker, experienced the arc that Washington referenced. She recalled the isolation and self-doubt she felt in her major early in her Mason career due to the pandemic, and contrasted that with the sense of empowerment she felt being part of the Mason community of supporters and now as a graduate, thanks in part to her involvement in Student Government, the Honors College Student Advisory Board, and female-based tech organizations. She was a teaching assistant for the Break Through Tech Summer Guild and founded the student organization Social Sandbox, a community engagement and technology club.

Sekar, who interned at Mastercard and will join that company while continuing to pursue her accelerated master’s degree at Mason. She noted that some classmates created a company to make the college transition easier for students post-pandemic, and that faculty guided the next generation of computer scientists, like her, through the proliferation of AI and Chat-GPT.

“We watched our world change, and we decided to change the world together,” Sekar said, noting the determination and grit her fellow students displayed. Read her speech.

Alumni Association President Christine Landoll, BS Accounting ’89, MS Taxation ’92, welcomed the new graduates to the association. They join a Mason alumni network of more than 230,000.

See more photos from the ceremony.