Commencement 2024

The threat of inclement weather led Hollins University to hold its 182nd Commencement Exercises indoors, and the enthusiastic celebration of the class of 2024 was not dampened literally or figuratively as 182 undergraduate and graduate students received degrees at the morning ceremony on Sunday, May 19.

Hollins made the decision on May 16 to move this year’s commencement from its traditional location on the university’s historic Front Quad to the Berglund Center Coliseum in downtown Roanoke after considerable rainfall was predicted for the weekend.

“Today I see a group of students ready to tackle anything that the world puts before them,” said President Mary Dana Hinton in her welcome. “I have watched you grow into fiercely intelligent leaders. I see it in your academic work through your thesis presentations and honor society inductions. I see it in your athletic pursuits on the court, in the pool, and in the ring. I see it in your job and graduate school offers. But most of all, I see it in your eyes.”

This year’s guest speaker, Metropolitan Opera dramatic soprano Helena Brown ’12, urged the class of 2024 to “live your life from your own truth and turn your adversity, your failures, and your setbacks into wisdom.”

Brown has received three Grammy certificates for her performances in productions at the Met, including Terence Blanchard’s Champion, which recently won the 2024 Grammy for Best Opera Recording. She has also appeared at Lincoln Center Theatre and on the New York Harlem Theatre European tour. A strong ally for the arts, Brown serves as a vice president of the choristers, actors, and staff performers in the American Guild of Musical Artists and is also an advisory director on the Metropolitan Opera Board of Directors.

Senior Class President Lew Neils assured the graduates that “what you have chosen is to be a part of a class of brilliant minds, hopeless romantics, and creative geniuses. I hope, down the line, you look back at this class, or this moment, and all the other moments from when you applied, and you realize you have become the best person you can be because of these choices.” Neils thanked “family, faculty, staff, and friends for supporting this graduating class with persistence and love.”