The approximately 1,900 students anticipated to receive undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and law degrees from UMass Dartmouth this year celebrated their achievements across four commencement ceremonies May 15 and 16.

For Chancellor Mark A. Fuller, the Class of 2025 was a special one. 

Fuller first set foot on campus four years ago, beginning his tenure as chancellor.

“Despite being somewhere new, I immediately felt like I was coming home,” he said. 

And in that home-coming, he was joined by hundreds of students who he would spend the next four years working with through challenges, celebrating victories and transforming the campus.

“You, the Class of 2025, will always hold a special place in my heart,” Fuller told the graduates at the May 15 ceremony on Cressy Football Field, which honored students from the School for Marine Science & Technology, College of Engineering and Charlton College of Business.

For him, students at UMass Dartmouth are not just ordinary: “They are extraordinary.”

He highlighted how the College of Business has climbed nearly 50 positions in US news rankings in the last five years, the engineering program stands among the top three for undergraduates statewide and the School for Marine Science and Technology ranks among the top 5% in the nation for ocean research work.

“Our reputation opens doors for you and it was your excellence that helped get us there,” he said.

While faculty and families should be celebrated for the foundation they provide to make a university special, Fuller said it is the students who truly drive progress.

“At UMass Dartmouth, we don’t share knowledge, we create it,” he added.

Over 95% of students are employed or in graduate school within the first six months of graduation — one of the highest in the UMass system, he noted.

And as they did at UMass Dartmouth the last few years, Fuller said the graduates entering the workforce will be the “leaders who will help chart the course forward.”

“As you get out to start your business, make new discoveries and accomplish new goals, know that you have a community here on the South Coast rooting for you,” he added. “Thank you for letting UMass Dartmouth be a part of your success story.”

To the Class of 2025, student commencement speaker Bee Greenberg, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science, emphasized the importance of remembering to stop and enjoy the journey on their way to success.

Reflecting on the last four years together, she said, “There have been countless exams, many stressful presentations and even more sleepless nights and in between all that, we still found joy.”

Greenberg echoed a message she first shared at convocation: the futility of chasing perfection, which is a battle she said she, like many peers, still faces.

However, she said, “Our own imperfections are what brought us to this very moment.”

“We did not get this degree despite our imperfections,” Greenberg added. “We earned this degree because of our imperfections. We earned this degree because we continued to better ourselves despite knowing that perfection would remain out of reach.”