HGSE Sets the Stage for Graduation at Convocation

Honors, hope, and music were bestowed on the class of 2026

Posted May 28, 2026
By Ryan Nagelhout

Reading Rainbow host Mychal Threets offered a message of hope and joy to the latest graduating class of the Harvard Graduate School of Education as part of its annual Convocation ceremony on Wednesday.

Temperatures in the 80s turned programs into fanning devices as family and friends joined the 744 graduates that make up HGSE’s class of 2026 for an afternoon of music, soaring orations, and a number of honors under the tent in Radcliffe Yard.

Threets, known as “The Internet’s Librarian,” closed out the afternoon with energy, laughs, and touching moments that highlighted the hard work of educating, the chaos of “library kids,” and the power of compassion and care he sees in the HGSE students.

“There is so much going on in a messy world, but today is an especially good, messy day. We are blessed to share in your hard work, to share in your graduation,” said Threets. “You did it! I’m so happy for you. I am so proud of you. You are the helpers my hero, Mr. Rogers, has always spoken of.”

Wearing a Where The Wild Things Are button-up shirt and neon sneakers, Threets began his address off script by noting he has “at least” 14 library cards in his wallet, not all his own. He mentioned two cards in particular and the legacy they carry. The first being his grandmother’s, who grew up in the segregated South and was unable to get a library card until she moved to California later in life.

“She passed away at the age of 90, and she was a person from Arkansas who didn’t get to have a library card when she was a little girl,” Threets said. “She didn’t get to go to libraries. She didn’t get to learn how to read.”

The other card he had received the day before, from the family of Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, one of 20 children who were killed in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. Threets said her mother and brother gave him Ana Grace’s library card, calling it “so special” and noting the legacy of joy her family carries on in her name.

“I love being able to be the keeper of that kind of library card, and I want you all to remember that you’re the keeper of your own stories. You’re writing your stories each and every day, especially as you delve into education as you reach so many library kids,” said Threets. “You have so many opportunities to change lives, to impact lives. You are difference-makers, you’re change-makers. And that starts right now, in this very moment.”

A fireside chat between Threets and Dean Nonie Lesaux followed the former’s Convocation address. Lesaux then closed the event by delivering a proclamation to Threets, naming him honorary Librarian in Residence at the Monroe C. Gutman Library.

A throughline of hope, love, and the power of education echoed across the Convocation proceedings. Morningstar Family Teaching Award winner and Lecturer Liya Escalera offered a “list of unsolicited advice” for graduates that also served as an ode to her mother, a child of deaf parents (CODA) whose fierce advocacy for the power of education has impacted her teaching and practice.

“There’s a line of poetry by ee cummings I always think about in these moments: ‘Whatever done by only me is your doing.’ Sometimes we forget to tell people just how much they’ve shaped our learning,” said Escalera, who garnered huge cheers from the assembled student body. “Graduates, I hope you’ve already started your gratitude tour this week as you wrapped up your classes and you welcomed your people to Cambridge. Like all of you, nothing I’ve done has been done ‘by only me.’”

Escalera, whose work centers college access and equitable learning environments, asked graduates to keep asking “big questions” and lead with the critical hope they so often echoed in HGSE classrooms.

“Wherever your next adventures take you, don’t choose between being a sharp critic or a hopeful idealist. We need you to be both. Lead from an honest assessment of what is broken, an unwavering belief that something better is possible, and a stubborn willingness to figure out how to build it,” said Escalera. “And if people resist this approach, which they might, critical hope is powerful. Remember, as my 13-year-old daughter Isa would say — that’s an ish-them not an ish-you.”

Convocation featured a number of awards and honors for students as well, including the inaugural Appian Award given to eight members of the graduating class who embody HGSE’s institutional values of academic excellence, inclusive engagement, and collective impact.

Alfred Santos, Ed.M.’26, was honored with the Phyllis Strimling Award for outstanding commitment to advancing society by advancing women. Each degree program also gave its Commencement marshals an honorary medal, which they will wear when leading their cohort at the Commencement ceremony on Thursday. Wednesday’s Convocation also paid tribute to HGSE’s Empowerment and Impact Fellows.

The audience also enjoyed a performance by Leah Waldo, Ed.M.'15 – who performs as Elisa Smith – of “My Daughter’s Hand,” which she said “brought a little honky tonk to Harvard.”

Convocation featured three student speakers, each of whom was selected after submitting responses to three prompts about their time at the Ed School. Allegra Isdar, an Ed.M. candidate in the Human Development and Education Program at just 20 years old, delivered an inspiring message that advocated for considering the viewpoints of others and echoed lines from T.S. Elliot’s poem “Little Gidding.”

“So graduates, go forward from today and remember to always take that second look, because we shall not cease from exploration. At the end of all our exploring, shall be to arrive where we started and to know a place for the first time,” Isdar said. “And when you arrive there, may we have the courage to always see clearly. That is how we will change the world.”

Yesenia Pérez, Ed.M candidate in the Education Leadership Program, shared a moving oration centered on the hope she takes from the virtual learning experience at HGSE that evoked a lasting image of online classrooms where “people with full lives make space for someone else.”

“What gave me hope was watching people here refuse smallness. Refuse easy certainty. Refuse the habit of treating people like problems to sort,” said Pérez. “Instead, I watched us practice a different future. One where attention is a form of care. One where making room is part of the work. One where learning is not just about mastery, but about what we are willing to hold open for one another. I think that is the future of education, if we are brave enough.”

Ignacio Rodriguez Artunduaga, an Ed.M. candidate in the Education Policy and Analysis Program from Columbia, gave a speech with hopeful conviction that reminded his classmates they must creer, or believe, to make a lasting difference in their work.

“Let us be grounded in belief when the world chooses not to. Let the legacy we leave be guided by the good we inspire, the words we say, and the lives we touch. Let us rise, not only beyond what has defined us but also toward what we can become,” said Artunduaga. “Because someone believed in us. Now it is our turn to believe.”

Complete list of honorees:

Speaker

Mychal Threets

Student Speakers

Ignacio Rodriguez Artunduaga, Ed.M. Candidate, Education Policy and Analysis
Allegra Isdar, Ed.M. Candidate, Human Development and Education
Yesenia Pérez, Ed.M. Candidate, Education Leadership

Morningstar Family Teaching Award

Liya Escalera, Lecturer on Education

2026 HGSE Commencement Marshals

Ph.D.
Jeannette V. Garcia Coppersmith
Santiago Pulido-Gómez

Ed.L.D.
Tamesha L. Webb
Rebecca Westlake

C.A.S.
Yiting Yin

Ed.M.
Stephanee Thornton - Education Leadership
Julianna Krause - Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship
Ignacio Rodriguez Artunduaga - Education Policy and Analysis
Helen Jin - Human Development and Education
Aaron Fang - Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology
Sophie Wang - Teaching and Teacher Leadership

Phyllis Strimling Award

Alfred Santos, Ed.M. Candidate, Education Leadership

The Appian Award

Kelly Cray - Education Leadership
Derrick Holifield - Doctor of Education Leadership
Giang Le - Teaching and Teacher Leadership
Stephanie Li - Human Development and Education
Melvin Loh - Education Leadership
Ignacio Rodriguez Artunduaga - Education Policy and Analysis
Amy White - Education Leadership
Arden Woodall - Human Development and Education