Stories, Baktash Ahadi told Susquehanna University’s Class of 2025, help us make sense of the chaos, connect to each other and to ourselves.
As the Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and 2005 alumnus delivered the keynote address at Susquehanna’s 167th Commencement, he shared how telling stories has shaped his life and encouraged the Class of 2025 to embark upon a life worth telling.
“Twenty years ago, I sat right where you are — uncertain what would come next,” he said. “If someone had told me then that I’d be standing here today as a filmmaker, a storyteller and someone who has lived and worked in war zones, classrooms and film sets around the world, I would have smiled politely and thought, ‘You’ve got the wrong guy.’”
But Ahadi would have been wrong. His career has taken him around the world, from serving in the Peace Corps in Mozambique to working as an interpreter and cultural advisor for the U.S. Marine Corps in Afghanistan. His experience in Afghanistan, he said, “shattered and reshaped” him.
“Since then, I’ve made films that amplify the voices of people too often silenced. I’ve sat with veterans and refugees, teachers and teenagers, and tried to make sense of the invisible wounds we carry,” Ahadi said. “I’ve come to see story not just as entertainment, but as medicine — and as inspiration, a way to remind us of what’s possible, even in the face of what seems so impossible.”
Ahadi encouraged Susquehanna’s nearly 500 graduates to be storytellers by viewing every conversation, every choice, every act of courage — no matter how small — as a line in the story they are telling the world. He charged them to be radically curious, embrace the unknown and remember where they come from.
“Every great film has a turning point — a moment when the hero has to walk into the unknown without knowing what’s on the other side. That moment is now yours,” he said. “Live a life worth telling. Ask better questions. Tell better stories. And tell them with truth, with heart and with hope.”
In defense of higher education
University President Jonathan Green congratulated the Class of 2025 for their achievements, and with that in mind implored them to “speak out for the value of what we do on this campus and on campuses across the nation.
“For the first time in our nation’s history, higher education is under attack, and the siege is coming from our own government. These threats betray a profound lack of understanding of what we do, of what you have accomplished,” Green said. “We need to celebrate what you have done, and at this moment, we need to defend it too. This is not a partisan plea. Whatever side of the aisle you call home, we need you to stand up for the principles of a democratic republic, which are the foundation of American higher education.”
Green pointed out the country’s Founding Fathers, having just emerged from the Enlightenment, knew the fledgling republic needed educated leaders, “which is why many of the founders cultivated institutions of higher education rooted in the liberal arts.
“This is not a coincidence of history,” Green said. “Our liberal arts colleges have continued to produce a disproportionately high percentage of leaders in science, letters, business and government.”
He went on to defend healthy debate, the value of a college education and academic freedom — all of which he said is under imminent threat.
“This is why we need to protect the academy,” Green said. “Colleges and universities are far from perfect places. We wrestle with ideas, we experiment, we make mistakes, we create, we debate, we often disagree, but at our core, we seek the truth.”
Read his full remarks here.
From students to alumni
Student Government Association President Sarah Bower ’25, of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, who earned a Bachelor of Arts in management, urged her fellow graduates to confidently shake off their identifies as students and trade them for that of alumni.
“Our identity as students gave us structure. It gave us expectations to meet, classes to attend and a place to belong. Now, we’re stepping into a world where there’s no syllabus and the deadlines are unclear,” Bower said. “Our new identities are shaped not by our majors, but by our passions, our values and how we show up for others beyond this campus.”
Their experience as students gave them far more than a degree, Bower said, it gave them the confidence to grow.
“Today, we say goodbye to one version of ourselves. Tomorrow, we begin working on the next one,” Bower said. “Today, we may no longer be students. But we are — and will always be — River Hawks.”
Green conferred degrees upon graduates in the School of the Arts, School of Humanities, School of Natural & Social Sciences and the Sigmund Weis School of Business.
Among the Class of 2025, 26 have earned two bachelor’s degrees. One hundred eleven graduated summa cum laude — the Latin honor of highest distinction requiring a cumulative grade point average of 3.8 or above. They have also made their mark around the world. Through Susquehanna’s Global Opportunities study-abroad program, they have traveled to more than 30 countries outside of the United States, from Argentina, Italy, Japan and Morocco, to Australia, Iceland, Peru, Spain, Sweden and many more. The Class of 2025 joins an alumni community of nearly 22,000 worldwide. After graduation they will scatter across the country — south to Texas, west to California and north to Alaska.
Green challenged Susquehanna’s 167th graduating class to speak truth to power, no matter how inconvenient that truth may be.
“Today, we are here to celebrate what you have accomplished and what has happened to you in this place. In the coming days, I hope you will join me in standing up to defend it. You know first-hand what it is worth and what is at stake,” he said. “I have seen what you can do, and having you join in the fight gives me courage and hope for our future.”
