Berkeley School of Education 2026 Commencement

Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. birthday. Hallelujah. Heat. This is going on. Thank you. Heat. Heat. Heat. Yeah, hallelujah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Thank you. I'm out. Please take your seats. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the University of California, Berkeley's 132nd commencement ceremony. It is such an honor to gather here today with graduates and their families and friends, our faculty, our staff, alumni and community members to celebrate this remarkable milestone. And I just want to pause to say thank you for those of you who were so gracious just now to make sure that there were room for our graduates. I'm Michelle Young and I am the dean of the School of Education here at Berkeley and it really is a privilege to celebrate this moment with all of you. Our event this evening offers an opportunity to recognize each of our incredibly impressive graduates and we are so proud of you. Each and every one of you. You've worked very hard to get here and you are graduating from the number one institution of higher education in the world. And what's more, you have chosen a field where you are going to transform lives. Before we begin our ceremony, I do want to acknowledge that today brings together people from many different backgrounds, identities, perspectives, and experiences. At Berkeley and especially in a school of education, we believe deeply in the importance of respectful dialogue, thoughtful engagement, and care for one another. We ask that everyone here help us create a celebratory environment grounded in dignity and generosity and mutual respect so that all of our graduates and guests can fully enjoy this moment. And now let us begin. At the Berkeley School of Education, our motto is educate like democracy depends on it. And I want to begin there because democracy does depend on education. It depends on whether people have access to truth and to knowledge. It depends on whether young people are taught to think critically, engage difference thoughtfully, and practice fully in civic life. It depends on whether schools and universities create spaces where people can feel seen and heard, challenged and valued. And it depends on whether we are willing to invest in one another's humanity and their future. And that is why the work you are graduating into matters so incredibly deeply. At a moment when public education, higher education, and democratic institutions are being tested in profound ways, your presence here today is both an achievement as well as a declaration of hope. You chose to dedicate yourselves to education during a time of extraordinary complexity, a time shaped by political polarization, technological transformation, widening inequality, attacks on public institutions, and urgent questions about belonging, opportunity, and justice. And yet, you chose this work anyway. Whether you chose to study learning or teaching, human development, policy, leadership, psychology, or educational technology, you chose to do this because you believe education can still expand possibility and help shape a more just and humane world. That choice matters. Some of you will become teachers, counselors, researchers, policy makers, psychologists, and a few of you may become faculty members. Others will carry what you learned here into entirely different fields. Wherever your path leads, I hope you will hold on to this truth. Education is ultimately about people. It lives in our relationships, in our classrooms, in our families, in communities, and in moments when people feel recognized, encouraged, challenged, and inspired to imagine something bigger than themselves for others. And because of that, education remains one of the most hopeful acts that there is. So to each and every one of our graduates, thank you. Thank you for choosing this path. Thank you for your scholarship, for your courage, for your care for others, and your belief in what education can make possible. I am so glad that you chose Berkeley. I am so glad you allowed us the privilege to be part of your journey and I look forward to seeing each of you thrive, opening doors and lighting the ways for others. We are extraordinarily proud of you. You are the future. You are hope. And go forth and ignite a brighter world for all. Thank you. We are incredibly uh fortunate to have an exciting and inspiring lineup of speakers this afternoon. big beginning with one of our graduating undergraduate students, Jennifer Tran. Jennifer is graduating from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's of science in the education sciences, a bachelor's of arts in political science, and a minor in public policy. Jennifer is a prominent student leader at UC Berkeley, including leading the Associated Students of the University of California and serving as the academic affairs vice president. Jennifer has also served as a thoughtful leader and voice within BSE's own undergraduate programs, bringing intellectual curiosity, humor, honesty, and deep care for her work. Please join me in welcoming Jennifer Thank you to the family, friends, faculty, and guests here today to support and celebrate us. And a special thanks to my family. Stereotypes are true. Vietnamese families are quite large. I want to let you all in on a little secret. Despite four years here at the Berkeley School of Education, this graduating class did not eliminate educational inequity. Nor did we solve chronic absenteeism, reverse the literacy crisis, fix the teacher shortage, save the Department of Education, or reduce the ridiculous amount of acronyms in this sector. Hell, we barely learned how to survive a middle school morning without accidentally saying 67. In fact, instead of fixing education, we got really good at explaining why it is broken. Throughout our four years here, we studied global systems, read pedagogy of the oppressed for the a millionth time, and deconstructed theory after theory. We learned how to identify organizational patterns, analyze qualitative and quantitative data, and critique the very institutions that house us. We learned how to take this chaotic system that is education and make sense of it. And yet, while we studied, the world kept turning. Every problem, every educational crisis that I mentioned earlier in my remarks only worsened. Educational inequalities deepened. Chronic absenteeism rose. The literacy crisis intensified and schools remained understaffed. We began to realize that the theories we studied rarely showed up in the wild the way they do in our courses. In the real world, education is messy. It is frustrating. It is almost as difficult as getting your fingerprints taken at the UPS store for fieldwork. Most importantly, it's human. On the fourth floor of Berkeley Way West, it can be easy to get lost. It can be easy to get lost in the frameworks and theories, in the papers and practicum reflections, in the data and case studies, in the abstraction of our work, in the abstraction of it all. But outside of this institution, after we graduate today, nothing we do will be abstract. Not to the student whom the system sorted into a predetermined track, feeling like they're