Middlebury Honors Class of 2025.5 at Feb Celebration

Middlebury honored members of the class of 2025.5 for completing their undergraduate studies at Feb Celebration, held Saturday, January 31, at Virtue Fieldhouse in the Peterson Family Athletic Complex. The 163 midyear graduates then headed to the Middlebury College Snowbowl for the traditional ski-down in caps and gowns, an event held annually since 1987.

In his first address at a Feb celebration, President Ian Baucom highlighted the varied journeys taken by the students who arrived at Middlebury in February 2022 from 31 states and 14 countries. “Each time I met one of you, each time I met one of your professors, I kept hearing the same thing: ‘these are special, unique, curious, open-to-the-world students,” he said.

Baucom commended students for seizing opportunities throughout their four years at the College. “Life presents myriad challenges and opportunities—many of them unexpected, unplanned, and uncharted—and while we as educators seek to prepare you to meet these moments and seize these opportunities, the act of doing so ultimately falls to you,” said Baucom. “Over the past four years, you have done so again and again.”

Among the graduates was student speaker Samimah Naiemi ’25.5, who came to Middlebury after fleeing Afghanistan in hopes of earning a college degree—an opportunity she said most women can only dream of back home. “Going to college was one of my biggest dreams since I was a little girl,” she said, describing the increasingly dire conditions for women in Afghanistan that prompted her to leave. “I knew then that if I wanted to survive—and if my dream of college was going to live—I had to leave.”

With only a handful of bags to her name, Naiemi boarded a plane that eventually brought her to Rwanda, where she worked at a high school during Febmester. She arrived in Middlebury on a “freezing cold day in February,” unsure of what to expect.

“I was looking for a community—a community I felt I belonged to,” said Naiemi. “And Middlebury welcomed me with open arms and open heart. And soon, this place became more than a college—it became my home…my Feb class was a whole community of its own. Slowly, quietly, Middlebury changed my definition of home. Home became the place where my heart felt full.”

Naiemi and her 2025.5 classmates will officially receive their bachelor of arts degrees in March, following the winter term, and are invited to participate in May Commencement.

Smita Ruzicka, vice president for student affairs, presented the Jason B. Fleishman ’03.5 Award to Lucas Nerbonne ’25.5, an earth and climate science major from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The award, established in memory of Fleishman, who died shortly after his Feb Celebration in 2004, honors students who “embody Feb and College pride, academic passion and determination, excellence in leadership and involvement, a positive attitude, and care for others.”

Earlier in the day, Ronan Christopher Corley ’25.5 was appointed second lieutenant at an Army ROTC Commissioning Ceremony in Goldsmith Lounge at Peterson Athletics Center. A graduate of the Army Mountain Warfare School, Corely was also given the The National Defense Transportation Association Award ROTC “recognizing outstanding Army, Navy, and Air Force cadets for exceptional leadership, academic achievement, and potential for service in logistics or transportation fields.” 

Héctor Vila, associate professor of writing and rhetoric, who was chosen by the graduating Febs as faculty speaker, likened the day for Febs to stepping off a speeding train after being on it for four years. “You are standing still right now, but you won’t be for long. Soon you’ll choose which train to board, which direction to move. There will be enormous pressure to choose quickly, to choose conventionally, to choose the path that’s already mapped.”

Drawing on his own experience—from immigrating to the United States from Argentina as a young boy with his parents to his current role at the College—Vila encouraged students to board the train that feels most meaningful to them, rather than the one prescribed by society or an algorithm. 

“You are ready—not because you have all the answers, but because you’ve learned to live with the questions. Not because you fit perfectly into what comes next, but because you’ve learned that the most important space is the space between. Stand at the edge. Live on the boundary. Cross the line.”   

After the ceremony, students boarded buses and headed to the Middlebury Snowbowl, where they skied, snowboarded, or hiked down the mountain in their caps and gowns for the annual February Ski Down.