On Sunday, May 18, Penn’s College of Liberal and Professional Studies (LPS) welcomed family, friends, faculty, and the Class of 2025 for a graduation ceremony in Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center in downtown Philadelphia. This year, LPS conferred 476 degrees on graduating students: 89 undergraduate degrees and 387 master’s degrees. Of these graduates, 230 are international students representing 18 countries in all.
In her opening remarks, Vice Dean Nora E. Lewis welcomed graduates and their supporters to the ceremony. “LPS students embrace and embody Benjamin Franklin’s venerated principles of broad education in the fullest sense: You understand the power of education to change your lives and to improve the lives of others, and you have chosen to make it a priority,” she said. “On this glorious day, we salute you, LPS students, on your laudable academic achievement.”
Jeffrey Kallberg, Interim Dean and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Music of the School of Arts and Sciences, also addressed the body of graduating students. “LPS represents the curiosity and freedom that underpins the fundamental spirit of this great research and teaching university,” he began. In the course of his speech, Interim Dean Kallberg offered examples of graduating students whose remarkable journeys—and personal sacrifices—epitomize the Penn LPS dedication to lifelong learning: military veterans; a Dean’s Scholar whose degree was funded by the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education, a father and son both graduating from the same master’s program; a mother who completed her bachelor’s degree while working for the district attorney’s office and caring for a child with complex medical needs. “Your ambition and love of learning inspire all of us in the Penn community, and reminds us that we should never cease to inquire, to create, and to discover,” he concluded.
The 2025 graduation speaker was Dr. Cecil W. Johnson III, a global workforce researcher and strategist and member of the Penn LPS Employer Advisory Board. Dr. Johnson drew warm laughter with reminisces about his own graduation from Penn’s Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics, and offered an allegory about the relationships we build with workplaces, institutions, and other organizations. “No matter who you are, where you were brought up, how you were raised, relationships shape who you are,” he explained. “Embrace that you are an equal partner in any relationship—in any company, any organization. Fall in love with the fact that you are the prize in any relationship, because you are a Penn LPS graduate.”
We invite you to join us in honoring the accomplishments of our Class of 2025. Several members of the Class of 2025 received awards for their leadership, dedication, service, and academic excellence. Take a look at the full list of student award recipients and the faculty members who received 2025 Distinguished Teaching Awards.