less than their peers. Not to the teacher trying to hold an overcrowded classroom together with too few resources. Not to the immigrant family navigating systems that were not built with them in mind, desperately fighting for their child's future. Not to the people that we so often forget this work is about. That's the responsibility we carry. Because education isn't something that we just study. It's something that we step into. It's something that we shape. It's something that whether we want it or not shapes people in return. The hardest part of this work isn't seeing what's wrong. We're very, very good at that. The hardest part is holding on to the student, the teacher, the principal, the family in front of you while trying to improve the system around them. If we do this work well, if we've carried what we've learned here with care, curiosity, and courage forward, then maybe someday someone will stand at a podium like this one and talk about us the way that we now talk about our favorite educators. Hopefully, in that speech, they'll report a slightly shorter list of educational crisises and maybe, just maybe, a slightly lower rate of accidental mentions of 67. Congratulations to all the graduates. Fiat Lux and Go Bears. >> Very well done. Very well done. Congratulations. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for those powerful remarks. I was particularly struck by her reminder that education is never abstract. It's uh in every policy. It's in every framework, every theory. These are real people, real classrooms. Thank you for that reminder. Our next speaker is Nate Espinosa. Nveei is graduating from the Berkeley teacher education um program and with a master's of arts in education and a teaching credential. She has distinguished herself through her commitment to teaching community and equal equity and her work reflects the imagination, care and humanity that sits at the heart of this profession. Please join me in welcoming Nante Espinosa. >> Congratulations It was 2017. I was a freshman in college looking for a summer job to help pay for the following year or maybe to pay for concert tickets. Honestly, both. And my sister told me about a paid summer program where I'd be teaching middle school students. I had experience working with younger kids and often helped my mom support students with math. So, I applied to be a math teaching assistant. That summer, I was paired with a veteran teacher and learned so much about lesson planning, classroom management, and what it actually means to stand in front of a classroom. It was my first time working with older kids. And on that first day of teaching eighth grade math, I was shaking in my boots. Like in BTE, I started by observing, taking notes, and slowly stepping in. Eventually, I taught a full class period on my own. Then after the first week, my teaching partner went on vacation for a week and a half. And just like that, I was on my own teaching eighth graders. I was completely out of my comfort zone. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I did know one thing. It was summer, so I leaned into making learning fun. By the end of the summer, I really enjoyed the program and the students, and I learned a lot about myself as a teacher. On the last day of the program, I received a thank you card from one of my newcomer students that said, "Thank you for helping me learn math." I cried. And that was the moment that I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. At the beginning of BTE, we are asked to imagine this. Years from now, if we ran into a former student on the street, what would they remember about being in our class? That moment actually happened to me. Last summer, I ran into one of those former eighth grade students. He is now in his fourth year as SF State, and he told me that he appreciated how I made math fun, and that I never made him feel dumb. And that stayed with me. As Maya Angelo reminds us, people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. My students might not remember every equation and symbol, but they will remember how I made them feel in my classroom. BAP has taught me how to teach, yes, but it has also taught me how to be more fully myself. The program's identity statement says that teaching is an endeavor to be more fully human, to embody the fullness of human life in ourselves and our students. And that has been real for me. This program has pushed me into discomfort, into reflection, and into growth. It has asked me to confront parts of myself I didn't even realize I was holding on to. And through that, it has helped me become a more open, honest, and grounded person. Right now, with everything happening in the world, it can feel hard, sometimes even lonely to hold on to hope. But what this program has reminded me is that imagination is powerful. It's something we don't always have, but we don't always reach for when things feel heavy, but it's exactly what we need. I want to close with a line from my personal history statement that one that helped me bring me here and it still feels true today. I imagine a classroom where every student regardless of their background feels supported, inspired, and empowered to dream big. And I am ready to dedicate myself to fully making that vision a reality. To me, that is the power of education. It starts with imagination. Because if you can see it for your students, you can begin to see it for yourself. And when you hold on to that vision, when you commit to it, it becomes real. Thank you. Thank you so much. your reflections on teaching and imagination and the importance of helping feel students feel seen is is very important. We're really appreciate the fact that you are going to be in education. Our third speaker is Christina Menddees. Christina is graduating this year with her doctorate of philosophy in critical studies of race, class, and gender. Christina's scholarship and leadership reflect a profound commitment to community, to dignity, and to educational justice. Throughout her time here at Berkeley, she has challenged her peers and her colleagues and her faculty to think expansively about education, not only as something that happens within schools, but as something that's rooted into relationships, histories, culture, and collective futures. Please join me in welcoming Christina Mendes. All right. Thank you, Dean Young Wardes. Good afternoon, everyone. >> Okay, we're awake. On behalf of all the graduates today, I want to thank each and every one of you for your presence, not only in celebrating this moment with us, but this journey with us. I'm deeply honored and humbled to be invited as the doctoral student speaker because it's truly a full circle moment for me. I sat where you're sitting and uh graduated with my bachelor's here in Zelerbach Hall. This marks a decade of study at Cal for me across so many years. I think about all the moments that shaped these experiences. Yes, the endless midterms and the readings that felt at times like they were incomprehensible. But I also think about the moments that were most important to me. the moments that I spent with my fellow students trying to make sense of why we were getting this degree in the first place. What did it matter with