Deming summons ‘power of gratitude’ in valediction address

With the Class of 2026 squeezed before him in a cloistered corner of the Old Yard, Danoff Dean of Harvard College David Deming asked everyone to consider the people they’ve leaned on to reach this moment, including those currently far from Cambridge. When that 30-second silence was over, Deming told the throng standing elbow to elbow in caps and gowns to produce their phones and write thank-you notes.

A murmur passed through the crowd Thursday morning, at the seniors-only Valediction that begins Commencement Day. Some shifted on their feet; others indeed drew their phones. Deming waited, as birds chirped and the rising sun cast a leafy shadow through a stately elm onto the crimson brick of Mower Hall.

“I’m 100 percent serious. Do it. I’m your dean for another couple of hours,” Deming said, now drawing easy laughter along with many more visible phones. He told the soon-to-be-graduates to write or dictate the messages, using Notes or email “or whatever app you use.”

“When you're done, actually send them,” he added, as some began typing or dictating, and at least a few appeared to well up. “There are more than 1,500 of you here. Imagine the power of thousands of thank-you notes radiating out from Harvard Yard on the day of your Commencement. That’s the power of gratitude.”

Speaking for less than 10 minutes, the dean struck a playful note in the beginning, starting with shout-outs to each of the Houses — to raucous whoops and chants — even before a maintenance worker had finished draping a “2026” banner from a second-story window of Phillips Brooks House, just overhead from Deming’s lectern.

“Do I see Currier anywhere? … And what about Pforzheimer House?”

Leverett House produced a particularly long cheer. “You’re loud because you’re large, not because you’re special,” Deming said, drawing an audible “Oh no, he didn’t!” from someone in the crowd. “Just kidding!”

The former Kirkland House faculty dean saved Kirkland for last. “Sorry, guys, they’re my seniors.”

Then he shifted to reflection, asking the students — gathered without family members, who waited in fenced-off corners of the Yard or well beyond — to think about their journey over the last four years.

“You came to Harvard from different places, with different hopes, different doubts, and — I'm guessing — different levels of comfort with Primal Scream,” he said. “You arrived as individuals, but over these years, through classes and dinners, in ’Berg and in your house, late nights and long conversations, victories, disappointments, friendships, arguments, p-sets, performances, and glorious House traditions, you became something more.

“You became a class. You left your mark. You asked hard questions. You cared about each other. You made Harvard smarter, livelier, funnier, and more human.”

That’s when Deming asked his audience to consider the “family, friends, mentors, coaches, tutors, staff, faculty, and classmates who helped you get over the finish line,” teeing up the moment of silence and mass thank-you note appeal.

Then he thanked the students, too — “for your energy, for your impatience with easy answers, for your willingness to begin again after things did not go as planned, for the thousand small acts of decency that don't appear on a resume but that still bind a community together.”

He asked them to “take what is best” from Harvard: “The love of truth, the habit of service, the courage to change your mind, the responsibility to use your gifts for something larger than yourselves, and the complete confidence that your randomly assigned house is the best one.”

One last time, laughter rippled through the crowd.

“Guys, don’t you know I’m trying to achieve emotional closure here?” Deming said. “Class of 2026, thank you, truly, thank you. We will miss you dearly, but with affection and great hope, we send you along your way.”