While Callan encouraged graduates to find hope, Dean Dan Schwartz challenged them to set aside egos to work collaboratively.
“As you go into the world to make it better, make sure you take the time to work with people to build their future together,” he said. “Develop relationships. Encourage people to work as a team. Provide kind and useful feedback. Provide time for iteration. Welcome a range of perspectives with an open heart.”
Schwartz, the Nomellini and Olivier Professor of Educational Technology, alluded to futures in which graduates’ idealism might be tested.
“Education may be the only profession where our thesis of change is that we try to embrace all people for whom they are and where they come from, yet we also try to change them,” he said.
“My modest proposal is that you need to do change with people, not to people,” he added.
The messages of hope and inclusion resonated with Jessica Mary Brownell, MA ’19, Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP), who begins teaching this fall at Coliseum College Preparatory School in Oakland.
Brownell crossed the stage with her children, Jaimie, 10, and Trevor, 11.
“They’re the reason I continue to strive,” Brownell said. “They give me reason to continue to strive for education for myself and for better education for everyone. Everyone should have a right to that ladder.”
The degrees for 2019 consist of 22 PhD and 182 master’s degrees. The GSE also held a ceremony on June 14 to recognize 20 graduating seniors who completed the undergraduate minor or honors in education.
The graduates are pursuing careers as policy makers, teachers, school administrators, entrepreneurs, professors, nonprofit leaders and for-profit executives. Some will be taking charge of classrooms in the Bay Area, many will be working with children overseas. Others will be joining ed-tech initiatives in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Nadine Ann Skinner, who received her PhD in International Comparative Education (ICE), had the double celebration of her own commencement and that of her students, as she has been a teaching assistant for three years in ICE’s master’s program.
“My cause for optimism is this,” Skinner said, indicating the festive commencement scene, including graduates posing for pictures with their families. “There are attacks on education all over the world. Yet you can’t help but feel optimistic, knowing that these people [the graduates] are going back to wherever they’re going back to and making a difference.”
View a slideshow of the diploma ceremony and festivities