URI bids adieu to the class of 2024 with stirring Viola Davis speech
KINGSTON — The University of Rhode Island said goodbye to the class of 2024 last weekend at the Ryan Center with a weekend full of memorable moments, including a profound keynote address by Viola Davis.
“I stand here and in each of you I see the sacred, an ember that when agitated, woken up, becomes a glorious, wild flame,” said Davis, a Rhode Island native who graduated from Central Falls High School and has become one of the most successful actresses of the modern era. “That flame is your story. It’s your passion. It’s your lifeforce. Allow me to wake up your flame.”
Davis is one of only 19 people to achieve EGOT status, a designation given to those who have won all four major American performing arts awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.
Her inspiring words came during the College of Arts and Sciences commencement held Saturday morning.
Central to Davis’s speech was “The call is to love it. Love. Love as a verb,” stressing that ambition and achievement are hollow without love driving them.
She drew on Scott Peck’s definition of love as “the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own, or another’s spiritual growth,” encouraging graduates to foster personal and collective growth.
Davis also highlighted the hero’s journey, a transformative path of self-discovery and healing. “The journey of someone that hears a voice deep within them calling them to a radical, uncomfortable, fulfilling, gut-wrenching, inner transformation,” she described. She urged graduates to face their fears and imperfections, using their experiences to heal themselves and others.
“You can either leave something for people or you can leave something in people. When you leave it in, you are planting embers, eternal flames, and that is its own boss move,” Davis concluded.
In addition to Davis, Charles M. Royce and Deborah Goodrich Royce were honored with honorary Doctors of Humane Letters for their significant contributions to literature, investment, and preservation work in Rhode Island.
This year, there were eight student speakers representing the schools and colleges.
The student speaker for the College of Arts and Sciences, Jacob Iacobucci, from West Greenwich, delivered a heartfelt address at the ceremony, headlined “Making History: How the Class of 2024 Overcame a Worldwide Shutdown and Beyond.”
He described the class of 2024 as a group marked by creativity, passion, and vision. See URI, page A3