MCLA James Birge awaits the graduates' traditional walk through the college's gates on the way to commencement. See more photos here.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — MCLA's Class of 2025 was reminded to move forward with love, kindness, and pursuing what is just.
"I grew up wanting to be like my grandmother. When my grandmother was alive, she always talked about us living in the end times, but somehow her acceptance that we were living in the world's last movement made her capacity for kindness even higher. It made her want to be better at love," said keynote speaker Kiese Laymon, an award-winning author and Rice University professor.
"She understood that all great human beings do not get a ceremony, but we must be ceremonious to all human beings in this world."
Per tradition, graduates marched through the iron gates on Church Street before receiving 187 undergraduate and 38 graduate degrees in the sciences, arts, business, education, and more. This was the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts' 126th annual commencement.
"MCLA is a small institution, but it delivers big results," said Paul Paradiso, who earned a master of business administration.
"I'm standing here alone only because I've been surrounded by a community of students and faculty. We're here because of both group effort and individual drive. We work independently on projects, yet none of us got here entirely on our own."
President James Birge reminded students that this day is a culmination of years of academic work and accomplishment.
"During your time at MCLA, you have compiled a long list of accomplishments and inspired us with your success in the classroom, in the lab, on the stage, in the gallery, on the athletic playing surfaces, and in the community. You've studied abroad, conducted research, participated in service trips and internships, and created community service programs to meet the needs you saw in our community," he said.
"You were inducted into honor societies, held office in the student government, produced works of art, theater, dance, and spoken word, scored goals, runs, and baskets, and crossed finish lines. Some of you returned to school after time off, bringing with you professional and life experiences that enriched class discussions and that underscored the importance of lifelong learning."
Birge said he and his colleagues are called to their work at MCLA by one common purpose: to contribute to the education of the next generation of leaders.
Brigh Cote, a communications major with a concentration in public relations and corporate communication, explained that she has transferred colleges twice and joined the Army, where she currently serves as a sergeant. Cote's time at MCLA has "meant the world for me" for a variety of reasons, one being its inclusive nature.
"The very first time I heard about this school, I was sitting in my kitchen after having a meeting with my previous college that informed me that I was being fined $50 for being in a relationship with someone of the same sex. I knew I had to get out of a place like that," she explained.
"How could I attend a college where being myself cost me money? I immediately began googling hockey teams that needed players, when my sister called me to tell me that a college named Massachusetts, College of Liberal Arts, was looking for players as they were about to start a program. I emailed the coach, and it wasn't even 20 minutes after I sent the email that we set up a phone call."
Cote had only one question for MCLA's hockey coach: Can I be gay on your team? She reported that the line went silent for a minute before her phone buzzed and a photo of two LGBTQ+ mugs appeared on the screen.
"He returned to the phone and said, 'I will have to ask my athletic director and her wife to see if that will be a problem,'" Cote reported, followed by laughs and cheers from the crowd.
During her first hockey season, which was also the first time in MCLA history that the women's team was established to take part in a regular season, little girls from around the city would stand outside the team's door before they entered the ice and gave out high-fives.
"I learned a lot from them without them even knowing. At the last home game of the season, I'm about to take the ice for the third period when I feel the tap on my shoulder. It was one of the little girl's moms, and she told me, 'I just wanted to tell you, you're my daughter's favorite player. You're super feisty, and she enjoys watching you play,' I said, 'Thank you,' and I had to skate onto the ice," she explained.
"…It hit me at that moment that we had an impact on this town, showing little girls from the Berkshires that they could be just like us."
A "heartbreaking" injury in 2024 ended Cote's college athletic career, but she became the official voice of the MCLA women's hockey league. "This had helped me overcome the intense feelings I had because of not playing, but gave me a sense of purpose," she explained.
Cote told fellow graduates to be the person they once needed.
"Be the teammate, the friend, the voice, the encouragement, the safe space, because out there, someone is hoping to find the kind of community we have built here at MCLA," she said.
"Don't shrink yourself to fit into places that you weren't built for. Expand them, fill them with your truth."
During the ceremony, honorary doctorates were conferred to Laymon, NAACP Berkshire County Branch President Dennis L. Powell, North Adams Public Schools Superintendent Barbara Malkas, and state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier.
Laymon spoke about Sesame Street, grandmothers, and style.
His grandmother did not have a commencement ceremony at home in Mississippi because she could not go to any high school, college, or university, and instead, had to drop out of high school to work.
"My grandmother was the greatest human being in my life, but she could not vote in our state by law until her late 30s. Her third child, my mother, did not go to school with white children until she was a junior in high school in 1969. Sesame Street also debuted in 1969," he explained.
Six months later, Mississippi voted to remove the children's show from televisions across the state. The rationale leaked to the New York Times was "Some of the members of the commission were very much opposed to showing the series because it used a highly integrated cast of children," Laymon reported.
Twenty-two days later, his grandmother joined others in publicly challenging the decision not to air Sesame Street and won. Six years after the show aired, Laymon was born and received the teachings of Sesame Street along with those of a "Palestinian, Jewish character in this big old book called the Bible named Jesus."
"‘They're the same teachings,' she would say," he reported.
"Treat folks as we want to be treated, share, be honest, be kind, admit mistakes, accept others' mistakes, and revise, and finally, fight tyranny by all means necessary. I wasn't a great student, but I was a great student of my grandma."
He said his grandmother passed away a few months ago at the age of 95, around the time of statewide diversity, equity, and inclusion bans.
"Our desire to organize, our capacity for kindness, and our desire to revise all that we have is the only thing that will save us; it is all that has ever saved us from tyranny," Laymon said, asking that graduates exhibit love in honor of his grandmother.
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