ASU graduates urged to cherish and strengthen their communities
 Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander speaks at spring Undergraduate Commencement

By Mary Beth Faller, ASU News
May 12, 2025

Arizona State University has its largest graduating class ever this semester — with more than 21,000 degree-earners — as thousands celebrated their new degrees at spring 2025 commencements on Monday.

About 13,700 undergraduates and 7,300 graduate students completed their degrees this semester. Of the total, nearly 7,400 students earned their degree through ASU Online.

ASU President Michael Crow addressed the crowd during Undergraduate Commencement on Monday night at Mountain America Stadium. He said that ASU’s charter was born out of the battle for democracy that started 250 years ago when American colonists took up arms against the British — before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

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“That led to inalienable rights guaranteed for each of you sitting in this stadium,” he said.

“The one we focus on is the right to learn — to be the person you want to be.”

Crow said that ASU exists to create lifelong learners.

“We want you to be able to adapt, to be able to adjust and to recognize how to move our country forward,” he said.

Elizabeth Alexander, a multiple Pulitzer Prize finalist and now the president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of the arts and humanities, received an honorary degree for contributions to the cultural health of American society.

She told the crowd how she knew Arizona native and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (for whom ASU’s law college is named) years ago in Washington, D.C., when O’Connor ran a small exercise class for women in the neighborhood.

“It was not just a morning exercise routine. It was the importance of community large and small, and accountability to each other and interest and care in other people as whole people,” she said.

Alexander urged the graduates to cherish and strengthen their communities.

“It is the communities we build, not our individual achievements alone, that have the greatest impact on our collective American experiment,” she said.

David Zaragoza, a student regent with the Arizona Board of Regents, graduated on Monday night with a degree in electrical engineering. He told the crowd that coming from Yuma to a large university was a challenge.

“What this journey taught me is that with determination and the support of your loved ones, you can exceed your expectations and find a purpose greater than yourself through education,” he said.

“College represents not only a time to learn but a time to broaden your worldview.”

At Monday morning’s Graduate Commencement in Desert Financial Arena in Tempe, Crow told the crowd that universities are the bearers of humanity’s knowledge.

“We take that stored information, that stored knowledge, that stored understanding, and we develop theories and assumptions,” he said.

“The whole country of the United States is based on a series of academic writings about what is a person, academic writings about what is liberty, academic theories about how a democracy might work.

“The United States itself is a model country evolving a form of government that was theorized by a group of intellectuals capable of expressing new ideas.

“This institution has been designed by our citizens to perform these functions.”

Additional graduation celebrations will be held throughout the week.

This story originally appeared on ASU News.