Please be seated. On behalf of the Board of Trustees of Denison University, I am delighted to welcome you to Denison’s 171st Annual Commencement exercises concluding the 181st year of the college.

Class of 2012, today you become alumni. You join the distinguished men and women who have gone before you as graduates of this prominent institution. We trust that you will realize your life dreams with great accomplishments and that you will serve your communities, your nation, and your world with distinction. It is this combination of achievement and service that has characterized Denisonians throughout the years and will undoubtedly characterize the graduates who walk across the stage today.

Today we will also honor Dr. Ellen Gould Chadwick, Class of 1975, with an honorary degree. We will have the opportunity to hear remarks from Dr. Chadwick, whose work in pediatric and adolescent HIV/AIDS exemplifies the best of the kind of transformative work Denison prepares young men and women to undertake.

Today we not only mark the conclusion of your academic enterprise over the past four years, we look into the future you and others of your generation will create. Perhaps one of you will even sit where Dr. Chadwick sits today to receive an honorary degree at some future Commencement, or stand where I stand as a member of the Board of Trustees, looking out across the field of graduating Denisonians and sending them forth to make their marks on the world. Wherever life takes you, we have no doubt that you will represent your alma mater admirably.

On behalf of all alumni who have served as Trustees through the years, I thank you, Class of 2012, for joining the Denison family. You have allowed Denison to become a part of you, and you have given the college and its community much in return. Congratulations, and welcome to the Society of the Alumni!