Bryn Mawr Celebrates the Class of 2026 at Commencement

With bouquets of flowers, hugs, kisses, and tears of joy, friends and families — some who traveled minutes and others who crossed oceans — celebrated the class of 2026 at this year’s commencement ceremonies.

Among them was the mother of Class Co-President Rana Rastegari, who traveled from London to hear her daughter speak and celebrate her accomplishments as a double major in literatures in English and chemistry.

“I’m so proud,” beamed her mother. “It was a little scary to have her go so far away, but after a while I realized this was a special place where Rana could become the person she wanted to be.”

Among the speakers sharing the stage with Rastegari was retiring Professor of Chemistry Michelle Francl, whose teaching helped transform a subject Rastegari once struggled with into one she ultimately chose to study as a major.

In many ways, the relationship between Francl and Rastegari reflects what many students describe as distinctive about the Bryn Mawr experience.

While interested in science, Rastegari, who served as co-editor of the Bi-Co student newspaper, also loves literature and writing.

Francl, whose book on the chemistry of tea brought her national attention, shares many of Rastegari’s interdisciplinary interests.

“Her classes were like a merging of both my worlds,” said Rastegari. “In English, words come together to make sentences, and in chemistry, atoms come together to make molecules, and it was professor Francl who opened my eyes to that.”

The ideas reflected in Rastegari and Francl’s relationship — intellectual curiosity, mentorship, and creating opportunities for others — resurfaced throughout commencement weekend.

That message was central to the address delivered to the undergraduate class by Ruby Bridges, whose own life became part of the legacy of the civil rights movement in America when in 1960, at the age of 6, she became the first Black child to integrate an all-white elementary school in New Orleans.

“Every time one of us walks through a door that wasn’t built for us, we make it easier for the next person to walk through. That is legacy,” Bridges said in her speech. 

Bridges went on to urge graduates to recognize both the sacrifices that created new opportunities for them and their responsibility to open doors or even create new paths for future generations.

“Because you were never meant to just walk through doors,” Bridges said. “ You were meant to create new ways for yourself, for each other, and for the generations still to come.”

Similar themes emerged during Friday evening’s graduate commencement ceremony, where historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed urged graduates to defend intellectual inquiry, expertise, and democratic values.

“We who have been given the privilege of being educated have a responsibility to put our education to use in the service of something larger than ourselves,” she told the graduates, their families, and friends. 

In closing the undergraduate ceremony, Bryn Mawr President Wendy Cadge encouraged graduates to move forward with compassion, maintain connections to their communities, and “choose each other” as they enter the next chapters of their lives.

“As you ascend, extend a hand to those coming behind you,” Cadge said.“Help them, too, to rise.”

After the undergraduate class of 2026 walked across the stage with degrees in hand, they joined family and friends for the traditional garden parties and one more chance to savor Bryn Mawr’s campus and the memories they had made there.

“It feels surreal,” said Sarah Pratt, a Growth and Structure of Cities major and philosophy minor, as she cradled congratulatory flowers. “It feels like the end of a great chapter and the start of an even better one.”