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[MUSIC PLAYING] ["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE MARCHES" PLAYING]
LATESHA FUSSELL: Good morning. If I can ask everyone to take their seats so that we can start? Yes. My name is Latesha Fussell, and I am the Director of Diversity and Inclusion. And we would like to start the ceremony today with a reading of the land acknowledgment.
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogohono, the Cayuga Nation. The Gayogohono are members of Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York State, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogohono dispossession and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogohono people, past and present, to these lands and waters.
I would also ask everyone to silence their cell phones and other personal electronics during the ceremony and that you remain in your seat while taking photographs. It is my pleasure to now invite Meejin Yoon, Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, to the podium to share her thoughts on this special day with our 2023 graduating class.
[APPLAUSE]
MEEJIN YOON: Thank you, Latesha. To the class of 2023, congratulations. It's an honor to be here today with many of our AAP faculty and staff and with your loved ones who have come from near and far to celebrate this joyous moment with you.
Graduation day, which we call commencement, signals not an end, but a beginning. As you bring your time at Cornell and AAP to a close, you also commence the next chapter of your lives. Whether your plans for what comes next are somewhere in the distance, rapidly approaching, or perhaps already underway, I would like to propose that you dedicate this day of celebration, reflection, and commemoration to yourself and your friends and your families. This moment is meant to be shared with those who have supported and cared for you during your time at AAP and Cornell and with those who have cared for and supported you along your path to the place you stand today. Thank you all for being here to honor and celebrate our graduates in their many accomplishments, their commitment, and their commencement.
[APPLAUSE]
So graduates, when you arrived at Cornell, you were full of potential. And now as you prepare to leave Cornell, you are full of potential. However, as you set out from here, you will no doubt find that you have more to carry than you came with. And I'm not referring to the gallons of gesso and Rockite and books and models that you've accumulated, but I'm referring to new knowledge you've acquired, the greater understanding of your discipline and the world you've gained, and the new perspectives, friendships, and bonds you carry with you. And it's also my sincere hope that you now possess a deeper sense of agency, purpose, and responsibility that comes with a realization that the world does not have to be the way it is, but can be the world you make it.
All of these things, knowledge, purpose, responsibility, and community, have real weight to them. They ground us in our humanity and at the same time free the imagination and creativity necessary to build a better world. World--building, a concept that not so long ago belonged primarily to science fiction enthusiasts and gamers, has really become a fairly common exercise. Whether a thought experiment or deliberate act of intervention, building possible worlds has become a mode of individual and collective creative practice that draws equally from what has been and what is to imagine what can be. As such, the science, the fiction, and the practice of imagining and making change, of changing and shaping worlds and futures, belongs to all of us.
In her first book, Emergent Strategy-- Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, author-activist Adrienne Maree Brown, aptly shared that science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. Brown continues, quote, "I suspect that it is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world," end quote.
At AAP, we teach practice as a common value, as a basis for engaging the world as it is, for pursuing critical inquiry, for translating imagination, and for setting agency into motion. Practice unites our disciplines and our community, making it possible to collectively and collaboratively reframe problems and purposefully reimagine the world, and bit by bit, building it anew with respect for the work and knowledge we inherit from the past, embracing the charge, challenge, and beauty of the present, and the shaping of the future with deep concern and regard for the next generation and the generation after that.
Graduates, you stand between past and future worlds, between your past and future selves. And while both the urgencies and pace of the world often proclaim that we have not a moment to spare, I would suggest that together, we can and should take today to honor and recognize all your accomplishments, all you've gained and given, here today, to reflect and celebrate. Along with the right and responsibility to imagine and create new worlds, new futures, we share this now and present moment for all its potentials. It belongs to all of us.
Class of '20-- sorry. Class of 2023, it is your turn to be recognized individually and by your respective departments. We will begin with the Department of Architecture, then the Department of Art, and then the Department of City and Regional Planning. As your name is read, please come forward to be recognized for your accomplishments. It is my pleasure now to introduce Caroline O'Donnell, Chair of the Department of Architecture, who will invite the candidates to the stage for the degrees in the Department of Architecture.
[APPLAUSE]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: Thank you. And congratulations, everybody. First, please help me in welcoming the candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Architecture and Urban Development.
