Middlebury Celebrates Class of 2026 During 225th Commencement

Middlebury College marked its 225th Commencement ceremony on May 24 as 558 graduates gathered with friends, family, faculty, and staff on the Voter Quad to celebrate the Class of 2026.

Students from 45 states and U.S. territories and more than 20 countries were greeted on stage by President Ian Baucom in his first Commencement at Middlebury. They  received their diplomas and replicas of Gamaliel Painter’s cane, presented by Hannah Burnett ’10, president of the Middlebury Alumni Association.

The class included Fulbright scholars, National Science Foundation grant recipients, a Yenching Scholar, Critical Language Scholarship recipients, and student-athletes who earned All-America honors and competed on national championship and NESCAC title-winning teams. They included six members of the women’s lacrosse team who were scheduled to play for the team’s fifth consecutive NCAA championship later that day in Rochester, New York. More than 20 percent of graduates were first-generation college students.

Justin Diaz ’26, a political science major from Fresno, California, delivered the student address, reflecting on the last four years. After the initial challenges of adjusting to college life, Diaz said he learned to embrace discomfort, push himself academically and socially, and ultimately form lifelong friendships and memories.

“When we first stepped foot on campus, we arrived with backpacks and questions, but very few answers,” said Diaz. “But that shifted. We became hungry to learn about things we never expected to enjoy, pushed ourselves beyond our preconceived notions and into experiences we never imagined. Somewhere along the way, this place stopped being the middle of nowhere and became the center of everything.” 

Despite unusually cool and rainy conditions, the Commencement ceremony proceeded as planned, with three viewing areas offering streaming access from Wilson Hall, Dana Auditorium, and Middlebury Chapel. Bagpiper Timothy Cummings opened the ceremony by leading the class from Old Chapel to the Central College Lawn, where the Constitution Brass Quintet played the processional. 

Kim Stanley Robinson opened his Commencement address by explaining that he would deliver it in the form of its own genre, drawing on elements of the science fiction writing for which he is best known. “A commencement address is a literary genre, and I am a genre writer,” he said. “And a commencement address also speaks to you students about your futures, and so really it’s a science fiction story… a utopian science fiction story, and so I’ll do my usual thing and tell you a science fiction story that fits the commencement address.”

The author of The Ministry for the Future incorporated themes he is known for exploring—including ecology, culture, and politics—connecting them to the world students will enter after graduation.

“It is a coincidence of history that you are joining the adult world and beginning your own lives at a moment of unprecedented danger to the earth’s biosphere,” said Robinson. “And I’ve got to add that every moment for human beings has been unprecedented in that what came before was not adequate to prepare them for what they were facing … at every moment of human history it has been unprecedented, but I want to say this: now is more unprecedented than ever before.”

After discussing some of the major environmental challenges facing current and future generations, he encouraged students to seek solutions while remaining grounded in the present moment. “I don’t think fantasy really works except when Gandalf says, ‘You don’t get to choose your moment, you just have to live it,’” said Robinson. “He was right—you don’t get to choose the moment—we’re here, we have to live it… by the time you are my age, a lot will have gone down. I want you to focus on the good and to try and make the good in a team effort.”

Middlebury awarded honorary degrees to Shabana Basij-Rasikh ’11, cofounder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA)—the first and only boarding school for Afghan girls, which operated in Kabul from 2016 to 2021, until the Taliban returned to power; Andrea Green, director of the Pediatric New American program and professor at the Robert Larner, M.D., College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, for providing high-quality medical care and advocating for children and their families; and Angelo Lynn, owner, editor, and publisher of the Addison County Independent, and a leader in the newspaper industry for more than 40 years and 2019 inductee into the New England Newspaper & Press Association Hall of Fame. 

Commencement marked the culmination of a busy weekend of events starting Saturday morning with a breakfast for graduates and their guests, followed by a ceremony for 50 students being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa—the country’s oldest honor society. Later in the morning, the College celebrated its Posse scholars with a reception at McCullough Student Center. On Saturday afternoon, graduates and their families attended the baccalaureate service at Middlebury Chapel where President Baucom delivered the address.