everything that was going on? And so when I started to write this speech, I kept thinking it's too much. Too much to meaningfully comment on the role of education in this tumultuous year of 2024. Too much to say anything meaningful in the face of all the violence going on in the world. from Iran to Venezuela, from Cuba to the Congo, from Palestine to the detention centers operating here in California. It's too much. And thinking that made me pause because for so long saying something is too much has been used to silence, to diminish, to keep us stuck. And what does too much mean anyway? Maybe if we lean into the too muchness, we find hope. So, we are in 2026. The world is on fire in innumerable ways, and there's no avoiding that. But we're here getting degrees in education. We did this knowing full well that education is under attack. Not in the unprecedented way, but in a way that feels old and familiar and frankly colonial and racist. Nonetheless, nonetheless, there are new mandates that are trying to say what we can teach, read, write, and say, all with the end goal to try to mandate who we can be. In spite of it all, or because of it, we're here affirming our compromiso to education. Compromiso is a word that to me means something more than commitment. It means heart, responsibility, promise, a lifelong commitment. We have a compromiso to education and education is nothing if not a project of hope. Today I graduate um from the PhD in critical studies of educa of race, class, and gender. And I've learned how people build hope in the midst of oppression. Because hope isn't built on good feelings and contentment. Hope is built on deep criticality, a reckoning with why things are the way they are, and a questioning of how to make them better. Hope is built on the actions of others around the world and through time who have showed us pathways to challenge inequality and to build lasting legacies of dignity. We know these lessons that we learn from one another hold the most impact because people push institutions to change. People take care of each other in these times of chaos and violence. People make these degrees meaningful through the promise of what we'll do with them together. And ultimately, all of this brings us back into this room where we are continually continuing to bet courageously and incredulously on people. And so wherever we go after today, whatever role we take on in education, I hope will be too much. Too much for the status quo, too much for business as usual, too much to allow injustices to continue in our name. I hope we embody what John Lewis has called good trouble. But to do so, we need our community with us. To quote Dr. Maya Angelo again. Nobody but nobody makes it out here alone. I made it here because of the unwavering support of Profano Lopez, Katy de los Rios, Miss Papas, Miss Papas, Miss Armanos, Missos, Miss Amigos, M Pro. And I know the same is true for each of us here today. Nobody made it alone. So as I reiterate my initial gratitude for your presence, I know that the question about what is too much is answered by every single person in this hall because you all blood family and chosen family have helped us to imagine and build audacious projects of hope by teaching us to be who we are and by teaching us how to fight for dignity. So as to as much as today is about celebrating our accomplishments, it's also about celebrating the people who have walked beside us, both those physically present and the ancestors that we carry with us. So to my fellow graduates and my newly minted doctors, may our compromis build a better future. May we start some good trouble and may we always be too damn much. Congratulations, class of 2026. Thank you so much Christina. I appreciate the uh reflection in particular on the compos. And I just want to say what amazing student speakers we have had today. Let's give them another round of applause. And now it is my great pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker, Katherine E. Layman. Katherine E. Layman is the inaugural executive director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy, and she is the former US Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education under both Presidents Obama and Biden. Throughout Katherine's career, she has been a tireless advocate for educational equity, civil rights, and the protection of students dignity and opportunity. her leadership as assistant secretary for civil rights, as chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights, and as a litigator for organizations like the ACLU, the National Center for Youth Law, and the Public Council Law Center has helped shape national conversations about access, belonging, and justice and education. Please join me with warm welcome to Katherine Layman. Dean Young, thank you for the invitation to speak today and for your leadership of this extraordinary school. And to the faculty and the staff of the School of Education, thank you for your crucial work every day. And most of all, congratulations to the students who are graduating today and your loved ones who are here with you to celebrate. Graduates, your commitment to education reflects your strength of character, which we've heard about already from our previous speakers. You've chosen to focus your gifts on the social sector where you can do the most profound and far-reaching good to shape lives in your and our community. I admire you. I applaud you. And I urge you not to lose sight of the importance and the responsibility of using your gifts in exactly that way to do the most good. As much as today is a celebration, and it is, congratulations again. Today is also as important a time as any in the history of our country to focus on the responsibility that follows from the degrees you have earned. Each of you has taken on the charge to educate other minds or to shape education policy or to train other educators in how to do their work or in other essential ways to shape and prepare our populace to be whom they dream of being. There is no more weighty or awesome responsibility than the ones you have chosen. And in a school of education whose slogan reminds you to educate as if democracy depends on it, there is no more urgent time for your charge. You earn your degrees, as we've heard today, at an acutely polarized time in this country and specifically an acutely polarized time regarding education, your chosen field. Those realities will make the hard work that you have prepared yourself for even more particularly hard. I hope you will find that challenge an honor and also a call to action. I know because of the degrees you've chosen that you do not shy away from challenge. Educating someone's beloved child is definitionally hard. As is writing policy for how people should be educated and about what they will be taught. as is researching who learns and how and developing the evidence base for what works for every learner. Kudos to every one of you for stepping to the plate for what is hard. And I hope you will hold fast to the conviction every day that you are equal to the task and also that this great country depends on you. American democracy is and always has been fragile and frequently undemocratic. With astonishing