[APPLAUSE]
MARK CRUVELLIER: So on behalf of my fellow readers, I want to begin this by apologizing for our mispronunciations of your names. If it's any comfort, my name has been mispronounced for many years here. Congratulations to all.
[READING NAMES]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: I am pleased to invite the candidates for the degree of Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design.
MARK CRUVELLIER: [INAUDIBLE].
[APPLAUSE]
[READING NAMES]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: The following individuals are candidates for the degree of Master of Science in Architectural Science, Matter Design Computation. Please come forward.
MARK CRUVELLIER: [READING NAMES]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: Next, please help me in welcoming the candidate for the degree of Master of Architecture.
SPEAKER 1: [INAUDIBLE]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: Congratulations, Tyler [? Lenehan. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 2: [INAUDIBLE]
[? CAROLINE O'DONNELL: ?] Who is it?
MARK CRUVELLIER: I know.
SPEAKER 3: [INAUDIBLE]
MARK CRUVELLIER: [INAUDIBLE].
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: Oh, MS [? AED, ?] still?
MARK CRUVELLIER: [READING NAMES]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: And now we have Tyler [? Lenehan. ?]
SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
MARK CRUVELLIER: Tyler [? Lenehan. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: And finally, the following individuals are candidates for the degree, many of you, of the Bachelor of Architecture.
[APPLAUSE]
MARK CRUVELLIER: [READING NAMES]
No-- [INAUDIBLE]
[READING NAMES]
Last-minute improv.
[READING NAMES]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: Thank you very much, Mark Cruvellier, our Senior Associate Dean. How was that?
MARK CRUVELLIER: Perfect.
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: OK. Congratulations to all of the graduates from the Department of Architecture.
[APPLAUSE]
Now it is my pleasure to introduce Paul Ramírez Jonas, Chair of the Department of Art, who will welcome the candidates for the degrees for the Department of Art. Paul?
[APPLAUSE]
PAUL RAMIREZ JONAS: I am pleased to invite the following individuals to the stage who are candidates for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.
SPEAKER 4: [READING NAMES]
PAUL RAMIREZ JONAS: Congratulations. Next, help me in welcoming the candidates for Bachelors of Fine Arts.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 4: [READING NAMES]
PAUL RAMIREZ JONAS: Congratulations to the graduates from the Department of Art. I wish you all a successful future.
[APPLAUSE]
And it is my pleasure to introduce Sophie Oldfield, chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning, who will now welcome the candidates for the degrees of Department of City and Regional Planning.
[APPLAUSE]
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: I am pleased to welcome the following individuals to the stage who are candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in City and Regional Planning.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 5: [READING NAMES]
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: The following individuals are candidates for the degree of Master of Science in Regional Science.
SPEAKER 5: [READING NAMES]
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: Just wait, wait one sec. The following--
SPEAKER 5: Sorry, I'll say it again.
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: We have lots of programs. The following individuals are candidates for the Degree of Master of Arts in Historic Preservation Planning.
SPEAKER 5: [INAUDIBLE]
[READING NAMES]
[? SOPHIE OLDFIELD: ?] Just say it.
SPEAKER 5: [READING NAMES]
OK.
[? SOPHIE OLDFIELD: ?] Sorry. I'm pleased to announce that the following individuals are candidates for the degree of Master's of Regional Planning.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 5: [READING NAMES]
Josephine [? Tennis. ?] Tennis? [? Ines. ?]
I hate these phonetic things. They just confuse me. I'm sorry. Josie, my apologies.
[READING NAMES]
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: The following individuals are candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional studies.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 5: [READING NAMES]
[INAUDIBLE] OK. I mean, I know her as Ella. This is Elizabeth [? Hanover ?] [? Redmond. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
[READING NAMES]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
SPEAKER 5: Yes.
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: Congratulations to the Department of City and Regional Planning.
[APPLAUSE]
I would like to invite Dean Yoon back to the podium to begin the award presentations. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
MEEJIN YOON: Great. So it's my pleasure to present to you the graduating class of 2023.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 6: Just so you know, the first one doesn't [INAUDIBLE], doesn't stand and be recognized, he might come up. Just shake his hand.
MEEJIN YOON: OK. Great. So we now come to the awards portion of the ceremony.
