President's Class of 2024 Message

Dear Member of the class of 2024, 


Please accept my most heartfelt congratulations on this, your graduation day. For those
of us who worked with you through the years, it is unbelievably gratifying to stand at
your side at this moment, and watch as you move out from the campus we shared, and
into the world. 


Most of us will never know the full measures of the challenges you overcame to get here.
We may only vaguely grasp the extent to which your years on this campus transformed
your ideas, your commitments or your approach to the world. We do know that in
graduating from this historic institution, you join generations upon generations of young
people who came to CCNY to remake their lives, and left this campus to remake the
world. You are full heirs to that legacy, and I am sure that you will bear it well.


On this campus, we have endeavored to build a community where ethics matter, where
respect for diverse opinions and experiences governs our interactions, where we
constantly and collectively think about what a better world would look like, and how we
might call it into being. You have been asked, in class after class, to devote your mind,
your ambition, and your creativity toward unknotting the most pressing questions we
face as a people. 


The world you enter today is fraught with challenges. We have too often been urged to
regard what is unfamiliar as dangerous, to greet differences of opinion with suspicion
rather than curiosity, to allow force rather than reason to govern our interactions. Your
time at CCNY should help inoculate you against the temptation to pull back from a
broader and more generous experience of humanity. Our work together has in fact been
bounded by a singular assumption about education: that we gather a community, for
each of these past 177 years, to develop a cadre of men and women who embrace
challenges with bravery, welcome the unfamiliar with curiosity, and greet the hardship of
others with warmth and understanding. And, in this spirit we have helped to build New
York into the marvelous city it has become, and coax our human community into the
light of greater empathy and understanding. This is your legacy. 


You are no less equipped to act upon this vision than any generation that came before
you—and now, you join them. Be wise and kind. Lean on your education. Nurture the
memory of how it feels to approach new questions with an open mind and a clear head.
And, in so doing, take your place among the storied and honorable rank of those who
walked this path before you. And know, without the faintest specter of doubt, that we
have been honored by your presence, enriched by your ideas, and uplifted by the idea of
what you will accomplish for us all, in the world.

With my warmest congratulations,

Vince Boudreau
President