Governor Ned Lamont to Deliver 199th Commencement Address at Trinity College

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont will be the Commencement speaker at Trinity College on Sunday, May 18. Lamont will address graduates in the Class of 2025 during Trinity’s 199th Commencement ceremony, which begins at 11:00 a.m. on the Main Quad.

Among those receiving honorary degrees are Shabana Basij-Rasikh, School of Leadership Afghanistan co-founder and president, and renowned cancer researcher Joseph M. Connors ’69.

This Commencement marks President Joanne Berger-Sweeney’s last at Trinity after leading the College for 11 years. “It is an honor that Governor Lamont will deliver Trinity College’s 2025 Commencement address,” said Berger-Sweeney. “The governor is a distinguished leader whose exemplary service to the State of Connecticut and support of education has made a difference. I know his wisdom and words will inspire our graduates and the next generation of leaders.”

Governor Ned Lamont

Lamont was sworn into office as the 89th governor of Connecticut on January 9, 2019. He began his second term on January 4, 2023. He earned a B.A. in sociology from Harvard College in 1976 and an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management in 1980. Lamont became involved in public service shortly after college, founding a weekly newspaper in a town hit by the loss of its largest employer.

Later, as a member of both the Greenwich Board of Selectmen and the Board of Estimate and Taxation, Lamont worked in a bipartisan effort to safeguard a multimillion-dollar budget and deliver results for constituents. Lamont also served as chair of the state’s Investment Advisory Council, overseeing a multibillion-dollar state pension fund. He previously served as an adjunct professor of political science and philosophy at Central Connecticut State University, where he helped to found a popular business start-up competition.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh

Basij-Rasikh is recognized for her work with the School of Leadership Afghanistan, or SOLA, which she co-founded and leads as president. SOLA is the world’s first and only Afghan-led boarding school for Afghan girls.

She drew inspiration from the words of her parents, which she shared during a recent 60 Minutes interview: “You could be forced to leave your home. You could be forced to become a refugee. You could lose any material possession that you have, but the one thing that cannot be taken away from you is your education.”

In 2021, the Taliban’s return to rule in Afghanistan forced SOLA to move from Kabul to the nation of Rwanda, where the school welcomes new students from the Afghan diaspora each year.

Joseph M. Connors ’69

Connors is recognized for dedicating his professional life to healing. He has focused his clinical and research efforts in the area of lymphoid cancers and on the application of genomic analysis to understanding and optimizing treatment for these diseases.

Now clinical professor emeritus in the Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology, at the University of British Columbia and past clinical director of the BC Cancer Centre for Lymphoid Cancer, Connors is best known for his clinical investigations into the biology and treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemias, and myeloma. He has published more than 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles and dozens of book chapters, and has lectured around the world.

At Trinity, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors with a B.S. in biology. He went on to earn an M.D., cum laude, from Yale University and completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He went to Stanford University for a clinical fellowship in medical oncology, then to British Columbia, Canada, where he embarked on a 38-year career targeted at treating and curing cancer.

Commencement at Trinity

Commencement is the central and most important event of the Trinity academic year. The members of the faculty gather together with the families and friends of the graduating class to celebrate their achievements in a ceremony that has endured for nearly 200 years.

During the procession before the ceremony, the tradition of graduates stepping on The Luther-Roosevelt Long Walk inscription in front of the Fuller Arch in Northam Towers for the first time on Commencement day continues. The inscription commemorates the visit in June 1918 of former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, who delivered an address and received an honorary degree at Commencement.

The ceremony is followed by a post-Commencement celebration on the Jacobs Life Sciences Center Quad.

Learn more about Commencement weekend, including the full schedule of events, here.