The Merrill Presidential Scholar is a distinction awarded by the University to deserving graduating seniors based on grade point average and other indications of academic excellence who demonstrate leadership ability and community involvement and have potential for continued contributions to society. This award was given earlier, but I'd like to ask the recipient to stand to be recognized. This year's recipient is Andrew John Boghossian.
[APPLAUSE]
Congratulations. I would now like to ask Caroline O'Donnell to come back to the podium to present the awards specific to the Department of Architecture.
SPEAKER 6: [INAUDIBLE]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: The Cornell Architecture Impact Award is awarded to a graduating student who has shown leadership and outstanding community service. This year's recipient is-- I'm sorry, you'll have to stand again and come to the stage-- Andrew John Boghossian.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 6: And [INAUDIBLE] being the next [INAUDIBLE].
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: The Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Award was founded in 1900 by the family of Charles Goodwin Sands, Cornell class of 1890, and is awarded for work of exceptional merit done by a student in courses in architectural design. Only theses in architecture or painting and sculpture are eligible for medal consideration. There are three bronze medals. Please, all of you, all three, join us on this stage. Eastwood [? Dong-Lin ?] Liu, [? Shu-Un ?] [? Yong ?] Arthur, and [? Angel ?] [? Anne ?] [? Gomez. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
This year's silver medal is awarded to Farzana Hossain.
[APPLAUSE]
The American Institute of Architects awards an engraved medal, the Henry Adams Medal, and Certificate of Merit to the top-ranking graduating student in each architecture program accredited by the National Accrediting Board. The award is for general excellence in architecture throughout the course of study. The recipient of the medal and certificate of merit is Frances [? Beam ?] Gregor.
[APPLAUSE]
The William S. Downing Prize, founded in 1986, is awarded to winners of a special design competition in recognition of outstanding achievement in architectural design. This year's recipients are [? Aisha ?] [? al-Ati ?] and Jeremy [? Hulen. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
The Clifton Beckwith Brown Memorial Medal is awarded to the member of the graduating class who has attained the highest cumulative average in architectural design over the entire course of study. This year's recipient is [? Him ?] Yu.
[APPLAUSE]
The Michael Rapuano Memorial Award, established in 1976, is awarded to a student graduating with either an undergraduate or graduate degree in architecture, landscape architecture, painting, sculpture, or planning, who has performed work in any of these fields that is judged to be the most outstanding as characterized by distinction in design. This year's recipient is Nadiya Farrington.
This is a tough job. On behalf of the Department of Architecture and the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, we would like to congratulate the following three students on behalf of being awarded a Post-Professional Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design award for outstanding performance in architecture. This award recognizes outstanding academic achievement. And they will each be awarded $1,000 for this Spring 2023 prize. The recipients are, and I'll read all three names, Zachary Sherrod, Aishwarya Mahadevan, and [? Jay ?] [? Gyun ?] [? Yu. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
We would also like to congratulate the following student on being awarded a prize for leadership and willing service for their class and department during their time in the Post-Professional Advanced Architecture Design program. This year's recipient is Petra Salameh.
[APPLAUSE]
Congratulations to everyone in the Department of Architecture.
[APPLAUSE]
Now I would like to ask Paul Ramírez Jonas to come forward again and present the awards specific to the Department of Art.
[APPLAUSE]
PAUL RAMIREZ JONAS: Hello. The Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Award was founded in 1900 by the family of Charles Goodwin Sands, Cornell class of 1890, and it is awarded for work of exceptional merit. This year's recipient is Beck Summer.
[APPLAUSE]
The Faculty Medal of Art is awarded annually to a graduating art student whose academic record and studio work, in faculty opinion, demonstrates the greatest promise of future achievement in the field of art. The recipient of this award this year is David Legrand.
[APPLAUSE]
The Department of Art Distinguished Achievement Award is given to a member of the graduating class who has shown great promise of future achievement in the field of art. And the recipient of the award this year is Adam Shulman.
