Carleton celebrates Honors Convocation for 2024–25 academic year
As Carleton gathered for its annual Honors Convocation, students were celebrated and speeches were given on the value of resilience in tough times.
The Carleton community gathered in Skinner Chapel on Friday, May 30 at 3 p.m. for Honors Convocation, a celebration of Carleton students’ academic excellence and the culmination of the 2024–25 academic year. Honors Convo is the final event in the convocation program, a weekly Carleton tradition that this year featured speakers such as award-winning screenwriter and producer Bob Daily ’82, New York Times Connections editor Wyna Liu, renowned choreographer Kyle Abraham, Harvard professor and sociologist Theda Skocpol, and former U.S. Representative Dean Phillips. Honors Convo stands apart from the rest of the year’s programming due to its sole focus on celebrating the academic achievements of many Carls. The event also features the Bubble Brigade at the beginning and end of the program, where Carleton students blow bubbles from the Chapel balcony over the faculty’s processional and recessional.
In her opening address, President Alison Byerly spoke of Carleton students with immense pride in the face of grave times for higher education.
“What these students share is what makes Carleton special: intellectual curiosity, energetic engagement, and commitment to the hard work of learning at a time when support for higher education, for academic research, and for the kind of diverse and vibrant community we build at Carleton are in jeopardy,” she said. “It is especially valuable to have the opportunity to honor students who have excelled in a wide variety of fields, who have undertaken research or creative projects, and who have made our community stronger through their leadership and service. You represent the true promise of higher education, and the reason it’s worthy of support.”
In his salutatory address, College Chaplain Schuyler Vogel ’07 also celebrated Carls’ actions in the face of challenges.
“Despite all of this, we gather today in joy and hope,” he said. “We cheer on our classmates, whose achievements give hope to the world — what a gift you are. We cheer on the endeavor that we are all committed to at Carleton: celebrating the truth of learning and freedom and curiosity and wisdom and justice that this place represents. The world needs that now more than ever.”
In a further celebration of Carleton talent, this year’s Honors Convo featured two musical performances by senior students — the Carleton String Quartet (Kyle Machalec ’25, violin; Kara Achilles ’25, violin; Finley Sebert ’25, viola; and Rachel Gregg ’25, cello) performed a Shostakovich movement, and Carleton’s concerto competition winner Prompt Eua-anant ’25 performed a Chopin étude.
Carleton students were the recipients of more than 80 prizes, fellowships, honor society inductions, and awards in 2025. Due to the scale of achievement, this piece will only highlight some awards; the full list of honorees is available on the Honors Convo website.
This year, three Carleton seniors were awarded Thomas J. Watson Fellowships to engage in a year of independent study abroad. Mitch Porter ’25, Jonah Docter-Loeb ’25, and Victoria Semmelhack ’25 will spend their fellowships, respectively, investigating ecological memory in places of environmental loss, delving into the complexities of beaver–human dynamics, and engaging in maternal healthcare policy and Indigenous childbirth knowledge.
Narjis Nusaibah ’26 received this year’s Projects for Peace grant, awarded to students who have designed their own grassroots projects for peace around the globe. Nusaibah’s project is dedicated to facilitating breast cancer screenings and awareness programs in Bangladesh.
Anna Ursin ’25 was awarded the Rotary Foundation Global Grant Fellowship to pursue a Master’s of Philosophy in the Population Health Sciences program at the University of Cambridge, continuing her pursuit of public health studies and medicine.
Due to ongoing circumstances in international affairs and higher education, this year’s Fulbright awards are still waiting for final confirmation; however, Carleton proudly celebrated all 25 Fulbright semi-finalists at Honors Convo. This year’s semi-finalists are: Amelia Asfaw ’25, Jens Bartel ’25, Max Borden ’25, Aurora Davis ’25, Sadie DiCarlo ’25, Loren Friedman ’25, Akash Ganguly ’25, Markus Gunadi ’25, Malachy Guzman ’25, Kaori Hirano ’25, Olivia Ho ’25, Ellis Kondrashov ’25, Oliver Licht ’25, Caroline Loescher ’25, Katie O’Leary ’25, Mitch Porter ’25, Ashley Rosenberg ’25, Melina Sasaki-Uemura ’25, Victoria Semmelhack ’25, Charlie Solomon ’25, Henry Stier ’25, Sammie Ulicny ’25, Kate Ulrich ’25, Anna Ursin ’25, and Aaron Zivsak ’25. This year’s Fulbright Canada-MITACS Globalink internships — prestigious opportunities for students to participate in research at Canadian universities — were awarded to Aroma Chanda ’27 and Arielle Szycher ’26.
Carleton also celebrated the induction of 46 members into the Mortar Board national honor society, and 87 to the Phi Beta Kappa national honorary scholastic fraternity.
Carleton Student Association (CSA) President Vivian Agugo ’26 celebrated the accomplishments of Carleton students past and present in her remarks on the nature of Carleton students. After highlighting Carleton’s 2010 world record for “the largest group spoon” (check out the time lapse from Nate Ryan ’10), she centered the hard work, ingenuity, and tenacity of Carleton students.
“You are not just students,” she said, “you are artists, researchers, organizers, dreamers, and doers. You’ve pushed boundaries, redefined excellence, and yes, survived ten weeks that move faster than time itself!”