low points in our history when in spite of our aspirational equality and fairness aims, we as a nation have agreed and been complicit in vastly undemocratic activities over and over and over again. For example, the Japanese internment during which some 120,000 Americans were forced from their homes and cities and held under military guard in concentration camp prison conditions fenced in by barbed wire. We also as a nation have been complicit in the proliferation of slavery, demeaning black persons as less than full people. And we have been complicit in government programs such as the US Park Police in 1947 targeting gay men for arrest and intimidation during what it called its sex perversion elimination program. And we have been complicit in government prosecution of American citizens merely for anti-war statements during World War I. And before that, the Sedition Act of 1798 criminalized criticizing the government. Those are ugly examples among many in our history of our country not fulfilling our democracy aspirations of a government for the people. What we know, if we know our history, is that fair and equal treatment at the hands of our government is not a given. And we also can hold fast to the reality that we have triumphed over these pasts, determining not to continue them and making some, I think, insufficient but some strides toward rectifying them, which should give us a basis for hope. Even as we know today, if we are consumers of any news, that education takes place now under the most directive presidential administration ever regarding what can be taught, thought, and understood in schools at all levels. and that we dangerously veer toward pervasive federal government action that again denigrates some among us as less valuable members of our democratic community than others. So as you take your degrees today in this freighted time, please remember that this is not the first freighted time and that there is a path forward even now. The story of our democracy is that we fight for it. Kretta Scott King famously told us in her autobiography that freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation. President Lyndon Johnson articulated that same theme when he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law, saying, "Those who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning." That fight is now ours. We are who can and must secure our freedom and build a base for freedom for the generations who will come after us by renewing and enlarging the meaning of what it is to be free. I have spent a career studying and working to rectify the impact of inequitable opportunity in schools on American society and on individuals development. in all of that work, litigating against unequal conditions in the in schooling for students and enforcing federal civil rights in schools and evaluating and setting national policy for fair treatment in schools. I confirmed what our history long teaches. Education teaches lessons in worth and community engagement and who counts in our democracy. Particularly in this time now when we dangerously lean toward lessons in inequality and subjugation in schools through executive orders and executive actions directing what skewed versions of history can be taught in schools and federal weaponization of civil rights laws to create hierarchies of identity valuation and political devaluation of academic inquiry and scientific understanding. We need to rally a national consensus around our core aspirations for education. The time is urgent now for this nation's education community to generate and sustain free inquiry, community engagement, and sound and thorough knowledge foundations. The work of educators now and of education researchers and policymakers now is to train America not in what to think, but certainly in how to think and how to participate in our messy democracy and to foster the sharpening of ideas. reasoning through ideas for how we should participate school by school, community by community, year in and year out. The job is to train America how to be America and how to fulfill our founding aspirations for equal treatment for all and for a government that serves us all and respects our liberty, our rights, and our freedom to be whom we are. Our democracy's guard rails depend on people using them. And some of you are who will teach people how to use them. For which I deeply thank you. Now and in any time a welleducated public who know and have practice using democratic tools will be better equipped to ensure that a government is responsive to the people and functions as our nation's laws command. It is long past time for this country to understand and act on the principle that effective education is equal in its opportunity. Its success rests on nurturing all students capacity to discern, test, and debate as independent and successful thinkers. And I hope every one of you will find ways to model what our democracy needs. Inclusion, high expectation, support, respect, and dignity for every learner. We should communicate in school that we want for every student what I want and have wanted for my own two beloved children. schools that are ready for them. I hope you will remember as teachers in schools and education leaders and education policy pushers what you learned here at Berkeley. That you need to educate as if democracy depends on it. It does. And you have as each of us has agency to defend our democracy and help us to achieve the equal treatment under law that we have aspired to since our founding documents as a country and have never yet fully realized. Now is our time with you leading the charge within and across schools. That work will mean treating every lesson in every class as a lesson in democratic participation. So science teachers who teach scientific inquiry are conscious while teaching the periodic table of elements that they are also teaching students how to challenge test and dispute to be open to proof and to findings that are counterintuitive and to act on evidence-based conclusions. All of which are essential skills for democratic participation. Likewise, language arts teachers can follow my high school Spanish teachers model, assigning students to debate current events in a language that is not their home language. I still remember the frustration and challenge I felt trying to argue policy regarding the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s in my high school Spanish class. And I am here to tell you that that experience of trying to make points that so mattered to me in a language that had been foreign to me powerfully incentivized my mastery of the Spanish language at the time. Similarly, teachers of younger children are teaching democratic engagement skills when they teach their students to keep their hands to themselves and to wait their turn in line and to push other students on the swings while awaiting their own turn for a ride. In learning these lessons, young children are learning how to participate in community and that communities thrive when we respect, include, and support each other. And the teachers among us do not hold the charge alone. education policymakers can and I hope you will find ways to innovate to ensure that schools