Jefferson Honors the Class of 2025 at Commencement
Over 2,500 graduates celebrated at five ceremonies.
In what University President Dr. Susan Aldridge called “one of the most meaningful walks you will ever take,” over 2,500 members of the Class of 2025 proudly marched across the Commencement stage and officially became Jefferson alumni.
Over five May ceremonies at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, graduates celebrated their years of hard work with loved ones and heard inspiring words from Jefferson leadership and honorary degree recipients.
Dr. Aldridge encouraged graduates to meet life’s inevitable challenges head-on with courage, creativity and commitment and to be unafraid to venture out on a limb to achieve lofty goals.
“We’ve taught you here at Jefferson that great ideas and bold initiatives almost always take root in someone’s calculated risk, where they’re cultivated with integrity, intelligence and inspiration,” she says. “As you leave here today savoring what’s most definitely an experience to remember, I challenge all of you to go forward and invent a better, safer and healthier world.”
Jefferson CEO Dr. Joseph Cacchione thanked the deans and faculty for their continued support and congratulated the graduates and especially their families on reaching this milestone.
“This would not have been possible without you and your unwavering support, sacrifice and love of your students,” he says. “Your integral role in their success is profound, and today’s celebration belongs to you as much as it does to them.”
Fresh off Jefferson’s Bicentennial, Dr. Cacchione also noted the special significance of this Commencement. The ceremonies provide an opportunity to reflect on the countless student accomplishments and University growth over the past 200 years and where Jefferson will head in its third century.
Lola Bakhadyrova took her place among the newest alumni. She graduated with her BS in textile design after starting at Jefferson thinking she wanted to work in health care. Frequent trips to the textile design studio giving tours as a Rambassador inspired the shift.
“There’s so much creative energy that I never experienced before,” says Bakhadyrova, who will move to Dallas for a product development internship at Loloi Rugs. “I felt like I was missing that part. The nature of our school gave me opportunities I never knew I would have.”
Classmate and bachelor of architecture graduate Owen Felty expressed similar feelings, thanking Jefferson for the opportunity to push himself. He will soon start as a staff designer at the firm JKRP Architects.
“I had all these disparate creative outlets in my life, and architecture put them together and packaged them in this beautiful experience,” says Felty, recently named to the Metropolis Future100 Class of 2025. “I really can’t put my emotions into words how much it means to me to graduate. It was five years of hard work, dedication and sacrifices.”
At each Commencement, Jefferson bestowed an honorary degree to an esteemed community member. Several of them had a special University connection.
During the undergraduate ceremony, Women’s Basketball Head Coach Thomas Shirley Jr. pressed the Class of 2025 to “not just do well, but do better for your community, your profession and for generations to come after you.”
This year, he earned his 900th career win and joined the top 10 all-time victories list across all college divisions.
“Don’t settle,” Shirley says. “Don’t take a job just to have one. Rewrite the rules and reset the odds. Chase fulfillment, pursue purpose and find joy in your work.”
Class of 1996 School of Business alumnus and owner of Always Best Care Senior Service Bryant Greene shared advice he would give his younger self. Among his tips: “When you know better, you do better. Stay connected to career placement. Be prepared to compete and sell yourself. Become the master of your brand. Check that inner critic. Get out of your own way. Avoid negative energy.”
Dr. Robert Rosenwasser, president and CEO of the Vickie and Jack Farber Institute for Neuroscience at Jefferson, urged graduates to be disruptive innovators and stressed the importance of teamwork, being an attentive listener and posing frequent questions.
“Never be afraid to ask a question,” says Dr. Rosenwasser, Jefferson’s Jewell L. Osterholm, MD Professor and Chair of Neurological Surgery. “There’s no such thing as a stupid question. It’s not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength, good judgment and maturity.”
As the honorary degree recipient for the College of Nursing ceremony, Philadelphia Police Department Commissioner Kevin Bethel shared his deep personal connection with the nursing field.
His daughter was born with sickle cell disease. From infancy, the hospital became a familiar place for him and his wife. Bethel attributes a nurse practitioner’s quick thinking to saving his daughter’s life when she needed a blood transfusion.
“We spent 22 years walking in and out of rooms with uncertainty, sometimes fears, but always surrounded by nurses who gave us more than care,” he says. “They gave us dignity, understanding and peace. They gave her joy, even in her pain.”
In the final ceremony for the Class of 2025, which honored graduates from the College of Life Sciences and Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Class of 1968 alumnus and cardiologist Dr. Robert Stein received the Presidential Award. The distinction recognized his decades of service to patients, medical education and the arts.
The ceremony also featured three honorary degree recipients: Sandra Sheller, president of the Sheller Family Foundation; Stephen Sheller, founder and managing partner of Sheller, PC, and co-founder of the Sheller Family Foundation; and alumnus Dr. Thomas Nasca. The Class of 1975 graduate formerly served as the Anthony F. and Gertrude M. DePalma Dean of Sidney Kimmel Medical College and president and CEO of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
“Let me challenge you to think about the why you’re undertaking your chosen career path, not just the how you need to learn to accomplish it,” Dr. Nasca says. “I would hypothesize that each of you came to today with a core desire to help others and recognize that medicine and science was how you could best accomplish that desire. The why within all of you is based on an altruistic desire to do good for others.”
Watch the full Commencement ceremonies here.
Photos/©Thomas Jefferson University Photography Services