‘We mark your belonging here’

President Alan Garber welcomes the Class of 2029 during Convocation.

Photos by Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer

Christina Pazzanese

Harvard Staff Writer

September 1, 2025 4 min read

Garber urges Class of 2029 to teach, learn from one another, reject viewing world in simple binaries

Alan Garber can still recall arriving on campus as a first-year in 1973.

The University president told the Class of 2029 in his Convocation address Monday afternoon that it quickly becomes apparent to all that Harvard is that rare place that offers almost limitless opportunities to experiment and explore whatever intellectual pursuits or interests students have.

But, he counseled the group, they must take care to avoid overlooking the one resource that may very well turn out to be the most valuable and enduring — each other.

“Each of you is here to teach as you learn,” said Garber, an economist, physician, and healthcare policy expert to the students, faculty, and others gathered at Tercentenary Theatre. “You are here to share your experience and perspective so that our community can be one in which all people are welcomed, all ideas are given due consideration, and all beliefs are treated with respect.”

Held just before classes begin each fall semester, Convocation serves as the University’s official welcome to first-years marking the start of their new lives as undergraduates. Harvard officials addressed students, offered some tried-and-true wisdom about College life, and shared some of the University’s values, history, and traditions.

Garber told the class they share two qualities: All are exceptional students, and all are “capable of making interesting and unusual decisions, not always the ones that others would make.”

That kind of openness and creativity springs from a certain mindset, he said: “You reject ‘either/or.’ You are the kind of ‘both/and’ people that this institution has nurtured, empowered, and celebrated throughout its long history.”

While the first semester of College is exciting and a bit daunting, Garber advised students to resist the urge to seek refuge in the familiar. Instead, he said, embrace feeling uncomfortable and pursue new people and experiences that are unfamiliar, “consider the difficulties and challenges you encounter to be invitations to improve and ultimately to excel.”

Recounting his own undergraduate struggles at Harvard, Garber recalled one classmate who at first seemed brash and intellectually intimidating. But after he set aside his preconceptions about the classmate and took a chance, the two soon became pals, then roommates, and today remain longtime friends.

First-year students attend Convocation.

Harvard’s alma mater “Fair Harvard” fills Tercentenary Theatre.

Garber holds the Class of 2029 banner during the traditional group photo following Convocation.

“Some of these friendships will form easily and require little to no tending. Others will demand effort to take hold. Those are the ones that will evolve in ways you cannot anticipate — that will lead to debate and argument, conflict and reconciliation, growth and change,” Garber said. “Those are the ones worth pursuing intently because they will deepen your understanding and enlarge your spirit.”

The University’s 31st president noted that many of the students “had to surmount a plethora of obstacles to be part of this class. I know some of you worried that you would not be able to make the journey here — would not be able to become part of our community. We are so glad to see you.

“Harvard would not be Harvard if it did not include inquisitive, ambitious students from across the United States and around the world,” he said to widespread applause.

Making his debut as the new Danoff Dean of Harvard College, David Deming, Ph.D. ’10, urged students to view this period of technological disruption, with the rapid growth of AI and its impact on their future job prospects, not with dread but as a huge opportunity to be bold, dream big, and blaze new trails.

An economist who studies education policy, Deming was most recently academic dean at Harvard Kennedy School and served as a faculty dean at Kirkland House before starting in his new role July 1.

Other University officials joined Garber and Deming on stage, including the Rev. Matthew I. Potts, Pusey Minister in Harvard’s Memorial Church, who delivered the invocation; Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh; Dean of Students Thomas Dunne; and Nekesa Straker, senior assistant dean of resident life and first-year students.

Student musical groups the Harvard University Band, the Kuumba Singers, and the Harvard Choruses all performed.

“Today, we mark much more than just your beginning here,” Garber said at the end of his address. “We mark your belonging here.”