are places where people can expand their minds and learn the value of everyone in their community. For one example of such a practice, the state of Pennsylvania funds a pilot curriculum to teach K12 students about the political, economic, and social contributions of individuals with disabilities. Their state superintendent says that by integrating disability focused lessons across subjects from history to literature to science, the state helps its students gain a fuller understanding of the world and a deeper appreciation for all people within it. Do that work. when I have litigated school cases and when I was the chief civil rights enforcer in the nation's schools developing national policy and identifying practical remedies for discriminatory harm, I always relied on education research showing proof points of the possible. We won't see productive forward paths without that research evidence. now and always. We need it and we need it to be rigorous and unassalable. And on that evidence point, we have so much evidence over such a long time of the value of ordinary and extraordinary people using their power to ensure responsive governance. describing only a few. David Halberstein published a book called The Children, chronicling youth leaders of the civil rights movement, whose activism caused dramatic restructuring of federal and local government actions to discontinue specific practices requiring black people to eat at different lunch counters from white people, among many other discriminatory practices then required in law and enforced through ugly and deathly retrenchment. And we know the McCarthy period in this country of federal government repression of thought and association based on innuendo and accusation famously ended after years of congressional hearings that resulted in lost jobs and opportunity for countless Americans. after attorney Joseph Welch objected during a televised hearing to Senator McCarthy's accusation against a colleague, saying, "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?" Everyday heroes live and work among us in every time. From the youth leaders David Halberstam wrote about for history, many of whose names have generally been lost to that history, but who include my mom, to attorney Joseph Welch, who seized a moment he saw during a McCarthy era congressional testimony to stake a claim for turning the tide of history to protect more of us from anti-democratic repression visited through the federal ederal government in that awful time. We need our schools to equip those everyday ordinary and extraordinary people today and in our future to be ready and numerous when the time comes. Each time the time comes, your massive charge is to prepare the schools to prepare the students to participate in their communities. effectively and to conceive and provide the conditions for equal learning in every school for every generation to come. In this time, as in every time, the people who will stop us from division and exclusion and dimmonition and hate are people who know how to think and reason and argue and innovate. who are prepared with knowledge foundations of what has been and are ready to conceive both what can be and what should be and are equipped with the confidence and courage to lead. You graduates have the degrees and education and capacity to shape our future. And I thank you and I urge you to work now and always for the public good we need. I hope too that if you remember anything from this commencement address after today, you will remember these points. I thank you for your commitment to education. I believe in you to foster curiosity and fairness and equal treatment in school. And I rely on you to do those things because our democracy needs that from you. So now go forth and do good things. Thank you so much, Katherine, for those inspiring and timely remarks. Please me join me in another round of applause for our keynote. So, we are now at the point in our program where we are going to confer degrees to our Berkeley School of Ed graduates. And we are delighted to have with us today vice provost of undergraduate education and distinguished professor of mechanical engineering Oliver O'Reilly who will confer our degrees. As vice provost, Oliver O'Reilly provides leadership for many of Berkeley's most important undergraduate initiatives, including the Berkeley Changemaker Program, Berkeley Discovery, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and the American Culture Center, while also helping to guide strategy around equity, student experience, and enrollment. He's a renowned scholar as well in continuum mechanics and nonlinear dynamics and holder of the Paul Ray Distinguished Chair. Oliver really brings joy and a deep commitment to academic excellence to BC Berkeley and we're so pleased to have him leading undergraduate education here. Please join me in welcoming Oliver Thank you so much. Good morning. Good afternoon, Golden Bears. I've been to several commencements and all of our graduates are in immensely distinguished. But in this moment in time, and given the importance of education, you, I would argue, are our most important graduates this year. And I thank you for the thousands of lives you will transform in the years to come. I hope if ever I have grandchildren that they're fortunate enough to meet you in your classrooms. So will the candidates for Bachelors of Science please rise if you are able? I ask you to take one moment to make sure that the tassel on your cap is on the right side. I always have challenges with that, too. >> Okay. >> I'm Apologies. You're supposed to come up on stage now. >> Yeah. Apologies. Please come up on stage. um read and then you can make my part. Okay. >> Okay. >> Um >> the professor and director of undergraduate programs, Dr. Erin Murphy Graeme, will assist with the recognition of the undergraduate candidates. Grace Caroline Beashore, Elelliana Panina Becker, >> Raymond Chong, >> Devin Cogshell, Dallas Victoria Cuadero, Joanna Davin Harold, >> Sabina Not >> Esmeralda Lopez, >> Miranda, Isabelle, Ma Tungai, Leah Isabella Martinez, Maya Marcado Garcia, >> Stevie Lauren Navaro, Alba Navas, Lillian Mihong Wyn, Cindy Wyn, Ella Nikvar, Randolph, Antiveros, >> Jasmine, Oriana, Shaan, Ren, Martha, Andrea Tapia Lopez, Crystal Nak Nantai, Abigail Isara, BEIA. Helen Vo, >> Ruchen Zoo, >> Mimi Young, >> Jennifer Cat, Fen Tran, Thank you very uh once more. Will the candidates for the Bachelor of Science degree please stand? By the authority vested in me by the president and chancellor, I grant you the degrees of Bachelor of Science. You now may now move the tassel from your right to the left, signifying your graduates from one of the finest universities on the planet. Congratulations. >> Yeah. No, that's fine. >> Thank you so much, Vice Provost O'Reilly. And congratulations again, our Bachelors of Science graduates. You may be seated. For graduate students, conferral involves a special recognition called the hooding ceremony. And during this ceremony, a faculty member will place the hood over the head of the graduate, which signifies their success in completing their program. The hood colors are also symbolic and they're determined by the institutions from which they