Called to care radically, value community deeply, and hope actively, hundreds of Cobbers walked the 2026 Commencement stage Sunday, May 3, in Concordia College’s Memorial Auditorium.
The celebration paired optimism with determination, as Commencement speakers acknowledged the challenges the graduates have already begun to face and cautioned them against cynicism, despair, and inaction.
Student speaker Caroline Becker ’26 recalled arriving at Concordia as a naïve and optimistic teenager, determined to solve the world’s thorniest problems herself. Learning more about those challenges initially made the world feel not just bigger, but also more complex, intertwined, and, at times, incomprehensible.
“It was easy to feel small and tired, and it was even easier to slip into apathy and cynicism, to decide it’s safer not to care and not to feel too deeply,” she said.
It would have been easy for Becker to give up, telling herself it wasn’t her responsibility and someone else would deal with big issues like climate change, but Concordia did not allow her to do that so easily.
Instead, Concordia showed her “that caring, a radical kind that requires pushing through these doubts, can show up in the small of everyday life. It shows up in classrooms where you can’t just memorize material and move on — you have to sit with things. You have to think about them longer than it is often comfortable to do.”
She began to see caring in her fellow Cobbers themselves, in their daily lives, their classwork, their cocurriculars, and their relationships with others.
“None of that is easy, and none of it happens by accident. It is a conscious, intentional choice we make,” Becker said. “That is what I began to slowly realize: Caring isn’t something that just happens to you. It’s not something you either have or don’t. It’s something you decide to keep doing, even when you’re tired, when it's inconvenient, when it would be easier to check out.
“And once I started to see that, I really began to internalize it. I couldn’t unsee it, not just in my own life, but in all of ours.”
Commencement speaker Dr. Lisa Twomey, associate professor of Spanish and director of community engagement and integrative learning at Concordia, reinforced the day’s themes of hope and community in her address to the graduates.
“One thing all of you can do, regardless of your career, is to nurture and diversify your community, because communities support, communities love, communities resist,” she said. “Communities are fundamental to our health and well-being.”
Twomey, whose teaching experience includes Spanish language, culture, film, and literature, has a passion for helping students connect their learning to the world through engaging experiences in the community. She encouraged people who feel stuck not to sit still and hope for others to find the way forward, and to avoid falling into despair or thinking that the world is doomed.
“Value community, value those around you, strangers or not, so that you may ‘do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God,’” Twomey said, quoting Micah 6:8.
The ceremony began with a prelude and processional by The Concordia Band, followed by an invocation by the Revs. Dave and Kim Adams, campus pastors.
In his welcome, Concordia President Dr. Colin Irvine too reminded the graduates of their relationship with the community — that they have been “shaped by a community that believes faith and reason belong together, that seeking truth is an act of courage, and that building community and serving others are not side projects, but they are ways of living… Build communities, build lives of purpose, build relationships marked by compassion, courage, and care, and, wherever you go, remember you do not go alone. You go as people formed by God and called by God to lead lives of purpose, grace, and gratitude.”
Dr. Susan Larson, provost and dean of the college, presented the candidates for graduation, and Rachel Horan, instructor of music, and Dr. Darren Valenta, assistant professor of communication studies, read their names as they received their diplomas.
Following the conferral of degrees, the crowd sang the “Hymn to Concordia” together, and the celebration drew to a close with a benediction from the Revs. Adams and The Concordia Band’s rendition of “Sine Nomine” by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
The graduates headed to Olin Hill for the ceremonial cap toss, mirroring their freshman year beanie toss in the same location, and joining the community of Cobbers that came before them.
“Let us choose radical care in a world that desperately needs caring. Congratulations. I am incredibly proud to call you my peers,” Becker said, as she finished her address, perhaps echoing the thoughts of the Concordia community. “I cannot wait to see the ways you will step into this world and make it better, one act of radical care at a time.”
