HGSE Welcome Day Brings Excitement for Year to Come

While cars ferried freshmen into Harvard Yard to start their undergraduate experience in Cambridge on Tuesday morning, hundreds of students in the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s newest cohort gathered in Sanders Theatre to take the next steps in their own academic journeys.

HGSE Welcome Day 2025 put hope and learning on center stage, as students returned to Appian Way for a new year of research and learning. Dean Nonie Lesaux greeted incoming students with an overview of the year ahead, highlighting the themes and sense of purpose that will guide the learning community in the months ahead.

“Our task is to meet this moment and its very real challenges that come with it,” said Lesaux. “Our mission at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is to prepare leaders and innovators who will change the world by expanding opportunities and outcomes for learners everywhere. You are the change we want to see in the world.”

HGSE welcomed its residential students one day after the inaugural cohort of its International Education Policy and Management (IEPM) pathway of the Online Master’s in Education Leadership (OEL) students began their semester. That cohort, which boasts 77 learners from 32 countries and an average of 16 years of professional experience, joins the students in preK-12 and higher education pathways of the OEL who were welcomed to campus in late July.

There is a strong base of students from around the world joining the Ed School in Cambridge this year as well, said Lesaux. “I especially want to welcome our international students to the Harvard campus, because I know the months leading up to this arrival have had the added dimension of real uncertainty,” she said. “We are so very proud to welcome a cohort of residential students that together hail from 59 countries.”

Welcome Day featured six HGSE faculty members — Senior Lecturer Junlei Li, Professor Fernando Reimers, Senior Lecturer Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Senior Lecturer Rick Weissbourd, Professor Karen Brennan, and Lecturer Eric Soto-Shed — delivering short presentations about their work and offering advice on the year of research and study ahead.

“May your season here be a time not just of academic achievement, but of personal transformation,” said Reimers, who compared the journey to HGSE to the parable of Shangri La. “May you grow in wisdom, and in friendship. May you experience peace within these historic walls.”

Brion-Meisels urged the incoming cohort to “widen your circle of care” and allow for heartbreak that strengthens the spirit and resolve of the work that lay ahead.

“This year, let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t. Because here’s the truth: 20 years from now our collective brilliance as a community and a school is not going to be measured by what grades you got,” said Brion-Meisels. “Rather, history will write of our commitment to care for each other, both locally and globally. Looking out at this beautiful room, I know that you each bring something unique and powerful to our learning this year.”

Students were also treated to a musical performance from the Boston Symphony Orchestra string duo. Coordinated by Maisha Grant, Ed.M.’18, the showcase saw violist Danny Kim and violinist Sophie Wang fill Sanders Theatre with sounds of Mozart and dueling strings, earning a standing ovation after a two-song set.

The performance punctuated a morning of sage advice, hopeful enthusiasm, and excited chatter that echoed around the ornate wood-carved rafters of Sanders Theatre as hundreds of students learned where their classmates came from, what they hoped to learn, and how they’ll work together to handle the challenges that lay ahead in the coming year.

“Today I hope you heard ideas that will stretch your thinking, challenge your assumptions, and open up new possibilities,” said Lesaux. “This morning is your invitation to learn boldly and create bravely. Welcome to this new academic year. I cannot wait to see all that you will do with this opportunity.”