graduate as well as their academic disciplines. The hoods that the BSE students um are and will soon be wearing are specifically do designed for their degree programs here at Berkeley. The students who were graduating um with the masters of arts will be wearing white and students graduating with their educational doctorate will be wearing hoods that um bear light blue which signifies the field of education. And students graduating with the doctorate of philosophy will wear hoods of royal blue. Associate professor Tasha Sgupta Irving is going to be assisting us with the recognition of our graduate candidates. Will the candidates for masters of arts degree please rise and come forward to be hooded? The following candidates are receiving the Master of Arts degree in education. The master's candidates are from our Berkeley teacher education program and they will also be receiving a secondary teaching credential in English or social science. They will be hooded by NeAs Wetszel Deepiel and Kyle Beck. Oh, my apologies. Stop. Reverse that. The following candidates are receiving the Master of Arts degree in education in cultural studies of sports education. They will be hooded by Derek Van Reinan, >> Nicole Danielle Brunic Cardi, Achille Calhoun. >> Good job. Marcel Marcel Michael Dancy >> Kaylee Scootia Alexis Garcia. Yeah. >> Luca Luich. >> Chase. Chase Nicholas Meyer, >> Jovon Pulledo. Gaspar Gomez Coronel to be hooded by Zeus Leonardo. >> I'll take it. Jesse Clemens to be hooded by Zeus Leonardo. >> Valeria Ponetto to be hooded by Gina Garcia. Come on. >> Gara Martin to be hooded by Gina Garcia. Veronica Leu to be hooded by Michelle Young. >> Nikki Naseri to be hooded by Libby Gerard. KC to be hooded by Laaua Ster pony. Hema gets to be hooded by Tani Britain. Come on, Dorian. Please >> Sago Issa to be hooded by Travis Bristol. The following M's candidates are from our Berkeley teacher education program. They will be receiving a secondary teaching credential in English or social science. Adrien Arnold And as mentioned earlier, these candidates are being hooded by Neas Wetto and Kyle Beckham. Lyanna Bgado Zan >> Wendy Ortuno CORTEZ Jonathan Vincent Fusco. Sorry, Theo Star Gardner. Kate Gilbert. Julia Hecky. Jennifer Jimenez. Alec Chung Lassert. Ricky Recall Zonalis Paras Martinez. Asia Marie Odigard. Julia Heisu Park. Ryan Marvelis Pocus, >> Alandre Sanchez. Mo Santos. Hildana Civatu. Woo! >> Caitlyn Chow Tharp Ivonne Vegas. Kaylee May Villa Roman Mallerie Anne Wely. Ain Kim Wise Samuel Oliver Ye. >> The following master's candidates are also from our Berkeley teacher education program and they will be receiving a secondary teaching credential in mathematics or science. Ni esposa, Genevieve Basil. Summer Lynn Hey, >> leta Lugo Franco Kimberly Vianne Keyi. Pretty radhan. Donald McKe Ratcliffe Allison Lucia Moreno Rivas Maria Maria Elena Rodriguez Sanchez The following M's candidates are also from our Berkeley teacher education program and they will be receiving an elementary teaching credential. Elena Karolina Antonio Shar Beno. Emma Christie Winston Chu. Becky Gonzalez. Thank you. Alexis Arianiano Hernandez. YES. >> Cen Lou. Emma Low. Kyla Rosso Luna McGee. Catherine Malone, >> Sophie. MORENO >> Jayen Marmmolejo. Come on out if you'd like. >> Samantha Camila Martinez. Yes, >> Noel Wy Martinez. Cat Morgan. Amanda Paddton. Eric Ramirez. Wow. Sabah Shaklami. No problem. Jordan Noel Sneed. Keep going. Isan de Petano. Annette Elena Elias Halpurn. the Following the following M's candidates are from our principal leadership institute program and they will also be receiving an administrative service credential. They will be hooded by program faculty Jabari Mahiri and Saraya Sablo Sutton. Ryan Anthony Norasel Ashure Rocky Shiesta. Alifier Monteel Thomas Davis Yes. Francis Estabio. Victoria Rosales Manisel. Zuben who? Adriana Nicole John Pierre down. Yeah, there you go. That's good. Kathy Lockach, >> Emily Springhart. Will the candidates for the masters of arts degrees. Please stand by by one minute please. By virtue of the authority vested in me by the president and chancellor, I grant you your master of arts degree. Congratulations and go Bears. Please be seated. Thank you, Vice Provost, and congratulations to our Masters of Arts students. Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean of the Berkeley School of Education, Glenda Hull will assist Professor Supta Irving with the recognition of our next set of candidates. I'm pleased to present the Doctor of Education and the Doctor of Philosophy candidates. Will the Doctor of Education and the Doctor of Philosophy candidates please rise? We ask that you kindly hold your applause until after Professor Hull has read the faculty commentary about the graduate. Ivonne Camila Vargas to be hooded by Bruce Fuller. An experienced early educator, Ivonne knows how high quality child care settings can lift the early growth of youngsters. Her research asks how prek directors conceive of then implement efforts to improve quality, building richly engaging settings for young children. Congratulations, Ivonne. Irma Munoz Daniels to be hooded by Aaron Murphy Graham. >> In California's alternative schools, 85% of students are students of color and the principles who lead them have been almost entirely absent from research. Ra herself an alternative school principal has written a brilliant dissertation that fills this gap. What sustains this leadership? Intentional relationships, the dismantling of structural and cultural barriers, and a discipline of collective hope. Felicia Ma Rosanna Janette Ays to preserve confidentiality. Rosanna asks study participants to choose a tree pseudonym. This is how I got to know lemon tree, incense cedar, valley oak, and a whole forest of educators who bend and twist but hold strong through the storms of public education. Rosanna herself is perhaps the most deeply rooted of all. Ankita Rake to be hooded by Tlani Britain. Dr. Ankita Rake's work on free speech and inclusion from the perspective of student affairs, women of color leaders demonstrates thoughtfulness, reflective practice, and care. I know that she will continue to apply her findings to support our student affairs professionals and our students in service of making our campus places of learning and interrogation. >> Sarah Stone to be hooded by Frank Warl. In her dissertation, Sarah Stone examined the intersections of gender and race in relation to transformational leadership in schools. An advocate for equity, she believes that all children deserve a joyful, inclusive, and empowering education. As superintendent of Albany Unified and a BSE graduate, she is dedicated to cultivating justiceoriented leaders and transforming educational systems. Malcolm Patrice Norington to be hooded by Jabari Mahiri. Informed by critical race theory and African-American male theory, Malcolm Norington, a school principal himself, employed ethnographic interview and document analysis methodology to develop novel findings on how African-American male principles in California navigate systemic barriers in their work to create equity centered school environments, particularly for students who are most marginalized. Muhammad Soraniano Bilal in the