McInnis celebrates Yale College seniors — and the promise of ‘our common humanity’

In her first Baccalaureate address as Yale’s 24th president, Maurie McInnis on Sunday urged members of the exceptionally large Yale College Class of 2025 to see the potential in our shared humanity for overcoming differences.

“We can, at once, have a resolute mind and an open heart — one that holds hope for peace, and for a day when our common humanity triumphs over our deepest divisions,” she said in a speech that drew heavily on episodes in American history for lessons about navigating the world the graduates will enter following commencement.

From Yale’s first century, Baccalaureate ceremonies have been held the day before Commencement. The tradition today includes an address from the university president to the senior undergraduates and their families.

McInnis opened her remarks by celebrating some of the many triumphs the soon-to0-be graduates — approximately 1,800 in all — had already proved themselves capable of.

“You started out as the COVID pandemic was just beginning to wane,” she said. “You helped Yale to revitalize campus life. You have been pioneers in navigating the new frontier of generative AI in the classroom. You count among your ranks Rhodes, Marshall, Goldwater, and Schwarzman scholars — and even an Olympic medalist. And you have distinguished yourselves not only in size, but in spirit, as Yale’s largest class since the Second World War.”

The world they’ll encounter beyond Phelps Gate, the main portal to Yale’s Old Campus, is one in which “common ground feels hard to find, and still harder to sustain,” however, she said.

“When you entered Yale, partisan rancor had reached historic levels,” McInnis said. “And now, as you depart, polls suggest that many think of the opposing party as not just misguided, but, quote, ‘downright evil.’”

Frayed trust in institutions, she said, can keep Americans from working together for the common good. 

Speaking as an educator and as a parent, she said, she wrestles with a pair of key questions: 

“In a world so fragmented, how do we find our way back to one another? How can we shape our shared future when the ties that bind us feel so tenuous, if not already broken?”

A Yale-trained art historian, McInnis turned to an artwork from the Yale University Art Gallery collection for answers, focusing on John Trumbull’s celebrated painting “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill.” The canvas marks that moment, 250 years ago in June, when a band of American rebels stood their ground on a hillside in Charlestown, then just north of Boston, against the might of the British military. 

In Trumbull’s painting, the scene unfolds beneath acrid plumes of smoke as British forces breach the revolutionaries’ lines. Joseph Warren, an American major general, lies mortally wounded in the arms of a comrade. A redcoat tries to bayonet the fallen general — but British Major John Small has stepped in to stop him. 

“In that moment, one man preserves the dignity of a dying foe with an unexpected gesture of compassion amid chaos,” McInnis said. “One man, taming the passions of war, chooses mercy. Chooses to see the man who was his friend, instead of the general of an opposing force.”

In highlighting Small’s intervention, McInnis said, Trumbull invites viewers to recognize a frequently overlooked kind of courage: The ability to show compassion to a bitter adversary.

“Compassion, as I suspect Major Small understood, is not the absence of conviction. It is not weakness,” she said. “And it is certainly not retreat. It is, in fact, an act of radical strength in its rarest form. It is the idea that even in our most consequential disagreements — that even when the stakes are as significant as life and liberty — we must find ways to recognize our common humanity.”

And displaying compassion does not mean avoiding conflict or denying differences, McInnis said. 

“In a vibrant, pluralistic society, disagreement is inevitable, indeed welcomed,” she said in her speech, titled “Overcoming divides and embracing our shared humanity.”

“But what I would like to impress on you today is that compassion can coexist with our most deeply held beliefs.”

McInnis reminded graduates that they have spent the past four years in an environment “that celebrates the balance of excellence and empathy, rigorous thought and human connection.”

She called on them to heed what they’ve learned at Yale when pursuing their ideals. And she urged them to heed the humanity depicted in Trumbull’s painting by choosing to be guided by a spirit of compassion even in moments of profound conflict.

“As you prepare to pass through Phelps Gate one last time as students, know that you leave this place with both our congratulations and our confidence,” she said. “A deep and abiding confidence that you will, indeed, be the bearers of our banner — one of knowledge and understanding, leadership and service, light and truth.”

Read President McInnis’ full speech.