Watch RBS Executive Director’s UVA Commencement Address, “The American University: A Celebration”

Rare Book School Executive Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. delivered the 2025 commencement address, on the vital importance of American higher education, at the University of Virginia’s Final Exercises this past weekend. 

On Saturday, 17 May, Suarez addressed more than 4,600 graduates, along with faculty and guests, of the university’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and School of Education and Human Development. 

A Jesuit priest, Suarez also serves as Professor of English, University Professor, and Honorary Curator of Special Collections at the University of Virginia (UVA). Former UVA President John T. Casteen III appointed Suarez to succeed RBS Founding Director Terry Belanger in 2009. 

Suarez, who has lived in Pavilion III on the Lawn since 2020, spoke in front of the Rotunda, the centerpiece of UVA’s “academical village” and just steps from his own front door. 

“Each of you has your own story,” he told the audience. “The high school teacher who made a subject come alive for the first time; the mentor who believed in you; the mom or dad who sacrificed more than you might even know. And let’s not forget the friends who helped to get you through. For each of you, this beautiful morning is the triumph of a hope begun long ago.” 

According to Suarez, today’s graduates are part of a long line of students stretching from UVA’s foundation in 1825 to the present day. “Celebrating you and our university on this bicentennial,” he noted, “it is fitting that we also remember the work of higher education in America, for UVA was founded on the aspiration that its mission of scholarship and teaching could powerfully support and sustain our American experiment.”  

“The work of the university,” Suarez said, “is meant to help us escape the confines of our limited experience, offering instead a broader community and an invitation to learn about the history of human aspiration and achievement across times and places unlike our own.” 

Suarez challenged this year’s graduates to fulfill their civic duty to its fullest, not only by improving themselves personally, but also by lifting others up to create a community and nation dedicated to the common good, built on “mutual inquiry and mutual respect.” 

You can read the full transcript and watch a recording of Suarez’s Final Exercises speech on UVA’s website.