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On Thursday, May 15, the School of Visual Arts held its 50th annual commencement exercises at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. SVA President David Rhodes conferred bachelor’s and master’s degrees on some 1,100 newly minted alumni of the College’s 30 degree programs. “You have acquitted yourself with distinction,” President Rhodes said in his address. “It would appear that your future as artists, teachers, and writers is assured.”

SVA Provost Christopher Cyphers, who acted as the director of ceremonies, set the afternoon in motion by introducing the event’s two student speakers: Schantelle Alonzo (BFA 2025 Animation) and Tao Tao Holmes (MFA 2025 Products of Design). 

In a room full of soon-to-be-graduates, Alonzo captured the day’s spirit with an observation. “Behind every story of success is a story of profound change,” Alonzo began. “We’re all here today because once upon a time we came across a piece of art that had impacted us. Now, we are in the position of creating that for someone else. This is an immense power.” 

Alonzo, a first-generation Filipina American, said she experienced art’s potential for connection through her thesis project, Winter. “Although it is a specific story that follows the immigrant community, many [people] from every background emotionally connected with the material—no matter the distance we may have moved, many of us understood the feeling of yearning for a place they left behind.” As her fellow graduates prepare to begin a new chapter and face their real-world responsibilities as artists, she reminded them to ask themselves, “What is the world we want to see? And how can we show that to the world around us?” 

When it was Holmes’s turn at the dais, she spoke about the importance of “coming alive.” She did not begin her academic journey as an artist and instead studied global affairs and English at Yale. She recalled a dean advising her, “Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people that have come alive.” 

“We came to SVA because we have ideas that need to be expressed,” Holmes continued. “Perhaps we’re all in this room because coming alive can only be achieved through unrestrained self expression. . . . Meaningful art is made by those who show up as themselves.” She told a story of a project that she and her classmates had installed on the sidewalk and then watched from afar as strangers interacted with it. “We cultivate a courage to take action, to put things in front of people and try to connect with them,” she said. “But we can’t do it alone.” In this spirit, Holmes read a poem thanking family and loved ones as well as everyone at SVA—security staff and night workers, tutors, faculty, theater techs, cleaning staff, and librarians—who makes the College a nurturing environment for artists.

President Rhodes delivered a speech that drew upon current events to highlight the importance of collaboration and cooperation. “Mutual obligations,” he said, “require that we have a clear sense of what we owe to others.” In a society bending towards hyperindividualism, Rhodes defined these obligations as basic respect, honesty, trustworthiness, and consideration. In reference to Elon Musk’s recent remark likening empathy to a technical “bug” in Western civilization, Rhodes responded that “empathy is not a ‘bug,’ it’s a feature of any society that is defined by cooperation rather than of coercion.” He closed with three suggestions: “Whenever you can, help one another. Always be kind to one another. And finally, be kind to yourselves.” 

Steven Heller, author, longtime SVA faculty member, and co-founder and co-chair emeritus of MFA Design at SVA, served as the event’s keynote speaker and recipient of this year’s honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from SVA. In his remarks, Heller reflected on memorable speakers from past SVA commencements that he had attended as MFA Design co-chair—civil-rights legend and Congressman John Lewis, writer and activist Gloria Steinem, and cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer—all of whom spoke of the power of art to challenge, disrupt, and build support for a better world. He spoke of the example set by former SVA faculty member Art Spiegelman, whose genre-launching graphic-novel Holocaust memoir, Maus—“currently, and ironically, banned” by certain school boards—found an early champion in fellow faculty member Louise Fili, Heller’s wife. 

“Politics inevitably impacts the purpose and meaning of art,” he later noted. “We are entering a new world dis-order, where ideologues and ideocrats are poised to thwart your most progressive efforts or co-opt them for their own self-serving goals. The culture war is, regrettably, in full swing. The movement to erase so-called ‘wokeness’ has reduced our capacity to think clearly and to teach honestly. Artists are in high-anxiety mode.”

“Sometimes, stressful times fuel great work, but it just as often snuffs it out. . . . A climate of cultural risk aversion will create a cultural wasteland, so don’t be averse to risk.” 

Heller closed with a story about running into the musician Graham Nash, of Crosby, Stills & Nash, at a recent doctor’s appointment. “I worked up the nerve to enter his personal space and said ‘I love your music,’” he recalled. “He lifted his head, smiled, focused his eyes on mine and softly replied, ‘I do my best.’ Not, ‘I try to do my best,’ but ‘I do my best.’

“Whatever your circumstances,” Heller concluded, “whatever media or technology you are using, if you are the least bit anxious about what comes next in your life or in your work, you’ll do fine if you believe, ‘I do my best.’”

To watch the full 2025 SVA Commencement, visit our Commencement YouTube channel. For more information about the exercises, how graduates can get their diplomas, and other graduation-related topics, visit sva.edu/commencement.

Congratulations to the SVA Class of 2025!