Catalysts for Change: The Class of 2026 Celebrates Their Commencement

Four years after they arrived on campus full of hope, energy and dreams, more than 300 graduates of the Whitman College Class of 2026 traversed the stage to receive their diplomas on a sunny Sunday morning in May.

President Sarah Bolton welcomed graduates, families, faculty, staff and alumni to the 140th Commencement Ceremony, held on the south lawn of Memorial Building.

President Bolton thanked the Class of 2026—whose arrival at the college paralleled her own in 2022—for helping to rebuild the campus community after the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We celebrate your amazing individual talents and accomplishments, but also who you are as a community,” she said. “You have built this new Whitman, and now you give it to the students who will follow you. What an extraordinary gift and legacy.”

Senior speaker Tenzin Udin, a Computer Science and Economics double major and Davis United World College scholar from Bhutan, also reflected on the vibrant community that she and her classmates built here and how to carry that momentum forward.

“We have already practiced rebuilding,” she said. “We have already practiced listening across differences. We have already practiced turning small acts into movements. We have learned how to think, how to care, to question and imagine something better. So let us step forward, not as passive inheritors of the future, but as catalysts for positive change.”

A Visionary Educator

Historian and justice advocate Gwendolyn Trice, Founder and Executive Director of the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center (MHIC), delivered this year’s commencement address. 

MHIC honors the rich history and legacy of African American, Indigenous and immigrant loggers in the Pacific Northwest—including Trice’s own forebears, who joined the small, multiracial railroad logging town of Maxville, Oregon, in the early 20th century. The town flourished between 1923 and 1933 despite Oregon’s exclusion laws banning free Black people from living and working in the state and local laws modeled after Jim Crow-style segregation.

Over the years, MHIC has welcomed Whitman’s Semester in the West program; the Land, Water, Justice course; and the Reimagining Maxville project. Trice has also visited campus to participate in classes and lectures. And in Spring 2024, she brought MHIC’s traveling “Timber Culture” exhibit to Maxey Museum.

“Her dedication and commitment to sharing the histories of this place are wonderful models for all of us as we consider the ways that we build and nurture community,” said President Bolton.

Before her remarks, Trice was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

‘You Leave This Space as Changemakers’

Trice asked today’s graduates to recall their arrival on campus four years ago—“a hesitant step away from home, familiarities falling away”—and reflect on how far they’ve come. 

“You worked so hard for this,” she said. “Today the hesitancy is gone, replaced by confidence, purpose and intention. This is only the beginning. You leave this space as changemakers.”

She acknowledged that today’s graduates “walk into a world under great strife” and urged them to “direct your thoughts, emotions and energy toward the positive outcome you want to create.”

She went on to encourage graduates to view setbacks and failures as gifts—and to cultivate a community of mentors who will support, challenge and inspire them throughout their lives. “This curated list woven with other changemakers will lift and sustain you when you need it the most,” she said.

Watch the Video

Congratulations to the Class of 2026! Watch the 140th Commencement Ceremony in full: