Bennington College Celebrates 90th Commencement with the Biggest Class of the Institution's 93-year History
On Saturday, May 31, 2025, 244 members of Bennington College’s Class of 2025 gathered, along with their family members and friends, faculty, staff, and leadership, in Greenwall Auditorium on campus to receive their degrees.
Graduates hailed from thirty-two states and twenty-eight countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam, and ranged in age from 20 to 61.
The institution conferred twenty-four master’s degrees in dance, 203 bachelor’s degrees, and 17 bachelor’s of fine arts degrees in dance. Undergraduate students studied Advancement of Public Action; Cultural Studies and Languages; Black Studies; Dance; Drama; Environmental Studies; Literature; Music; Science & Mathematics; Society, Culture & Thought; and Visual Arts. The class of 2025 is the biggest class in the institution's 93-year history.
The College’s Brass Quartet with Percussionists, led by ensemble director and music faculty member Joseph Alpar, began the event with a remix of former music faculty member Louis Calabro’s “Ceremonial March.” President Laura Walker led the procession, followed by Nicholas Stephens ’77, the chair of the Board of Trustees.
After acknowledging the families of graduates and Bennington College’s staff, the 2025 Faculty Speaker Kerry Ryer-Parke ’90 provided her insights to and shared her beautiful singing voice with the graduates.
“By valuing the senses just as much as the intellect, and embracing the then-radical concept of learning by doing, Bennington’s founders designed a container flexible enough to hold all of us for 90 years. Our lightly held balance of structure and freedom helps the College change as the world changes,” she said.
The class of 2025 Commencement Speaker was choreographer and dancer Kyle Abraham. Abraham is the founder of the dance company A.I.M by Kyle Abraham. His An Untitled Love (2021) was a 2025 Olivier Awards nominee for Best New Production.
Abraham shared his commitment to bravely pursue his mission in life despite fears, insecurities, and feelings of imposter syndrome, and he encouraged graduates to do the same.
He said, “You all represent the hope and possibility to shift, to mold, to regroup, to restructure, revitalize and re-up the commitment for positive change that so many of us are ready for. What is your mission? What do you stand for? And who do you want to stand beside? The path forward may not be direct or linear, but I can see the roadmap to a better, brighter, empathetic, responsible, resilient, fortifying, and hopeful future right in front of me.”
Both Friday's Eve of Commencement speeches and Saturday’s Conferring of Degrees ceremony are available to watch on the College’s Commencement webpage.
Bennington graduates have exciting plans for the future. They have received offers to pursue graduate studies at American International College, Columbia University, Purdue University, Massachusetts College of Health and Pharmacology, New York University, Northwestern University, University of Michigan, and Washington University St. Louis, to name a few. Students will take time to travel and explore their fields, implement a Davis Project for Peace in the Grand Lac region of Africa, be employed as data analysts for energy consulting companies, and serve as research assistants at Boston Children’s Hospital. To read about graduates’ accomplishments at Bennington, visit bennington.edu.