current socopolitical context of attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. Muhammad Soraniano Bilal used qualitative methodology, including extensive interview data, to investigate and document how senior higher education leaders participated in communities of practice and utilized organizational change management strategies as critical levers for equity focused institutional change. Ben J. Phills Ben's doctoral research asks questions about the educational opportunities within carceral spaces, whose voices are most listened to in post-secondary educational policym and the dynamic exchange of ideas between institutions and civil society. Ben centers transformative justice in his work here at UC Berkeley as an administrator in the division of student affairs. My apologies. Ben J. Phills was hooded by Dr. Travis Bristol and similarly Brian R. Simmons to be hooded by Travis Bristol. Brian's research examines how educational leaders navigate the opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence in public education. Your work reflects a deep commitment to equity, thoughtful leadership, and improving systems for students and educators alike. I know you will continue to bring insight, integrity, and innovation to educational leadership. Congratulations, Brian. Alexandria Crerier Khan to be hooded by Tesa Sangupta Irving. Alex is a leader of leaders, inspiring others with her brilliance, grace, humor, and heart. As a scholar, she reads with great care and depth. Her research on social justice teacher residency programs will invite new policies and practices for the field. Teacher, leader, student, friend, mother, wife, and now we add doctor. Congratulations. Guthrie Fleshman to be headed by Tesha Sang Gupta Irving. >> Guthrie never thought of himself as a scholar in his youth, but oh, how he has improved himself wrong. His research on how community schools advance equitable opportunities for students and families is a project both substantive and personal. He crosses this stage with doctorate in hand while holding family and community in his heart. >> Queenie Dong to be hooded by Chunyang Yang. Queenie, Dr. Dawn, your dissertation, Navigating Racialization in Education, offers a powerful systems level examination of risk and resilience among Asian-American students, educators, and leaders. Your scholarship brings needed visibility to racism related stress, racialized expectations, and affinity spaces. We are so proud of you as you begin your faculty career at the University of Arizona. Congratulations >> Mark Mark Palmer to be hooded by Frank Warl. In his research, Mark Palmer examines the psychology of hope across cultures and the presentation and treatment of ADHD with particular emphasis on underserved girls and women. After graduation, Mark plans to reflect on his future clinical practice while fly fishing in mountain streams where his where his clearest thinking and greatest sense of hope tend to emerge. Michaela Elizabeth Jones to be hooded by Travis Bristol. Michaela's research is her heart work. How children persist against adversities and reimagine a future in their own non-conforming world. She will continue her pursuit of youth justice by working as a school psychologist in Oakland Unified. Her her practice is finding other folks who embody radicalism and patience. Everything is for her late mother, Susanna. Siki Huang to be hooded by Alan Shonfeld. Si's dissertation provides a pathbreaking analysis of the dynamics of identity change as a function of experience and a model of a counterpace that has beneficial impacts on students who are struggling with mathematics. It's an auspicious beginning to what is sure to be an impactful career. Onward CG >> Christina Selena Menddees to be hooded by Patricia Bakadano Lopez. >> Christina, your dissertation is an excellent model of socially engaged scholarship. Your rigorous study of Mayaom women's leadership and pedagogy across Guatemala, Mexico, and the US is already influencing our field. I look forward with joy to your research as a presidential post-doal fellow in American studies at the University of Maryland. Congratulations, Dr. MENDES. Meg Everett to be hooded by Glenda Hull. >> Trailblazing researcher, master teacher, and instructional designer. Par excellence. Meg Everett studies the complex interplay between social media platforms and formal schooling environments. Using Tik Tok as a case, her dissertation importantly asks, "How do everyday digital technologies transform school boundaries and relationships? How do we make meaning and exercise agency within our platform mediated world? Congratulations, Meg. Patrick Hanlin to be hooded by Anne Cunningham. Patrick Hanland's work examines the ways that parents support children's thinking, learning, and self-regulation across culturally and linguistically diverse context. Drawing from developmental psychology, education, and quantitative methodology, his research reflects both intellectual curiosity and careful scholarship. Congratulations, Patrick. >> Himlan Inserte to be hooded by Anne Cunningham. Himlan Ensearte has brought exceptional rigor, creativity and intellectual curiosity to the study of reading development. His dissertation demonstrates how speech influences phone segmentation across English and Spanish, offering important new perspectives for literacy learning and instruction. It's been a joy and a privilege to mentor him and watch him grow as a scholar. Abigail Slovic to be hooded by Bruce Fuller. Abby Slovic digs into the provocative question of whether schools change for the better in the wake of the COVID pandemic. She uncovered dramatic organizational changes which stuck in places like Compton, Miltitus, and the Central Valley. Many schools now focus on the holistic growth of students, not just test scores. Some high schools have moved beyond dry classrooms to engage kids in real life projects from building robots to energizing community actions. Well done, Abby. >> Kevin Gintterero to be hooded by Bruce Fuller. Kevin's ambitious dissertation explores how local Latina communities can leverage the law and existing organiz organizing infrastructure to gain representation and advance policy changes that support Latina students educational outcomes. Sitting at the intersection of voting rights representation and district level policymaking, his work shines light on the complexities and possibilities inherent in expanding racial representation. >> Rati Aayou Absari. Rati Aayou Absari is a learning scientist working at the intersection of epistemology, culture, and cognition. A design-based researcher, Rotti creates culturally situated learning activities where young students draw on local perceptual practice to develop deep understanding of fundamental mathematical concepts. Her well-published doctoral studies investigated innovative activities for grounding uklitian geometry in balan dance. >> Kelly Billings Yadav to be hooded by Libby Gerard. Kelly's amazing research practice partnership integrates social justice and science instruction as students analyze inequalities in access to health care in two contexts the COVID pandemic and healthc care discrimination illustrated by Hen Henrietta Lax experiences. She