USC President Carol Folt speaks at Wednesday’s baccalaureate. The nondenominational event, a USC tradition, is an opportunity to bless the new graduates as they proceed into the next stage of their lives. (USC Photo/Steve Cohn)
Arianna Huffington, Carol Folt inspire at baccalaureate ceremony
COMMENCEMENT: The nondenominational event helps kick off celebrations for USC’s Class of 2025. Read about it and watch the videos.
USC’s 2025 commencement celebrations began in full swing on Wednesday, highlighted by the annual baccalaureate ceremony in Bovard Auditorium on the University Park Campus.
USC President Carol Folt shared sage advice with the students and guests in the packed auditorium. Folt, who will retire as president on July 1 and remain on the USC faculty, noted that she — like the new graduates — is facing a new “next.”
“When the future feels like it’s spinning, I find calm in being present in that moment, by embracing my own feelings and laughing a bit at my own uncertainty, and especially in being grateful for the thousands of people who are sharing these exact same emotions with me,” she said. “And of course that means all of you.
“In my six years as the president, I have also seen the real power of the Trojan Family, and it is a real family,” she said. “We celebrate successes. We embrace each other with hugs when they’re needed. We argue and disagree with the best of them — and then we turn around and offer endless encouragement and support.”
She revealed that this year’s graduating class gives USC a half-million alumni, a figure reached by only a handful of U.S. institutions.
“Your years as a USC student may be coming to an end — or maybe not: There’s a lot of master’s and PhDs ahead for a lot of you — but the Trojan Family will be with you forever,” Folt said.
The event’s keynote speaker, entrepreneur and wellness advocate Arianna Huffington, spoke to students of the potential of artificial intelligence — especially if we choose to use it to accomplish what is really important: to help us become better humans.
“Up to now, most of our technology has produced a world that consumes our attention, that keeps us living in the shallows, barraging us with constant, insistent, flashing high-volume signals that distract us from asking life’s big questions and living what Dean [Varun] Soni called ‘heroic lives,’” she said, referring to the USC dean of religious life’s invocation address earlier during the event. “It can lock us into a perpetual present, keeping us from tapping into the wisdom of the past or building the future that we truly want.
“So please remember, your attention is your most valuable resource. What you give your attention to is what you give your life to,” Huffington said. “So as you leave these beautiful grounds and take your place in the world, demand a world of technology that’s worthy of you, and settle for nothing else.”
She ended her remarks with: “Onward, upward and inward.”
The nondenominational, interfaith baccalaureate event is a USC tradition. The celebration is open to all students and their guests and provides an opportunity to bless the graduates as they proceed into the next stage of their lives.
Watch the full event:
