This year’s Commencement Magazine marks the end of our class’ collective journey through Brown, and more broadly, a world irrevocably transformed.
The class of 2022 was here when the pandemic first shuttered campus, sending us across the globe to Zoom into classes and happy hours from childhood bedrooms and remote locations at disparate hours of the day and night. We had experienced just enough of Brown at the time to define it in our minds in pre-pandemic terms, but we would never get the same experience back. It’s a small loss, relative to others the pandemic and other ongoing crises have wrought, yet an acute one nonetheless.
It’s also a sense of loss that we faced united as a class and as a campus, and one that we’ve begun to come out of this year as we recapture old traditions and forge new ones, as we share moments big and small together again in person. And while each year The Herald’s Commencement Magazine collects the memories of the graduating class, this year’s issue seeks to capture in particular stories and reflections on change and renewal, a persisting determination to better a complex world and profound growth and community in spite of the upheaval that has distinguished our college years.
Through all of this, we at The Herald are grateful for our ability to uphold the traditions of this organization while molding the paper’s future. We’re grateful that we could come together this year and make a home of our new office at 88 Benevolent, and we’re grateful for late nights spent in the newsroom in person again. Thank you to our staff, who have given innumerable hours and exhibited grace and devotion to each other and the news. Thank you to the seniors who shared their reflections for this magazine in columns and news stories alike. Thank you to Herald alums and mentors who have guided and supported us through this tumultuous time. And thank you to our readers, who have stuck with us and given us feedback to help us improve every day.
Our time at Brown has been marked by crisis and change. But the past few years have also put on display our continued community, compassion and hope for a more just and equitable world. This year’s magazine, though inevitably infused with a sense of strife, pays tribute to that community and growth through change. We hope that the memories and reflections in these pages resonate with you as they have with us.
—This editors’ note was written by The Herald’s 131st editorial board: Kayla Guo ’22.5, Henry Dawson ’22.5, Li Goldstein ’22, Emilija Sagaityte ’22, Kate Ok ’22, Emily Teng ’22 and Kamran King ’22