continues her stunning leadership as a teacher educator and learning project manager at the Tech Interactive Museum. Wei Ying Wei Ying Lee to be hooded by Libby Gerard. We Ying Lee's impressive PhD research program features a research practice partnership that iteratively designed AI adapted dialogues and studied their impact on students ability to link photosynthesis, school gardens, and food access. She studied over 5,000 students and their teachers, deafly supporting teachers to align their goals with instructional customizations and to increase equitable outcomes. Congratulations, wea Kim to be hooded by Elliot Tia. Yuna is a graduate of our PhD program in human development and education with a background in sociology and philosophy. She has applied these areas to her excellent research on moral reasoning about the value of life as well as judgments in the context of diminished quality of life entailing suffering and pain. Congratulations Yuna >> Prince Estanislau to be hooded by Elliot Tiel and Marissa Mitch. Prince Estanis Laauo is in the joint doctoral program in special education with San Francisco State. His research assesses the preparedness of professionals to support students who may have experienced traumatic events. He identifies training needs and challenges leading to the creation of professional development programs related to traumainformed practices and inclusion for young children. Very good important work. Jquelyn Anton to be hooded by Dora Abramson and Amber Fes. Jquelyn Anton is a learning scientist working in the field of special education. A design-based researcher of mathematical cognition. Jacqueline investigates interactive environments where students learn concepts by solving movement problems. Her well-published doctoral studies developed a pedagogical method enabling students with learning disabilities to close the achievement gap through fullbody enactment of arithmetic procedures. Congratulations, Jacqueline. >> Isabella Chanet Brown to be hooded by Jabari Mahiri and Kathleen Mortier. Isabella Brown's dissertation in UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University's joint special education doctoral program revealed both subtle and overt ways that race and culture impacted procedures and decisions for assigning individualized education plans or IEPs to African-American students as well as how their parents exercised agency to mitigate inequities in these processes. Congratulations, Isabella. John Kim to be hooded by Lauder Seronyi and Gloria Sto. Speech language pathologist and augmentative and alternative communication specialist. John's doctoral work advanced a model for participatory helpgiving practices in augmentative and alternative communication with a particular focus on minoritized families. This summer he will be returning to Southern California where he's from to take up a faculty position at Cal State Fullerton. Congratulations, John. Meg Elena Escade to be hooded by me. Meg Escade, a learning sciences graduate, will be joining the UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science as a post-doal fellow. Her design-based study, Mediated Practice and the Educational Paradox of Youth Centered afterchool programs, examines how afterchool educators negotiate the contradictory expectations and programming that define the purposes of their work with children. Congratulations, Meg. Oh, >> we go. >> This is It's way back here. We're going as fast as we can. >> Here we go. >> Will the candidates for the Doctor of Education degree please stand? By virtue of the authority vested in me by the president and chancellor, I grant you your degree, Doctor of Education. Congratulations. >> Please be seated. Will the candidates for the Doctor of Philosophy degree please stand? By virtue of the authority vested in me by the president and the chancellor, I grant you your degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Congratulations. You may please be seated. Congratulations to our doctors of education and philosophy. And now distinguished professor and conductor Frank Warell will lead the Berkeley School of Education choir in songs and tribute to our graduates. Good morning. Like everybody else, let me say congratulations to um the new newly minted um students, newly minted graduates of UC Berkeley and their families. Um as many of our speakers have noted, it's these are tough times. Um we're going to do a piece Dona Nobi Patcham, give us peace, a cry out into the world. um which is going to morph into a farewell to the graduates. Um we are channeling you for the faculty and ending with a spiritual for you to take your education out into the world and let your light shine. Thank you. Don't know. Don't know. No misp Watch him. Don't know. God is my heart. No, no be don't no den Bless now I must to go out in the world. Although it breaks my heart, I leave you now. I bid you farewell. I bid you farewell and I will make you proud. I bid you well and I will make you proud. You gave me your best in every class you taught. You taught it from the heart. My gratitude to you. You get my gratitude to you from the depth of my heart. My gratitude to you for all you did. My gratitude to you. My heart. I'm going to let it shine. >> This little light of mine. I'm going to let it shine. >> This little light of mine. >> This little light of mine. Let it shine. Shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. >> This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. >> This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. >> Monday, >> he gave a gift of love. >> Tuesday, >> he's came from above. >> Wednesday told me to have more faith. >> Thursday gave me a little more grace. >> Friday to watch and pray. This little light of mine, >> this little light of mine, >> I'm going to let it shine. >> This little light of mine, >> this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. >> Let it shine. Now, this little light of mine, >> this little light of mine, >> let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Thank you so much, Professor WHL. from this Berkeley Way West choir for that beautiful tribute. And thank you once again to our speakers, our faculty, our staff, families, friends, and community members who made today possible. And most importantly, congratulations to our extraordinary Berkeley School of Education graduates. Today we celebrate not only what you have achieved but what you will carry forward from this place. Your knowledge, your commitments, your imagination, and your care for others. Elswwell, you're a belief that education and what it can make possible. At a time where the world can't urgently need you more, we are so appreciative that your thoughtful, courageous, compassionate selves are going out into the world. We leave today hopeful because of all of you. Congratulations, class of 2026. And I now invite all of you to join us for a reception outside in the plaza following the procession. Guests, we ask that you please remain in your seats as the faculty and then the graduates recess and then rejoin your graduates outside in the plaza. Thank you so much and go Bears. Will the graduates please rise? Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.