LOGAN — Before anyone took the stage, cheers of “Utah … State” rang throughout the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum on Wednesday as 7,185 students eagerly awaited the last step in their academic journeys before graduating from Utah State University.
“Graduates, your education is an enduring asset that no one can ever take away from you,” Alan Smith, USU’s interim president, told the crowd. “Setting aside alternative narratives that have been spun surrounding the value of higher education, the data are unequivocal that you will personally benefit from having invested your time and effort in your education.”
Wednesday’s commencement ceremony — the 138th in the school’s history — featured an address from William “Willy” Lensch, a USU alumnus and Harvard University associate provost for research. Over the course of his career, Lensch has made significant contributions to stem cell research and bioethics.
Lensch reminisced on his time as an Aggie and asked the graduates to think about two questions: what their best, “most glorious moment” at USU was and, on the other end of the spectrum, what their hardest, most challenging moment was.
For Lensch, his best moment is a tie between the day he stepped onto campus for the first time and the day he graduated.
“Attending college was an improbable outcome for me as a young person. I grew up … on a little farm just north of Lehi, Utah. We dry farmed barley, had a few cows at any given time, chicken and lots of pigs. My father never made it all the way through school,” Lensch said. “Growing up, we didn’t exactly sit around the dinner table talking about college.”
But Lensch didn’t let that stop him, earning a scholarship that was nothing less than “the gift of my own future.”
Still, his path from there wasn’t easy.
Throughout his journey, Lensch experienced long stretches of hardship, missteps, failures and days with little to eat. He even withdrew from college twice.
“But somehow, I made it back each time. And then, like some of you here today, I became the first person in my family to earn a college diploma,” Lensch said.
Closing, Lensch encouraged the graduates to work hard and think creatively — something he said the world needs.
“I know that you are inheriting a world of uncertainty. Every generation has and will. Even in my day, none of us were prepared to go out into the world, but the future does not wait on the present to be ready. It just comes anyway. I can’t tell you exactly what path you’ll take from here or what you will accomplish, but you will. You will do good things, including some that as you sit here today, have not yet even begun to glow within your imagination,” Lensch said. “Welcome to the community of Aggie alumni.”
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