[APPLAUSE]
Bequeathed by Charles Baskerville, Cornell class of 1919, to assist Cornell students in the field of painting, the Department of Art gives the Charles Baskerville Painting Award to undergraduate or graduate students to enable them to participate in programs involving intensive study in the Fine Arts. Mr. Baskerville was a portrait painter and muralist known particularly for his paintings of society and military leaders. This year's recipients are, and I will read all four, and please come up, [? Eva ?] [? Marlowe ?] [? Laser, ?] [? Yurki ?] [? Abwova ?] [? Melody ?] [? So, ?] and Jay [? Ann ?] [? Ree. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
The Department of Art award the Elsie Dinsmore Popkin Class of '58 Award to a BFA thesis student who, in the judgment of the Department of Art, has the best thesis. The award was founded in 2006 by the members of the class of '58 in memory of Elsie Dinsmore Popkin. Miss Popkin was a landscape painter of some distinction and was a great friend of the Department and the College. The recipient of the award this year is Allison Park.
[APPLAUSE]
The Kip Brady Prize is awarded to a BFA printmaking student at the discretion of the printmaking faculty. The award recognizes distinguished achievement in the printmaking area. This year's recipients are, and I'll read both names, Paige Pepling and Erin Margaret Giombetti.
[APPLAUSE]
CAROLINE O'DONNELL: Yay.
PAUL RAMIREZ JONAS: And the final award from the Department of Art is the Ezra Colin Cornell Award in Digital Media. This award recognizes students who demonstrate excellence in digital photography or videography and whose art aligns with the mission and values of the University. This year's recipient is Isabel [? Annette ?] Padilla Bonelli.
[APPLAUSE]
Congratulations to all in the Department of Art. I would now like to ask Sophie Oldfield to the podium to present the awards for the Department of City and Regional Planning.
[APPLAUSE]
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: The Thomas W. Mackesey Prize is awarded in memory of the former Dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. It is bestowed on a master's candidate for the degree in City and Regional Planning who has demonstrated unusual competence in academic work or who, by qualities of personality or leadership, has significantly contributed to the intellectual advancement of fellow students. And the award goes to [? Han-Tau ?] [? Soon. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
The American Planning Association Outstanding Student Award recognizes outstanding attainment in the study of planning by a student who is graduating from an accredited program. The criteria gives priority to the quality of work in the student's courses in planning and the promise of success as a professional planner. This year's recipient is Josephine Ennis.
[APPLAUSE]
The John W. Reps Award was established in 1987 in honor of Professor Reps, who was the first chairperson of the Department of City and Regional Planning and a well-known author of several books on the history of American urban development. It is given to a candidate for the degree of Master's of Arts in Historic Preservation Planning who has demonstrated superior academic excellence. This award is made possible through the generosity of historic preservation planning alumni [INAUDIBLE]. This year's recipient is [? Jeffrey ?] [? Iovinonay. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
The Urban and Regional Studies Academic Achievement Award for the undergraduate program is presented to the individuals who have achieved the highest academic average after seven semesters at Cornell. This year's recipients are-- and there's three, so I'll read all three--
SPEAKER 6: Just two.
SOPHIE OLDFIELD: Oh, sorry. This year's recipients are Edward [? Zhao ?] [? Goa ?] and Tim Wong.
[APPLAUSE]
Congratulations to all. I would now like to turn the podium back over to Dean Yoon.
[APPLAUSE]
MEEJIN YOON: Great. Congratulations. I want to take this moment to share my gratitude for all the College faculty and staff who have given so generously in so many ways to our students in the College. Would the faculty and staff. please stand to be recognized?
[APPLAUSE]
I'd like to conclude this amazing ceremony today with the words of a Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, from his 1910 poem titled "Ithaca." "As you set out for Ithaca hope that your journey is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, and Cyclops, angry Poseidon-- don't be afraid of them-- you'll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as the excitement stirs your spirit. Hope that your journey is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors you're seeing for the first time; and may you visit many cities to learn and learn again from those who know.
Keep Ithaca always in your mind. Arriving there is what you're destined for. But don't hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so that you're old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you've gained along the way.
Ithaca gave you a marvelous journey. Without her you would have not set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you'll have understood by then what these Ithacans mean."
Ithaca, both in this poem and for us, does not represent a start or an end, but the journey itself. Or as Albert Einstein once shared, "A ship is always safe at shore, but that is not what it is built for." Will the class of '23 please rise? Please join me in congratulating the AAP class of 2023 as they set off for their next leg of their marvelous journey.
[APPLAUSE]
