Rare Book School Executive Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. To Give 2025 UVA Commencement Address

Rare Book School is delighted to announce that Michael F. Suarez, S.J. will deliver the 2025 commencement address at the University of Virginia’s Final Exercises on 17 May.

A Jesuit priest, Suarez serves as Executive Director of Rare Book School (RBS), Professor of English, University Professor, and Honorary Curator of Special Collections at the University of Virginia (UVA). He previously held a joint appointment as J. A. Kavanaugh Professor of English at Fordham University and as Fellow and Tutor in English at Campion Hall, Oxford University. Former UVA President John T. Casteen III appointed Suarez to succeed RBS Founding Director Terry Belanger in 2009.

Suarez has held research fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. He also has participated in his share of graduation ceremonies, earning seven degrees over the course of his career.

Suarez is committed to integrating RBS’s dedication to the study of book history and bibliography with the intellectual and educational life of UVA. Over many years, the School has helped UVA students connect with the past through hands-on engagement with original textual artifacts.

“The key,” says Suarez, “is for students to be able to hold history in their hands, to behold history with their eyes in a way that was never possible for them before. For many, when that happens, their lives are changed.”

Suarez teaches several Rare Book School courses, including Advanced Seminar in Critical Bibliography (G-70) and The Eighteenth-Century Book (H-100). In summer 2025 he will be offering an online class, Teaching the History of the Book (H-90v), as well as Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching (H-165) in-person for the School’s M. C. Lang Fellowship program.

Rare Book School is enjoying renewed visibility within UVA’s recently renovated Edgar Shannon Library, where the School’s offices and classrooms for the in-depth study of books, manuscripts, photographs, and born-digital materials occupy a large suite on the library’s second floor. Earlier this year, RBS hosted an open house to welcome students, faculty, and staff into its new space, hosting printing demonstrations and inviting attendees to explore some highlights of its extensive collection of approximately 100,000 books and other items related to bibliographical study.

UVA Final Exercises will take place on Saturday, 17 May 2025, at 9:00 a.m. ET on the Lawn. Tickets are required to attend Final Exercises in person. The event will also be livestreamed by the university.

More information can be found in UVA Today’s announcement about this year’s Final Exercises.