President Bill Sanders’s 2026 Academic Convocation address

RIT President Bill Sanders addressed the crowd at Gordon Field House during RIT's annual Academic Convocation ceremony on May 8. The full text of his speech is below:

Good morning, Tigers!

I am honored to welcome you, class of 2026, along with your family and friends together with the faculty, staff, and trustees to this happy celebration.

I wish to offer my heartiest congratulations to our graduates on all that you have accomplished in your time at RIT. You have worked extremely hard to get to this moment. And now you will graduate! You deserve some applause!

Again, congratulations! This is my first commencement at RIT, and I cannot tell you how meaningful that is to me. While today rightly celebrates your achievements, it also marks a personal milestone in my own journey — one I am deeply honored to share with you.

Graduates, think back to the moment you first arrived on this campus. You came with ambition, curiosity, and perhaps some uncertainty about what lay ahead. Remember making the paper airplane your first week in this exact location during new student orientation?

Since then, you’ve done something remarkable. You didn’t just earn a degree — you learned how to learn, how to adapt, and how to turn ideas into action.

Here at RIT, we believe the future is not something we wait for — it’s something we create. You’ve learned in classrooms, labs, studios, and makerspaces where technology, the arts, and design come together to address real challenges and create real solutions.

You’ve been challenged to think across disciplines, to collaborate with people different from yourselves, and to apply your knowledge in ways that serve society.

I encourage you to be a lifelong learner as you start to unleash your potential. Take me, for example: I still have so much to learn about American Sign Language and Deaf Culture. Our world is getting smaller, so continue to be open to learning and growing.

As you step forward from this moment, you do so at a time of profound complexity … and opportunity. The world you’re entering needs problem solvers. It needs ethical leaders. It needs people who are curious, courageous, and committed to using their talents for the greater good.

It is our duty to educate graduates who are not only career-ready, but future-ready. You are equipped to lead in times of uncertainty, to innovate responsibly, and to strengthen the communities you will serve. Class of 2026 — this is you!

Success will take many forms in your lives. But I hope you measure it not only by positions earned or goals achieved, but by the impact you make—by how you lift others, by how you use your skills to expand opportunity, and by how you help shape a more inclusive, sustainable, and connected world.

Today, you join a global community of RIT alumni— connected for life. This university will continue to evolve and grow, guided by a bold vision for the future. And when you return — as alumni, mentors, partners, and leaders — you will see that the future of RIT is one you helped build. Wherever your path leads, know this: You will always have a home here.

On behalf of the entire RIT community, congratulations once again. I am incredibly proud of you. And I can’t wait to see what you do next.

Go Tigers!