With pomp and circumstance, poetry and some surprise singing, the newest graduates of The University of Baltimore celebrated their graduations across three ceremonies.
The undergraduate and graduate classes of summer and fall 2024 and spring 2025 celebrated on Wednesday, May 21 at The Lyric Baltimore. Law graduates were honored with a ceremony at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Thursday, May 22.
The graduating classes included remarkable students of all ages and backgrounds, many of whom balanced their studies with jobs, volunteer work and families. Some were the first in their families to receive a college degree.
Others were first-generation graduates who went on to earn a second degree. Among the latter was Kelly Gilliss. In finishing his MBA, he became the first student in UBalt's Second Chance College Program to earn a higher-level degree. Gilliss earned his B.A. in Human Services Administration in 2023 after starting the program when he was incarcerated.
There were 60 graduates from across three colleges who participated in a NextGen internship with UBalt's Schaefer Center of Public Policy, including undergraduate class speaker, Sabrina Noble Pereira. NextGen students have contributed 77,000 hours of public service to their host organizations.
All of these newest members of the alumni family join a network 100 years in the making. The University celebrates its Centennial this year.
“We’ve been looking back at our history, how we’ve been a part of the life of the city for a century, and what we want to do for the next 100 years,” President Kurt L. Schmoke said in his address to graduates. “I can describe our second century’s goal in a really simple way: The University of Baltimore will continue to do what we’ve always done—to engage with the community, to help solve problems, large and small, and to produce the graduates who will reach the goals of all our tomorrows.”
Students earning a master’s degree, doctoral degree or certificate were the first to walk the Lyric stage. Their ceremony included remarks from Dawn Moore, the first lady of the state of Maryland, Yvette Lewis, regent from the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, and Kristy Monique Towson, the graduate student speaker.
Moore shared a story about an idea she pitched to her husband, Gov. Wes Moore, who addressed UBalt’s 2024 graduating classes, to elevate the Preakness Stakes with a community celebration. It was his advice to her that she then imparted on UBalt graduates: “Go do it!”
“Stay connected in the work. Be bound to each other. Be open to new ways of thinking and when you come across a great idea, build on it. There is no monopoly on good ideas. …
“When you build community, know you are never alone in the work, so do it uncertain, do it unsure. Don’t let it pass you by because your ‘yes’ can say everything. That is the story of UBalt and that is the story of this class.”
Lewis urged graduates to share their success with the supporters that helped them arrive at this point and to take pride in their own sacrifices for reaching this milestone.
“Today you become an enduring part of UBalt’s proud and enduring legacy,” she said.
Never Giving Up
During Towson’s address to students, she recounted a difficult time in her life when she didn’t want to keep going. At what might have been her lowest moment, sitting in a jail cell for a house fire she set herself, someone handed her a paper and pen, igniting a light within her to write her story, and she followed the pull.
“One page turned into two pages, two pages turned into three, three into five, and before I knew it, I had a pile of paper in front of me,” she told the graduates. “I poured my heart out on the page and was able to express myself in ways I had never before, not in therapy and not even with those closest to me. I instantly felt lighter, even in the midst of jail.”
Towson, then an undergraduate student at UBalt, decided to add more writing courses to her schedule. After earning her B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2021, she returned to UBalt to pursue the MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts.
Over the years, she decided she needed to share her struggles with mental health in a memoir to help others in a similar position. As of her graduation day, she had written three books and started a publishing company to amplify voices of others with mental health experiences. She plans to start her pursuit of a PhD at University of Maryland, Baltimore County this fall to continue studying the value of writing on mental health.
“When people hear my story, they often want to know how I healed so quickly; my response is grit, prayer, determination, and tenacity, the same grit that you, class of 2025, have,” she said. “Many of us applied to our programs of choice during the uncertain times of COVID-19, and many of us still feel uncertain in today’s climate. Never forget the grit it took you to get to this point.”
Maryland poet laureate Lady Brion, an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts Class of 2018 graduate, made a surprise visit to send off graduates with an original poem, "A Future So Bright."
“The world is a galaxy of possibility. So, you'll be starlight until you supernova. Can't no black hole hold you. The only thing that can stop you that could flip the switch so that your light no longer emits is you. So, whatever you do let the world see your light.”
Undergraduates had their own surprises awaiting them. Their speakers included Dr. Joyce J. Scott, a visual and performing artist, as well as Provost Ralph Mueller, Schmoke and Pereira.
Scott quietly approached the podium and broke the silence with song, filling the theater with the powerful opening line of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.”
Scott told the graduates that she is the dream because her parents, sharecroppers, were not allowed to dream. She shared this, she said, to encourage the graduates they, too, must never give up.
“Never give up,” she repeated. “Even if you have to take a side job or something else, never, ever, ever stop because this is the one life you’ll know.”
Remember though, she added, “This life is not just for you.”
“It’s for your community. It’s for your family and friends,” Scott continued. “It’s to make the future better for others, because you are standing on the shoulders of those people who did just that for you. And I don’t mean just people who worked hard. People actually died so you could be in this situation right now and it was not that long ago.”
She closed her speech with a few lines from “This Little Light of Mine.” She then received a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Schmoke and Mueller.
Power of Community
Pereira, an international student who pursued her B.A. in Legal Studies and will now continue at UBalt Law this fall, weighed the ways the University was the nontraditional college it’s known with the traditions that make it special.
“It’s a community. It’s resilience. It’s people from all walks of life coming together to rise above challenges, to create something extraordinary,” she said.
Pereira opened her speech with a memory of a time in India when flood waters threatened her community and how that community, with her help, came together to save themselves.
“Today, as we graduate, the waters around us are rising again. Not literal floods this time, but the uncertainties of the future—the challenges of building careers, navigating a world that is constantly shifting, and figuring out who we are in the midst of it all,” she said.
“But if there’s one thing I know, it’s this: when the waters rise, so can we.”
The next day, law graduates heard from LaVonda N. Reed in what was her first commencement ceremony as the new dean of UBalt School of Law. Accompanying her on stage with their own remarks during the celebration were Schmoke; Mueller; Lisa D. Sparks, J.D. ’07; Anne B. Clevenger, the class valedictorian; and Shanae T. Jones, the 2025 student representative.
Jill P. Carter, state senator emeritus for Baltimore city, gave the keynote address.
“After three, maybe four years—shout out to the night students—outlines, essays, cold calls and existential dread, you haven’t just arrived today, you have ascended,” she told the students.
Also, during the ceremony, Jones and Rory R. Rightmyer were honored as the 2025 law faculty award recipients.
Mueller called the commencement ceremonies “beginnings day” because for the graduates, it is from here where they will go to make their mark.
“All the academic work is no good if, ultimately, it does not touch people—the client who relies on your business acumen, the citizen who depends on your public service, or the friend who gains calm from your poetry,” he told graduates. “With your willingness to lead, with your drive to make the world a better place, you will put academic knowledge to work—one client, one citizen and one friend at a time.”